My MacBooks always become like this.

M-x buy-new-mac

My Spacebar is very polished on the left side. For some reason I always hit it with the left thumb. My right thumb just sits there and does nothing.

Mine as well.

Same. And because I have a split keyboard I use the right side spacebar as Esc when tapped, Control when held.

X is obvious, but caps lock? It have some special remapping on Mac?

I presume OP bound ctrl there to prevent the "emacs pinkie". Next step would be to use evil-mode, ergoemacs or (my favorite) xah-fly-keys.

well evil-mode has esc, so the laptop would still wear down similarly if OP remapped it

I'm planning to try xah-fly-keys. What's your experience with it?

Sensible, quick to learn, impossible to abandon.

yes yes yes some time ago i tried both evil and meow and found them awful, probably if you build the muscol memory they feel good, but with xah fly keys the bindings just make sense, muscol memory helps, but while building it you don't have problems using it finding the right bindings. i rebound some functions like the search to the search tool i use (consul-line in my case), but was great out of the box. Xah fly keys is incredible to be honest

Evil mode is great for Vim users (and its mostly why I was able to switch to emacs)

Please, bind ctrl to Command and not Caps Lock, and take some time to get used to using your thumbs. It really pains me to see people over using their pinky, the weakest finger, with no help from the other hand, and a sideways stretch too... Do an experiment, lay your hand out flat and stretch your pinky to the side repeatedly. How comfortable is that? We can eradicate RSI fears with some knowledge, and willingness to do things better. Funny post though.

I might need to try this again. I thought on a Mac, Caps lock would "lock" no matter how you set preferences. Am I daft?

Emacs-book

Quality hardware provided by Apple ...

If you take your mac to an Apple store they can replace the keys for you. Voice of experience talking.

I use karabiner to map my caps to esc if pressed alone and ctrl if pressed together with another key. Caps went from my least to my most used key.

That's an expensive command. If you M-x buy-a-framework then you'd be able to M-x buy-new-keyboard when this happens. [Only costs $50 instead of $1500](https://frame.work/marketplace/keyboards).

20 YOE SWE here. I'd stop now. I'm in the process of trying to undo a decade of shitty muscle memory from being on that keyboard. Get a small good external keyboard that will be kind to your fingers; Do you ever really need to type *on* the plane?

why not both ? ctrl when held, escape on tap !

I remap caps lock to meta on most of my machines. It is how it is on my Mac, but I also do it on my windows machine at work and my linux box at home. Its a key that is rarely needed, and in not too bad of a location. Its not even an emacs specific thing, but it is emacs that got me started on doing this.

My caps lock is mapped to escape. I am guessing that's the case here and it's not that OP writes a lot of SQL or GW-BASIC.

I'm quite sure this hasn't been the case on any Mac I've used in the last 15 years. First thing I do on any new mac is open up system preferences and remap caps to ctrl.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-the-behavior-of-the-modifier-keys-mchlp1011/mac

How far away do you think the caps lock key is from the “a” key??? Honestly, if I lay my hand flat and comfortably, my pinky more naturally lands on caps lock anyway.. On the other hand, trying to twist my thumb under my palm to hit meta or command is immensely uncomfortable, and more often than not I end up just taking my entire hand off homerow to hit command/meta anyway.

Yeah? If they’ve been hitting those keys enough and for long enough to wear off the finish and they still work (along with the rest of the laptop) I’d say that’s pretty damn good QA.

MAN!!! You are right in that it works now. I started with emacs in 1985 and back then, all the keyboards had control roughly where the caps lock is now. And then ISO happened and I started work in IBM in 1988 and those keyboards were F*$@!!! like the keyboards we have today. I tried and tried and tried on the equipment at the time to restore the sanity but never could. So I gave up. I thought I had tried it with Macs but maybe I had a mechanical keyboard or maybe I've been eating too many quaaludes. I wonder if I can retrain myself after 34 years. For the time being, I'll have both as control. Thank you!

> I thought on a Mac, Caps lock would "lock" no matter how you set preferences. Am I daft? The built-in remapping has worked as it should since I got my first mac in ~~dickety-five~~ 2006: it only "locks" when configured for capslock. It's possible that Classic worked differently, but I would assume OSX (and NextSTEP) always worked that way.

Heavy Emacs user here ... my 2018 MacBook Pro has Control key so rubbed out, you can see through it. The E, K, and N keys are also pretty bad, and Command is starting to rub out. For whatever reason, Caps Lock (mapped to Option, which is Emacs Meta-) is OK. But my (butterfly) keyboard became so afflicted with the repeat problem so bad that it became unusable after just a couple of months. I have to carry a USB keyboard with me everywhere now, so all the wear happened in just a couple of months of use. I would be shocked with quality this low from an obscure, also-ran PC brand. Sadly, this is what Apple has degenerated into under Tim Cook in only a few years of terrible "leadership". Apple was once known for great design and high quality. This image is the modern, Tim Cook, Apple, a third rate, technologically weak, has-been company.

