Honestly I LOVE being able to have Ctrl and Cmd be different modifiers.

Ctrl-C is break, Cmd-C is copy. And so on. All the Unixy stuff respects Ctrl and ignores Cmd and vice versa for the Mac stuff. Honestly it’s the best keyboard setup I have experienced and the only one which never manages to irritate me.

(Personally I am fine without a dedicated copy/paste key; the only ones I like having dedicated keys for are things like volume up/down for which I’m not aware of a universally understood key combination for)

Personally since I use touch typing being able to hit ctrl-c,v without looking works best for me. Anything else would require me to shift my hands too far away from the “home row” and slow me down.

With 35 years of computer experience I can say that anything except Ctrl+Insert/Shift+Insert is worse.

By that I mean, we all need to adjust our brain to be fluent on which ever ecosystem we are currently logged on to, and become native users of key combos on all we use. I have used MacOS daily since 2004, and linux, Windows and DOS all longer than that. It takes practice, a lot of practice, but in the end I don’t even realize I sometimes use Ctrl+c, other times Cmd+c, and yet again Ctrl+Shift+c. It all comes naturally, by some miracle my brain knows which one to use. Granted, the DOS one I use so rarely these days I need a double take on the Ctrl+Insert. Last time was still around 6 hours ago today.

I guess what I’m saying is keep doing it, you’ll get there.

You can just move the modifier keys around. I have Caps Lock as Ctrl and Ctrl as CMD.

I 100% agree with what you are saying. Not to be contrary, but just because it amuses me, I use page up/down and home/end all the time. You're still right.

No and yes. If the copy and paste buttons would be at the position of page-up/down, I think many people would still use Ctrl+C because it is quickerto reach.

If the keys would be at easily reachable positions, then sure.

I'm laughing way too hard at this thank you

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I configured it using ZMK, it's a firmware for wireless keyboards. The keyboard is "wireless", I'm just using USB cables for power while I'm waiting for the batteries to arrive. The keyboard you saw might be the Ferris Sweep, which mine is based on. Well, based on is probably the wrong word, I copied the layout, rotated the pinkies a bit and did the PCB myself using Ergogen and Kicad.

This is my default layer:

I use the Colemak mod DH matrix layout. Colemak is a common alternative key layout, mod DH is a certain modified version of it, and matrix means that the keys aren't row staggered. You can also see that some keys have some more stuff on them, those are homerow mods (red) and dual function layer keys (blue). Homerow mods is the name for a common practice on small keyboards where you place modifier keys in the homerow along with the normal keys. Holding them turns them into the modifier and pressing them is just the normal key.

Holding A or O is like holding CTRL R or I is ALT S or E is Shift T or N is the Windows key The keyboard is split so they're mirrored on the two sides (also useful for when you want to do CTRL+A for example)

The layer shifts function similarly, pressing them results in the normal key (tab, space, enter) and holding them shifts me to a different layer (layer 7, layer 1 (its 0 indexed), and layer 2). Layer 7 has function keys, layer 1 is for navigation and layer 2 has my symbols.

layer 1: (here you can see that I technically have a "numpad", just that it's always directly under my hand instead of off to the side

layer 2:

layer 7:

I have 11 layers in total, but the other 7 are just special layers for games. I use this keyboard for everything, including programming and gaming without any issues.

edit: not sure why people downvoted you, it's an awesome question and I'm glad you gave me an excuse to spam you all with info about my keyboard. Also, Ben Vallack got me into all of this, he kinda inspired this layout. He has some AWESOME videos about keyboards like this, look him up if you're interested! You don't have to go as far as I did.

Mechanical keyboards like this are often fully programmable. I have a ZSA Moonlander and routinely modify the function of each and every key. Everyone’s workflow is a little different, for example I have a Del Word key which deletes entire words, but is really a macro of the OS key + Backspace.

You're missing the point, in Linux middle mouse button works for the navigation that you're mentioning, and additionally it pastes the text you have selected (not the one you have copied, so realistically you can "copy/paste" two things at once). So you don't lose anything, you just gain functionality.