Well, I think I understand people who use it. I very rarely use the numpad, it is too far off for me, and wide keyboards are in the way of the mouse. I sometimes contemplate 3 seconds the green num-lock light when booting :-) Just like one contemplates the little hole in the inner pane of an airplane's window :-)

Thing is, when I type in numbers I usually have to double check them anyway (bank account numbers, constants when coding) and it is shorter for the eye up from the number keys. Or I use cut & paste, or a proper one-time calculation (constants, etc.). Anything else in programming are usually 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, M_PI, UINT32_MAX or the fancy std::numeric_limits<uint32_t>::max() (attempt to ridicule some of C++ 😎 ) or predefined constants.

Hell no to short keyboards. 🙂
Sometimes I'll be here with (from left to right):

  • Space Pilot Pro
  • Virpil Throttle
  • Wooting Lekker full length keyboard
  • Virpil Joystick
  • Logitech G604 mouse
    But right now the Virpils are off the desk (I'm not in a sim mood)

If I'm playing a game like Witcher 3 then I'll have my Logitech G13 on the left of my keyboard. Thumbstick for walking.

While I love my Wooting Lekker, I do at times miss my extra wide Corsair K95 keyboard. 18 macro keys on the left were great in WOW (I had a customised UI that matched them). The volume roller was cool. Shame the backlights were crap, every couple of weeks a key backlight would burn out, by the time I replaced it, half the keys at random had no backlight. It was a common problem with that model.

    Kojack Gaming spawns the weirdest peripherals.
    The weirdest I have is old keyboards I buy at flea markets and whatever. I like the way they feel. The function keys on this Dell KB212-B are my favorite. So many keyboards design the function keys like they're an afterthought. My desk has a bezel that acts like the ergonomic ramp thingy at the bottom of your Corsair.

        This my keyboard, but I had to get rid of the figures cause of my cat.

        As I took this photo I just noticed the word "scan" on the printer. I have two scanners. Fantastic because the dedicated scanner just busted as I was comparing the quality, which I did as I was writing this. That's a lot of space I just got, and I now have a place to put paper.
        The tweezers are for getting cat fur out of the keys when my cat breaks down my door and beelines for the desk. She does it every time.
        Or she does this when I'm moving stuff around. The mess was temporary.

        (I just noticed there's a pikachu mug under my desk. I really have no clue why or how it's there. Still moving a ton of stuff around.)

        packrat
        Oh there's some odd ones alright. 🙂
        I've got a Novint Falcon haptic controller. I used to leave it sitting on top of my PC in my staffroom, it was fun watching other staff do double takes when they saw it.

        Has anyone ever used a Logitech Nulooq? I wanted one, but they abandoned it, so I don't know if it's usable at all. I'm sure I could get it working with HID access, but I don't like risking purchases with no official software support.

        The grey ring around it is a 3DOF device (X, Y, Yaw) like a 3D Connexion (who Logitech own). The top is 5 buttons plus an ipod style wheel.
        It would make a cool jog/shuttle controller.

        Another one I've got here: Razer Hydra.
        This had a great redemption arc. When it came out it was pretty pointless. The only game that really supported it properly was Portal 2 (which had a custom campaign just for it with new game features).
        But later someone thought "What if we stick one controller in the Oculus DK1 headband? We'll have 6DOF VR tracking!"
        Suddenly they became rare, everybody wanted one, but they were discontinued. Worked pretty well.

          I had the original white Novint Falcon. Worked pretty nice on Half-Life 2. Then they released the black Glock attachment, and I wanted it so bad, but it was made illegal in New York City. I even tried to buy one sneakily on eBay and the seller noticed at the last minute and cancelled the shipment. Still pretty upset about that.

            cybereality
            I got the white one with gun and knob controllers bundle. No problem getting it in Australia, looks more like a scifi prop. 🙂

            It was awesome in HalfLife 2. But the Frictional Games ports of Penumbra Overture and Black Plague were the real showcases. Not only could you feel the weight of objects in the world, you could actually feel the bump maps of the textures, like the direction of wood grain on a table!

            Sadly not much use outside of those games.

              Apparently when my mom worked in the IRS they called the num pad the 9-key. Or 10 key. Doesn't that sound cool? Actually I can barely remember what she says at any time.

                Erich_L
                I'd believe it, modern keyboards without a numpad are called TKLs: Tenkeyless. 🙂

                Then there's 65% keyboards, which is Cyber's one. Then 60%, which don't even have the arrow keys.

                  cybereality Could get one of those standalone numpads then. Maybe the best of both worlds so-to-speak.

                    You know a forum has gone to next level bonding when pictures of our temples to isolation go up XD.

                      The numbers for blender on the top of the keyboard are different from the numpad. You can shift from vertex, edge, and face with the 1,2,3 at the top of the keyboard. You change view ports with the numpad. For some games I program the numpad keys because I'm left handed and need my mouse in that hand. The only controller I have is a Logitech controller that looks like a Microsoft game controller. I don't play that many action games.

                        A place of seclusion (figuring out an algorithm), of devotion (hack it in), of despair (debugging), of prayer (searching the internet if someone else has found a solution) 😎

                        fire7side Blender is absolutely the main reason I love tenkeys. The other is the end and home keys are pretty cool where they are on it. I do a metric ton of typing and I grew up with those keys there, so my pinky instinctively goes there rather than the mouse. The mouse isn't even an option in a lot of terminal emulators.
                        Tenkeys is a cooler name than numpad

                            Megalomaniak uh yeah sure if that makes us friends. if not, maybe we can all bond over how pesky my cat-at is when it gets on my keyboard. <3

                                Erich_L uh yeah sure if that makes us friends.

                                No, I can appreciate the FoS reference, but I was never into superman. The he-man meme song tho, yeah that does. 👍️

                                    Megalomaniak How old is that now? The last time I saw it, my church youth pastor showed it to me and a bunch of other kids in 2014.
                                    I can't remember the first time I saw it. A lot like rain and sunshine, it's always been there without a real beginning.

                                        packrat The shortcut for Blender that bothers me the most is the one that kind of segments your object. Forget what you call it, but the shortcut is control_r. I do that a lot, it seems like anyone would, but it's an awkward shortcut. Most of the others are fine but they must have run out for that one.