You're still stretching your pinky side to side and pressing down with it all the time. Your thumb shouldn't be an issue at all if you're on an Apple laptop or keyboard, it is by FAR the strongest finger and should be used as such. Fascinating how people do mental gymnastics to justify bad habits. Anything to avoid admitting that they're wrong or could be doing something better.

More vintage than modern. Apple was already once known as a third-rate, technologically weak has-been company for most of the 90's. These things have a tendency to ebb and flow.

It's in the standard keyboard preferences panel, the "modifier keys..." button. (The setting is per keyboard, so you'll also have to set it for your external keyboard, if you have one.) I've been doing this ever since I've started using Macs (and on Linux before that) because I cut my teeth on sparcstations with "programmer keyboards".

That’s what I’m saying though. With my hands I don’t have to stretch my pinky. It naturally rests on caps lock. But I _do_ have to stretch my thumb and contort my wrist for meta/command.

yeah, i was not trying to demonize evil, for previous vim users evil is the top choices, they already have the muscol memory and they don't need the stage of learning it, which is the phase i bad most problem in, and learning a new mode AND forget vim is not worth more often than not. Anyway to clarify: that was my personal experience, i hate editor wars and mode wars etc (console wars also lol).

Have you tried meow i have personally really enjoyed meow and xah-fly-keys seems interesting

I really need this

I have a Mistel MD770. But there are a lot of options (Kinesis Freestyle, Iris, Dygma Raise, Moonlander, Ergodox). This one is more or less the same as a regular keyboard, but split in two, and has Function keys. For my laptop (Linux) I use KMonad. [Config file](https://github.com/sebasmonia/dotfiles/blob/master/.config/kmonad/config.kbd) For work laptop (macOS), Karabiner. [Config file](https://github.com/sebasmonia/dotfiles/blob/master/.config/karabiner/assets/complex_modifications/MD770ModifiersOnTapHold.json) You can remap things in the board itself, too. I have Control-on-right-spacebar directly in the board. The rest via the software mentioned above. Happy hacking :) Oh and checkout the /r/MechanicalKeyboards and /r/ErgoMechKeyboards subreddits for more models etc.

I didn't expect so many comments on this post. Thank all you guys! NOTE: This is NOT an Apple-bashing post. I like Apple products and MacBooks are always high up on my Things-to-Buy list. As someone pointed out, yes, I swapped Ctrl and Caps Lock keys to prevent emacs pinky :) I am considering to try another key binding, thanks for the advices, guys!

My left Ctrl key used to be labelled "Ctrl", but it's been blank for years now. I obviously press on it exactly where the label once was.

Idk if I just don't use my laptop as much as I think I do, but I have never had this happen to a single laptop ever

If one actually cared about RSI they'd avoid using laptop keyboards entirely.

The [keyboard.io](https://shop.keyboard.io/) Model 01 split keyboard only has one space key, by default on the right. I swapped the space and backspace caps and remap them in the firmware.

Heh, that's a separate subject and a bit of a rabbithole. Short answer, no, you dont need to lug around a separate keyboard with you in order to avoid RSI. Not even an expensive, "ergonomic" monstrosity, which in some cases are actually worse. But man is endlessly deluded in his "epic wisdom" which says the fancy, expensive keyboards are better. Go figure.

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I think C should be more polished compared to X? Every mode specific (major or minor) keybindings are prefixed with C-c, and C-x is only prefix of global eMacs default keymaps.

Maybe it's because of M-x?

> Short answer, no, you dont need to lug around a separate keyboard with you in order to avoid RSI. Indeed. Alternative options include regular exercises strengthening the wrist and forearm, taking breaks from typing every 20 minutes, and avoiding using computers entirely. > Not even an expensive, "ergonomic" monstrosity, which in some cases are actually worse. But man is endlessly deluded in his "epic wisdom" which says the fancy, expensive keyboards are better. Go figure. Ah yes the old "haha your username is dumb" argument. Good to see kids getting into Emacs. A Microsoft ergo keyboard is $40. You can get a used / open box one in like-new condition for half that. If you can buy a MacBook, you can buy a $20 keyboard. If you hate M$ but you're an Emacs user that loves yak shaving for 1% time savings, here's some tool refinement that'll do more for RSI than even the most convoluted key mapping: you can build your own keyboard for under $100 if you're smart about it, including 3D printing whatever shape you feel like. But hey, if your wrists can handle all the pronation / radial & ulnar deviation, more power to you.

Gotta love my 3000 euro elisp machine.

Yeah pretty insane my XPS died before it got that much wear on the keys