What was your beginner keyboard and which keyboard are you using now? It seems, that a lot of people tend to prefer smaller keyboards with layers. I myself am a bit intimidated by them, and would much prefer a somewhat more traditional number of keys, like the Lili58 or the Sofel has (as for now, I think I will get a Lili58).
Do you “regret” buying your first keyboard and would have preferred to start directly with your current keyboard (e.g. for saving money), or do you think that your beginner keyboard was necessary/important for you, to get into Spit-Ortho keyboards?
This turned out longer than expected. TL;DR: no regrets using a Lily58, but moving on to fewer keys turned out really well for me.
My first ergo board was a Viterbi from Keeb.io, a 5x14 split ortholinear. At the time, I really thought I needed to have all the symbol, number, and navigation keys on the base layer because I use them all the time for work. This board taught me that having more things for my thumbs to do was a game-changer. That eliminated the need for some of the keys on the outer edges of the board, and I started seeing the appeal of layers.
So I down-sized to a Lily58, and it was great! I used that board for a while, and I spent a lot of time working out a keymap that I liked. Since I was using this full-time, I decided I needed a second one to use for work-travel, so I built a low-profile Lily58 with choc switches. (I tried an Iris during this time too, but the height was too much for me). I really liked both of these Lily58 boards, but I was struggling to develop a keymap that really worked well for me.
When reading about others’ keymaps, I kept seeing Miryoku pop up, so I decided to buy a new board to try it out (I didn’t want to alter the Lily58s that I was depending on for daily use). I picked up a Crow Board for like $30 and put Miryoku on it.
It. Was. Amazing.
The Miryoku keymap just really clicked for me; it had every key I could possibly need in a set of layers that felt logical. It was also my introduction to home row mods which I was always afraid to try on my Lily58s because it seemed error-prone, but it was actually a great feature. There was a bit of adjustment period for this keymap, but I was completely sold on it. Now I had two new problems: the Lily58s had too many keys, and the thumb layout was uncomfortable because the expectation with Miryoku is that each thumb should rest on the center key of a set of three keys.
That launched a build spree of boards that had ~36 keys in trying to find something I really liked: Swweeep (choc-spacing and wireless!), Totem (let’s try some splay), Badwings (monoblock split with a trackpad), Kurp (ortholinears are still cool), Piantor (a little more thumb-keys spacing), Corne LP (odd-ball low profile switches with MX stems), and Waterfowl ('cause I missed MX switches and keycaps).
These days, I’m mostly using the Waterfowl on my desktop computer for remote work and Badwings as my go anywhere, do anything board for everything else. Do I regret buying and building all those other boards? Not one bit. I learned something from every one of them, and I also found that I just really enjoy building keyboards. It’s really satisfying to solder a bunch of parts together, print a case, and make something that’s truly my own that I can use everyday. I still have more builds lined up to try different layout and feature variations too.