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I have a pair of Datahands, and they rock. They took about a weekend or so to get used to (the layout is QWERTY-ish, which helps), using gtypist (which I highly recommend as well).

Are they expensive? Yes. But if this is what you do with your life, they're worth the investment, IMO. These aren't your typical stock, mass-produced keyboards, either... they look hand-built, and they're pretty easy to take apart and completely clean out. The keys are optically-driven, so you can't gunk up switches or the like (although you can get the keys sticky, they're fairly easy to clean if you're not afraid to take things apart).

There are things you can do which keep your performance on track. Lots of houseplants is great. Increased oxygen supply is fantastic. Engineer your lifestyle to best integrate your entire life, eliminating the artificial polarization of work and non-work. Excercise is good, either outside or inside (ie a stationary bike during the winters). Look after your body, especially the rough bits that have to interact with the computer. Optimize your interactions with the box and eliminate potential problems for years to come. A good keyboard, chair, multi monitor setup and good audio help out. Rituals should come naturally. If dissatisfied, change slightly and approach your goal. Expecting to hit it right on the first time is counter productive (even counter biological). Don't forget to breathe. Eat well. Suppliment with good array of vitamins+minerals. Drink lots of water. Take time off liberally (your doing so much more with your time). Get yourself a zaurus or a laptop and go to a park for reading.

I'm thankful daily that I'm not in the dry, torturous, stupid communinal blather-pots others call places of work.

Andy

Foo on you clicky keyboard people - the feedback helps to blow out your fingers. Get a DataHand key"board" and your hands will forgive you for the years of abuse you've heaped on them. I own two and will give them up when you pry them from my cold dead hands.... Currently they're PS/2 USB via a cheapo converter from Fr*'s.

There's prior art for the thumb having a wheel given some trackballs.

I wonder if I should write up a patent...

• 2x Athlon MP 2k+ (on Tyan Tiger MB)
• GeForce 2 with tv out (and 2 other vid cards)
• ATI TV Wonder
• ZapWay IR Receiver
• Sony el-cheapo multi function universal remote control
• Herman Miller Aeron
• Datahand chair mounted split keyboard
• SBLive 5.1
• MSB-Tech Link II DAC
• Good home stereo powering a set of Magnepan MGIIa's (quasi-planar speaker)
• and soon: a SXGA LCD Projector (NEC MT1030+)

• gentoo GNU/Linux
• ALSA audio drivers
• lirc
• mplayer
• xmms
• mldonkey, video store, cable for media acquisition

I hope to eventually suspend a THX acoustically transparant screen across the magnaplanars and use a LCD projector for a 6' x 5' HD image.

Overall the experience has been quite good, tho having it all setup on a workstation requires much maintenance to keep all the apps communicating... a dedicated shuttle box to feed the projector/DAC would be a little nicer, tho I'd still want a central media server. Wireless is not needed here, as the few cables (spdif/video/etc) pose only a problem to the vacuum cleaner. Of course, the setup costs as much as a nice used car (which I don't own) and I find myself dreaming of 6'x5' trees rendered in imax style 3d (cow's can fly in caves, but require awkward polarized glass or expensive eye surgery for 3d flight experience).

Andy
http://benow.ca

Google leads to all kinds of knowledge. Perhaps if you had known about it beforehand, you would have saved yourself some time.

Handkey Corporation
Datahand Ego Keyboard (These are incredible. Used them before.)
Matias Corporation (If you can run it, try their demo -- I found I could get used to this layout in less than 30 minutes)

There's a start. Remember Google.

I ended up buying a DataHand keyboard...er...key-thing. Minimal movement of all of my fingers in all directions, I didn't have to learn much of the new layout as it's 85% QWERTY and I can definitely type faster and more accurately than before. I was a very good touch-typist before everything went cattywampus, probably due to the very attractive typing teacher I had to look at when I learned.

I ended up liking the one I had at work so much, I bought another for use at home. Flat keyboards are a pain.

The point of the proximity sensing, zero-force capability is that you don't HAVE to tap hard on the surface. You just let gravity drop your fingers on the surface. Imagine drumming your fingers on a tabletop VERY LIGHTLY, so they barely touch. That's all it takes.

Maybe. I used the DataHand and the Kinesis, and both claimed all kind of benefits due to lower force requirements, but the actual movements they required were more difficult to make.

