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Graffiti 1 is, imo, still the best quick way to get text into a portable device.

Then you must never have tried Fitaly. This is a tap-optimized soft keyboard. I used it on a Tungsten T|3 for several years; it's easily more than twice as fast as Graffiti.

While the layout could perhaps be improved further (another layout called Opti II is probably better), the concept is sound. It does take a little practice to get fast, but so what?

The big problem, IMO, is that the market has decided it doesn't like styli. I don't understand why; fingers are much too large for accurate tapping. Oh well.

But if you want to get higher typing speeds, why not use a Stenotype device? According to Wikipedia one can easily reach typing speeds of 300 WPM.

I also come to think of alternative typing software for PDAs and smartphones. Texware solutions claim that one can yield faster typing speeds than a regular QWERTY keyboard with their program called Fitaly. So called Dom Perignon Speed Contests are being arranged regularly which are typing contests using different typing software. The winner of the last contest reached a speed of 80.88 WPM using Fitaly. But the contest was arranged by Texware themselves so there could be reason to suspect that this contest may be biased. Another typing software that promises higher typing speeds is MessagEase which is similar to Fitaly.

Actually for this thing, there's probably a whole new layout that's optimal.

Yes, and it's already been invented a few times:

• ATOMIK from IBM, which became SHARK, which became ShapeWriter, available on the iPhone
• FITALY from Textware, available on PPC and Palm

Try Fitaly ( http://www.fitaly.com/palm/palmfitaly.htm ). I've used it on the Palm, and it really is quite nice, once you get used to it.

It also uses a swipe method to determine capitol letters, so no shift key is needed.

Optimization for two fingers may be similar to the one stylus optimization done for the Palm desktop a while ago. : http://www.fitaly.com/palm/palmfitaly.htm

Agreed. Graffiti 1 was good, I can tell Graffiti 2 would annoy me immensely just by looking at the glyph chart.

I still have my old Palm III, upgraded to PalmOS 4, for this very reason. Although I have been quite impressed by the Fitaly keyboard, which is freeware for Palm devices. Since you can get it for other devices, it might be a good input device to learn.

Fitaly Keyboard for Palm

It appears that Fitaly on the Pocket PC supports all of Unicode, assuming, of course, that you have the necessary fonts installed. Some configuration effort may be required to use them. Have a look.

The Palm has accented European characters (and Fitaly supports them), but I don't see any indication that it goes beyond that.

Looks like its now free too for the palm.
This site: http://www.fitaly.com/order/order.htm
takes you to this site when you click on palm: https://fitaly.securesites.com/order/palmorder.htm
They have released it as freeware

Forget handwriting recognition. Fitaly, a tap-optimized virtual keyboard, is much faster -- in my experience, at least twice the speed of pen and paper. And while it's neither as fast nor as accurate as touch-typing, it's plenty good enough to make it unnecessary to carry around one of those folding keyboards.

I've used Fitaly on a Tungsten T3 to take voluminous notes at multi-hour seminars. It's that good. I wouldn't even think of going back to Graffiti.

The whole point of the new arrangement ... is to put the most-frequent letters first

Well, I hope they don't go away entirely...

But actually the Treo thumbboard seems to be the fastest input method for handhelds without external devices. It can yield 84wpm for a pre-practiced text, according to TextWare's Dom Perignon III competition:

http://www.fitaly.com/domperignon/domperignon3.htm

Tapping on a Fitaly layout on-screen keyboard (http://www.fitaly.com/ according to the competition, is the second best method at 78 WPM. (I am guessing that the competition may be getting a disproportionate number of Fitaly users since it's sponsored by the Fitaly folks.)

The third best method in the competition is IBM's ATOMIK on-screen layout at 72 WPM (IBM no longer distributes this; I've made an improved shareware version of this method: http://www.zlthemes.com/Programs.php) .

The fourth best is MessagEase, a tap and slide on-screen method, at 67 WPM.

The highest ranking handwriting methods in the competition are Block Recognizer at 40 WPM and Graffiti at 38 WPM. So, if your input method is a handwriting-based one one, then you would have a good chance of going significantly faster with a thumbboard (or an optimized on-screen keyboard). Or with an alternate on-screen method.

But actually the Treo thumbboard seems to be the fastest input method for handhelds without external devices. It can yield 84wpm for a pre-practiced text, according to TextWare's Dom Perignon III competition:

http://www.fitaly.com/domperignon/domperignon3.htm

Tapping on a Fitaly layout on-screen keyboard (http://www.fitaly.com/ according to the competition, is the second best method at 78 WPM. (I am guessing that the competition may be getting a disproportionate number of Fitaly users since it's sponsored by the Fitaly folks.)

