I really liked my Keebio FoldKB, which I wrote about here, although for me the main attraction was its similarity to a standard keyboard, which sounds like it isn’t a consideration for you. I currently have a Moonlander, and the last time I was going on a trip, I packed it up but said “f*ck it” because it was just too cumbersome, and just relied on my laptop’s keyboard. I’ve taken my FoldKB on trips before, though, and it was much easier to take along. I think I will continue to use it on trips.

Yeah, the one type of keyboard I haven’t tried yet is a dactyl-style curved one. The Glove80 has definitely caught my attention.

I’m on a journey to find the “one true keyboard” for me, as you can read about in parts 1 and 2 of my story I’ve linked above. One think that I really want is to be able to switch back to a normal keyboard when needed without difficulty. This means not only sticking with QWERTY, but having modifier keys in the usual places, to be mainly operated by my pinkie and ring fingers.

If the Ergodox is like the Moonlander (my current ride) in terms of column stagger, yeah, it’s about half of what it should be (for me anyway). IMHO the top of the “A” key should almost line up with the bottom of the “D” key (speaking QWERTY here).

From the pictures I’ve seen the stagger looks right on the Dygma Defy; but they use Kaleidoscope, the same firmware as the Model 100, and I want to keep the geeky stuff I’ve done in QMK, which I found hard to port.

I’m planning to sell it “one of these days” … If you want it (with my 3d printed stand included), we’d just have to agree on a fair price. It is too tall to be comfortable with that stand, though – unless maybe you’re on a standing desk you can have a bit lower to compensate.

There is a site called Keebswap which aims to be a used mechanical keyboard market to replace the subreddit r/mechmarket on Reddit (a formerly popular topic-based discussion platform that … probably still exists but I’m not sure). Note, I haven’t used either of these; I just know they exist.

If you’re typing in alt codes, it sounds like you would definitely benefit from a keyboard where you could program those to keys, whether or not it was ergonomic. I wrote about customizing qmk with programming to meet my needs, but I’m a programmer-- there are also GUI configuration tools that might suit you better. Most (all?) qmk keyboards can be configured with a GUI tool called VIA.

The Model 100 is my next installment. Spoiler alert: I didn’t like it.

The biggest problem with getting the second part out is that I’ll have to clean my desk to get a good picture of the keyboard. Ugh.

My mapping is encoder: scroll wheel ctrl+encoder: horizontal scroll layer shift+encoder: switch desktops

This is similar to a “Minecraft layer” I added to my last split ergo keyboard. I got all the keys I needed on to the left half. I did it by making a second row of numbers across the top and moving the other rows down. Seeing the number pad on the right here makes me wonder if I should try that design instead.