It's difficult to just hold one's fingers without motion.. having to make very delicate motions, or having to hold one's fingers above the sensitive zone rather than resting on keys, would both require significant effort.

rgr that, but i still have major RSI problems. i have that kbd, but i think that an adjustable sightly-angled keyboard would be better... im probably going to have to drop $1k on a Data Hand keyboard. =(

My buddy has one of those fancy-shmacy data hand keyboards w/ the DVORAK mapping. He types something like 120-150 wpm! He was a fellow sufferer of RSI but seems to be doing better. As for me, I shouldn't be typing this much... *owh* the M$FT elite kbd seems to not be doing the trick. Maybe the M$FT keyboard requires more force to press keys, causing more injury? Or do clicky kybds cause more injury due to the acceleration of the "click" action? Whatever, ill just have to get a speech recognizer and injure my vocal cords.

I've played with various keyboards, both ergonomic and non-ergonomic. Your ordinary Microsoft Natural Keyboard doesn't seem to do much for me, but I'm typing on a Kinesis Maxim (someone else already linked the site), and at school (yes, I'm a college student) I'm stuck with non-ergonomic keyboards and more often than not, the worst mice I've ever touched (the Apple hockey pucks). It is not a coincidence that when I try to do things at school my wrists sometimes pain me.

Then again, I don't really blame them for keeping the puckmice... the nifty Apple optical mice get stolen constantly. Sigh. Wish someone would take the puckmice instead so I could have something useful to work with.

One keyboard I haven't seen mentioned that deserves such is a Datahand keyboard, possibly the strangest looking keyboard I've ever seen. My boyfriend used to type on one before his ligamentitis prevented him from typing at all, and he did say it reduced pain. It let him keep his job an additional couple months until he was laid off (due to unrelated causes).

As for all of you whining about RSI being nonexistant... I must disagree. See the paragraph up there about my boyfriend? His wrists are in such bad shape that he can't type AT ALL or do anything that involves his hands for extended periods of time without pain. This includes driving, lifting, pushing buttons on a cash register, writing... the list goes on. He's currently going back to college, where he's actually needing other people to help him write, take notes, and if he weren't living with someone willing to help him by typing up papers and essentially be his secretary, I don't know where he'd be. It's bad enough not being able to use your hands, but to be insulted by claiming that since "I don't feel the pain, it must not exist," is ludicrous. Are there people using carpal tunnel as a gold mine? I'm sure there are, and they deserve to be ignored, but honestly, when it gets to the point where you'd be better off if you had no hands at all, things are out of hand.

I'll stop ranting now. Honest. But this is a big issue to me, for fairly obvious reasons.

• THE "ERGONOMIC," "RSI" KEYBOARDS ARE WORTHLESS
  
• IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, SEE THE BEST SPECIALIST YOU CAN FIND. IMMEDIATELY.
  

I have studied the problem specially (for desktop though) and I see no good method of text input at all.

Firstly, forget about direct neural interface and speech input. The neural interface is terribly slow, the speech input cannot deal with programming language texts.

Then, forget about a stylus and touchscreen. Stylus is simply too slow, touchscreen will cover your screen with grease from your hands.

There is a nice product that looks promising - Alphagrip - but AFAIK it's still not in production, and I fear it has a lot of other problems, for instance, I cannot imagine how it can be used as a game device as claimed by inventors, or how the index finger can press UP.

Datahand looks the best and is ergonomic enough but is simply too big to fit in a laptop.Twiddler IMHO requires too non-ergonomic fingers movement severely limiting the input speed.

The following methods look promising:
Keybowl that can be emulated with a pair of analog joysticks taken from Sony PS Doubleshock joysticks,
Wlonk - a 10-key macroprogrammable chording keyboard (You should design the mouse, driver and formfactor yourself),
and variations of TheBAT, DataEgg, 7KEY a.s.o (7-key 1-hand chording keyboard. Are you going to study the chords?)

Remove all SPAM from my email to answer.

I've been thinking about looking into something like this to help my slowly deteriorating wrist tendons. Unfortunately, it's rather pricey, and I'm not sure how much it would really help over the long term. Anyone used this thing or something like it?

I think it's true that it's hard to convert the mainstream user - I would still be typing on my old klik-klak IBM keyboard if it wasn't for my CTS.

However, from what I heard, it can be damn expensive, if one or more of your employees get wrist problems from typing - they can't continue work, and demand insurance or compensation. One of my friends worked for the the Danish railway system, doing some slave typing tasks, got CTS and ended up getting over three times as much in compensation as he got in wages, the three months he was there... and he's still getting money coming in every month (ok, that's Denmark).

I use a Datahand, and they claim that some companies have experienced increased productivity (up to 13% gain) on heavy duty typing tasks from using their keyboard. Ie. more productivity, less chance of employees getting wrist problems from investing in an alternative input device. If employers aren't insisting on their typers/coders using ergonomic input devices, it can cost them money AND the employees their health (and yes, CTS does suck).

-Kraft

I think it's true that it's hard to convert the mainstream user - I would still be typing on my old klik-klak IBM keyboard if it wasn't for my CTS.

However, from what I heard, it can be damn expensive, if one or more of your employees get wrist problems from typing - they can't continue work, and demand insurance or compensation. One of my friends worked for the the Danish railway system, doing some slave typing tasks, got CTS and ended up getting over three times as much in compensation as he got in wages, the three months he was there... and he's still getting money coming in every month (ok, that's Denmark).

I use a Datahand, and they claim that some companies have experienced increased productivity (up to 13% gain) on heavy duty typing tasks from using their keyboard. Ie. more productivity, less chance of employees getting wrist problems from investing in an alternative input device. If employers aren't insisting on their typers/coders using ergonomic input devices, it can cost them money AND the employees their health (and yes, CTS does suck).

-Kraft

• larger virtual displays
• lower power consumption than big desktop CRTs (and layered 3D lcd boxes)
• more advanced manufacturing experience with small lcd displays (usually = less expensive)
• privacy (consumer market supported by security geeks & porn afficionados instead of gamers)
• portability (imagine 1600x1200 res on a long flight)
• potential reduction of cost by market expansion into other areas (connected to the 3D market)
• potential for integration with wireless for truly portable systems
• higher level of ergonomic flexibility due to reduced reliance on a particular seating/standing position

I happen to suffer from serious wrist pain and being an input freak I decided to take it all the way. Yes, I'm convinced that the Evolution keyboard is better than an old clickety-clack keyboard, but if you want to see some real damage reduction, you have to go extreme.

I decided to go for a Datahand, and at around 1500 bux I think it's the most expensive keyboard out there. I'm very happy about it, but I only type at max. 95% of my old typing speed. A little bit frustrating, but worth it. If I use a regular keyboard for more than 20 mins, it's hell. I have also tried the Kinesis Essential keyboard, which is much cheaper, but a very good ergonomic keyboard.

For a while I used a Foot switch, also from Kinesis, but this was a real waste of money. You have to always have your feet in the same place to use it, and it's waaaay too small - I kept hitting two buttons at the same time.

Since I still have some problems with my arms, I decided to go for some armrests. These are movable and kinda cool looking together with the datahand, and although the product is good quality, I don't really feel that they that much. They give a marginal improvement at best.

Oh, the built-in mouse on the Datahand sux, so I ordered a head tracked mouse (after seeing it on /.) from Eyecontrol, but it still hasn't arrived.

I personally think that the mouse is the biggest culprit when it comes to wrist problems, but I am still considering using some kinda speech recognition software. Ok, I'm a bit geeky about this, but I'm 23, and I need these hands for many more years.

-Kraft

-Kraft

For those of you who want to minimise occupational typing injuries, have a look at the Typing Injury FAQ.

I'm using a Data Hand keyboard. I would recommend it, because it really does exercise your fingers in various directions which gets rid of RSI. It's quite easy to learn, unlike chord keyboards, and the design overall is quite practical. Disadvantages are price, that it's fairly bulky and that the mouse is operated with the keys (which isn't that bad actually, but one does find oneself reaching for the mouse as well occasionally.) Would probably rate it best overall for practicality and anti-rsi ability, but not perfect.

I can't view the site for obvious reasons, but from the descriptions given it sounds
similar to the outrageously priced Datahand, which I have considered saving up for.
I am guessing (hope I am wrong) that this one has a high tag as well since the
ergonomic devices are purchased by businesses who are stupid and rich enough to
shell out the bucks. Then again, it could be more expensive because they are paying
royalties to the aliens who invented it, since it does appear after all to be based on
the model found in the Roswell UFO crash.

Does anyone remember the CyberSurfer chair, or have any contact info for it? I recall it from a couple of years back, but I lost the link and it doesn't come up on searches anymore.... It looks a little like a cross between a lazyboy and a motorbike, a recliner with the pc between your legs and a fold-down monitor support. All you'd have to do is mount a Datahand on each arm, and you'd be sorted! - nick.

The corrolary to this is that, if you have trouble, find a good doctor (specialist, really) who knows what he/she is doing.

My own experience was that, since I didn't have insurance when the problems started, I tried everything I could think of, including buying and borrowing every ergonomic device I could get my hands on. This is what medical professionals drily refer to as "self-medicating." Nothing worked, and fortunately, I didn't spend too much.

Months later, when I finally got good insurance, I asked around to find the best doctor I could. With a small injection, a brace, and some good advice, I was suddenly 100% back to normal. This is lucky, of course, and it may not last, but honestly, if your wrists bother you, GO TO A DOCTOR! Hesitating or procrastinating can have serious, permanent consequences. Catching it early and learning about what you need to do to stay healthy is really important.

www.datahand.com didn't work for me. The URL for Datahand that worked for me was datahand.com.

IMHO, the Datahand keyboard is the best keyboard for avoiding CTS. It brought me from not being able to code to spending all day hacking. Some people love 'em, some hate em (if nothing else, they are the coolest looking keyboards around). Supposedly, they've overcome older manufacturing problems/delays and have come down in price -- I'm sure they're still very expensive, though.

Also popular is the Kinesis which is based on the older Maltron keyboards.

As for books on CTS, the best I've seen is Pascarelli and Quilter

Well since nobody is posting about acutal ergonomic keyboards I figured I'd throw in my two cents. Datahand keyboards, datahand, at $1000 there kinda costly but my friends got some and I can honestly say there is nothing more comfortable. They have this nice silicon hand-rest and the keys are positioned like cups around your hand. Another nice thing is the keyboard mapping is the same as the one your used to, you still move your fingers in the same direction.

Does anyone here have any experience with the datahand keyboards?

It's probably because you don't touch-type properly. Proper touch-typing keeps the wrists rather still, and involves a lot of flexing of the fingers, whereas the half-assed touch-typing that most people do involves more hand movement and less finger movement. Everyone I know who types as much as me who doesn't touch-type has little to no wrist problems, whereas I've touch-typed properly since I was 8 (I was bored and had a C64) and so I've had various carpal tunnel problems on and off for the last few years. My solution to it is to use programs like xwrits to force myself to not type for very long periods of time and to occasionally switch between various keyboards (a cheapo MS Natural clone, a DataHand, and a few others) and try to vary my typing style. For example, right now I'm typing with the cheapo Natural clone and using a semi-lackluster touchtyping style, though I've kinda been spoiled by the Datahand's keyboard layout, but I'm doing a pretty good job of letting my hands do most of the work rather than my fingers.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

The thing about it is that learning Dvorak and keeping your QWERTY skills must be weird. After a while, you would probably make lots of mistakes when you went back to a QWERTY, which you will find almost everywhere.

I'd rather get a BAT keyboardInfogrip. Sure you only get around 30-50 wpm, but you can use your mouse at the same time with your other hand(actually, I got a trackball a while ago and it works great!) and it can be linked to a regular keyboard when you really need the speed (I would assume copying something?). Since all your fingers are always in the same place, you reduce risk of RSI and stuff like that. Their FAQ says that BAT skills are proven to be different than keyboard skills, so it won't interfere with your regular QWERTY typing. I can type 80 wpm at max, but I rarely do when I'm doing something for school, because I'm thinking at the same time. I don't think I could think up an essay as fast as I can type.

Of course, you could always get the insanely priced Datahand. They use a QWERTY layout, but you probably can't tell from the picture. Basically, everything is right beside your fingers.

I think I lose a lot of time and mental momentum when I get tripped up typing important keys for coding, namely: _+;:"'`&$!@%|, etc. (no particular order). Many people who type a lot will mostly be keying text, and the punctuation is a very minor part of that... but for those of us who code for a living... Well, I tend to use other characters a lot. I also have to correct myself a lot.

Is there a keyboard layout that would be better suited for this kind of work?

Additionally, is there any sort of keyboard system that is coder-friendly? I looked into it a while ago, and the closest thing I could find was a completely user-definable chord/paddle based keyboard (here), or contoured keyboards ( here), but both seemed lacking for what I do most of the time (as well as pricy).

Does anyone else have any leads? Any thoughts on the matter?

I recently converted my CAPS LOCK key to a control key at work, and I've noticed a huge gain in comfort and usability, and I'd love to find similar gains for general coding and typing.

-Jason

ps. Obviously I could create my own 'coders keyboard layout', but I'd rather have the backing of some serious usage studies on the matter...

If you're really interested in either increasing typing speed or decreasing typing injury (they're intrinsically linked) you should look into other kinds of keyboards.

My personal favorite (except for the cost, of course) is the DataHand which significantly decreases finger travel distance as well as pressure you need to apply. (those things will help you type faster.) It also lets you keep your wrists straight, which will help to reduce injury.

The DataHand is primarily designed to reduce injury, but once you learn it well, you'll be able to type faster; mostly due to shorter finger travel distance.

It's designed with an almost QWERTY layout, but you can always set it up as Dvorak and stick little notes onto the template (I think they'll even sell it to you with a Dvorak template.) The built in "mouse" is okay for cut-n-paste, but I'd suggest using it in addition to another pointing device (I prefer trackballs -- less arm movement required, even if they do suck for quake) (you can do this with GPM, under Linux) for when you're doing more mouse-intensive activities. (Like netscape)

If you're a computer programmer (like myself) and something like that could lengthen your career by one month, the cost is worth it. It's more likely to increase a career by, at least, several years.

History is interesting, but I think personal experience is more important. I don't really care about typing speed; I can touch type with both layouts. But a Querty keyboard will give me wrist pain in the matter of an hour, whereas the dvorak layout lets me type for several hours without pain. To me that's the true test. In addition, I've never met anyone who can touch type on both keyboards and prefers Querty.

Of course, neither layout can overcome the limitations of a keyboard whose keys are lined up in horizontal rows, but my DataHand testimonials aren't suited to this thread.

Let me second the Kinesis keyboard recommendation. This works by dramatically limiting your wrist movement. The keys are placed into seperate wells places shoulder width apart. Keys are pressed curling and extending individual fingers. If you'll look at your hand, you'll notice that the middle finger is longest, the two adjacent fingers are about equally long, and the pinky is shortest. This determines the depth of the individual rows. Likewise, because your pinky is set back 0.5 cm towards your wrist, the Kinesis keyboard moves this row by 0.5 cm.

For more information about Kinesis, check their web site or one of their resellers. DataHand makes an even more extreme keyboard.

I examined several keyboards before selecting Kinesis. I see the split keyboards as 'halfway' measures and skipped the DataHand because I periodically need to work on non-ergonomic keyboards. By the end of the first day, I was typing at just over 60% speed and reached full speed after a week or so.

But avoid surgery at all costs. It doesn't do anything regarding the inflammation of the tendons; it only removes the pressure from the nerve (read: it numbs it), and then you just start typing again and get your tendons even more inflammed but you have even less feeling in your wrists, so when the pain comes back it's even more persistent and thus the vicious cycle continues.

Again, the best thing to do is to take as much time off from the computer as possible. I know that's difficult in this day and age. So just type as slow as you can (I know it's frustrating) in short periods of time. If you get any pain, STOP NOW and take a nice long break. If your employer can't understand this, then it's time to go through the process of getting worker's compensation and/or quitting (I recently did the latter, though a flare-up in my wrists was only the most recent of several reasons I wanted to leave).

But as has been mentioned several times here, there is no quick fix. Don't delude yourself into thinking there might be one.

That said, you might want to ask your doctor about steroid injections. Apparently they do have some success in removing inflammation for a few months at a time. However, it's such a recent treatment that I wouldn't trust it for the long-term (after all, damage will still be done to the tendons when you type, particularly since you won't feel any pain telling you to stop).
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

I was having some serious trouble with my wrists and forearms between ten hours of coding and my weight workouts.

I bought the Kinesis Ergo Classic with the footpad to help ease typing pain. And it helped a lot. But my condition was pretty severe and it wasn't long before, even with the new keyboard, I was in pretty serious discomfort.

I stepped up to the Data Hand keyboard about four months ago.

This is the final solution.

The design of this animal is so outrageously different, it's only vaguely recognizable as a keyboard. But it's worked wonders for me.

I bought a "Professional II" demo unit for 1/2 off. That came to 600 USD.

Yup. That's a full order of magnitude more than most ergo keyboards. And that was at 50% off!

Here's how I rationalized the purchase... I could either hurt myself, stop typing or try out the most expensive keyboard I'd ever seen. I gave it a try and, after a week of getting used to it, never looked back.

My lifting has improved, my productivity is up and I no longer dread the workday.

Even moreso, it doesn't even matter if people use the same suite (KDE or Gnome) as long as they use open file formats and can be made compatible with one another. Cooperation, and not competition, is VERY important to both KDE and Gnome. Myself, I don't care much for either, and I don't want to have to run KOffice under KDE to read someone's document any more than anyone wants to have to run MS Office under Win'98.

UNIX is great in that file formats have always been *open* and relatively easy to deal with. I mean, there's several dozen commonly-used mail programs out there, and practically all of them use the Sendmail /var/spool/mail fileformat to store everything. PINE, ELM, Mutt, mail, etc. can all read and write to my various mail folders without a problem, and so switching programs isn't a daunting task. (Wish the same could be said for Netscape Communicator, but I've not used Netscape for reading mail ever since Netscape 3.0 consistently corrupted all my messages and did other unpleasant things.)

I mean, okay, I don't need to run KDE or Gnome to use KDE or Gnome applications, but that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that just because a program is available now and is free doesn't mean one should be locked into that single program. It'd suck if I were stuck using PINE forever and ever, for example. (I want to try Mutt someday.)

That said, perhaps some work should be done in deciding/drafting formal document format specs. We already have a perfectly good word processing format (namely TeX) and many word processors which can use it (such as LyX/KLyX, and even some lesser-known Windows word processors such as Scientific Workplace)... but what about spreadsheets? Are the formats of GNUmeric and (whatever KOffice's spreadsheet program is) compatible? What about StarOffice? Whatever happened to 'sc'?

What about groupware programs? It's hard enough to deal with KDE/Gnome flamewars on Slashdot. What about in the workplace where the manager wants everyone to use a KDE-based groupware app but all the Gnome zealots want to use a Gnome-based one, and then all the desktop-agnostics (which I currently am) want to just use one which works under fvwm2?

(Yes, I know there's better WMs than fvwm2. But I have it setup to work nicely with my Datahand and I don't feel like learning how to configure another WM right now.)

Many things to think about.

On the Datahand, both thumbs are used quite a bit. The right thumb is responsible for space, backspace, number/symbol modeshift, entering mouse mode, and the alt key, and the left thumb does tab, enter, shift, entering character mode, and the ctrl key. Admittedly, I used to use my left thumb for the spacebar, but now even on normal keyboards I use my right thumb, just out of habit.

The Datahand does a good job of distributing load across all the fingers in a pretty sane way. Their mapping could be improved slightly, but not enough to complain about (as long as you don't want to play games on it).

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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

I find that for pure neato value, the datahand is the coolest keyboard (although the twiddler is also nifty). Since I'm a poor typist, it looks better, since you can't really miss a key (nor, for that matter, can you type improperly, since you have no choice which finger hits which key). Of course, it's also expensive as hell (which is why they don't list the price). It's around $900 for the personal (the Pro II is over $1000).
I think this could be a really neato slashdot topic: badass input devices.

datahand

I can't help but evangelize this device. It is wonderful. My wrists were at the point that they hurt constantly, painfully; I lost sleep over it. I couldn't stop using the computer, though. After about a month of using nothing but the datahand, my wrists are SO much better. I still have occasional pain and numbness, but that's usually after using normal keyboards (like in the computer lab).

Datahand + fvwm2 go together to make a WONDERFUL team in terms of customizability. Even when I'm not using my Dathand, I don't have to use the mouse much (ctrl+shift+HKJL to move coarse, ctrl+shft+alt+HKJL to move fine-grained), and when I am, the fact I can customize the interface to be exactly right for the Datahand is so wonderful...

The personal edition cost me $900 after a 10% student discount. They're not cheap. But they're worth every penny. Consider that RSI surgery is generally $10k and only treats the symptoms (not the cuase)...

If you really want to try something wild, see DataHand Systems.