The third best method in the competition is IBM's ATOMIK on-screen layout at 72 WPM (IBM no longer distributes this; I've made an improved shareware version of this method: http://www.zlthemes.com/Programs.php) .

The fourth best is MessagEase, a tap and slide on-screen method, at 67 WPM.

The highest ranking handwriting methods in the competition are Block Recognizer at 40 WPM and Graffiti at 38 WPM. So, if your input method is a handwriting-based one one, then you would have a good chance of going significantly faster with a thumbboard (or an optimized on-screen keyboard). Or with an alternate on-screen method.

When I built a simple homebrew OS for the GBA, I used the FITALY layout, which worked REALLY well. I could type quickly on it just using the d-pad, I imagine it would be much faster with a stylus.

http://www.fitaly.com/fitaly/transopt.htm

They also market to the handicapped market, though their products for them tend to be overpriced - all you really need to implement it is a different driver for a standard keyboard that lets you flipflop both sides. They've got demoware that lets you try it out. And unfortunately, they've patented what they've done, and would probably get annoyed if somebody released a freeware driver...

Another interesting design is the FITALY keyboard, which is designed for one-finger use, or one-stylus use on a palm touchscreen. Like DVORAK, it's designed for low-travel efficient movement.

Patents *DO* require a working example, with a very few exceptions. Unfortunately, patent clerks rarely have time to do much more than non destructive analysis of things...they sort of have to go on the words and drawings of the patenter for things like new propulsion systems, data structures, that kind of thing.

But if you're patenting something like a user interface -- I can think of a few, such as the Fitaly keyboard -- they're going to need to see it. A patent is NOT on an idea. It's an actual product or process.

I'd second a Zire (or another cheap Palm compatible), but recommend Fitaly over a keyboard. More compact then even the smallest keyboard (since it's software only), and allows extremely fast input. The current record is more then 81 words per minute. Personally, I can input text almost as fast on my Palm as I can on my PC (Granted, I'm a slow typist). Of course, this means that you can't get away from computers completely, but it's cheap, small and flexible.

I'd probably recommend getting one with an expansion slot, so you can back up your notes in case of loss or theft. I'd also recommend you try to find an older black & white one that uses AAA batteries instead of a built-in recharger. Unless you are in extremely remote areas, I'd assume that you'd be able to find replacement batteries, and then you won't need to carry a charger. B&W also means much more life between replacement/charges. And, they're dirt cheap to boot.

I agree, only more so. I won't buy any PDA device that has a keyboard. When the main input device is a stylus, I want to do everything with the stylus. I'm bad at Graffiti, but there's keyboards you can use with a stylus.

Why not FITALY (aka JUMPX)?

I haven't personally tried this one yet but it looks like a good approach for mobile devices. Since it keeps movement between letters close to a minimum it's perfect for thumb or one-fingered or stylus input.

Graffitti for Palm lets me do about 15 wpm and that's after 3 years of practice.

There are other options out there. One is the fitaly keyboard, which is supposed to be optimized for use with a stylus. They claim you can get 50 wpm. I've never tried it, but it certainly looks easier than Graffitti to me. Anybody out there tried it?

I'm sort of physically impaired, so I'm not a good example. But my experience with ink and gestures on the PDA suggests that not everybody finds them productive.

I started out with a Newton. Of course, early Newtons had terrible handwriting recognition. Which they more or less fixed -- about the time Jobs pulled the plug on the product. But even if I had one of the later Newton's, I'm not sure I'd rely on handwriting input that much -- for me, it'd still be too slow and unreliable.

Similar issues with gesture-based inputs, like Graffiti and Jot. Once you get past the initial learning phase, they're a lot easier to use than handwriting input. But you have to have really good coordination to use them with any speed or accuracy. And I don't have that.

Which is why I use Fitaly Stamp on my Palm. Shouldn't be that hard to implement on Linux.

Have a look at the results of Fitaly's Dom Perignon contest - the Treo thumbboard was the fastest (84 WPM, with an average of 58 WPM) whereas the fastest Palm Graffiti entry was 38 WPM (with an average of 29 WPM).

I dont want to park the stylus when I want to write something, and then have to pick it out again to access menues or other programs.

Actually I find the stylus a waste of time - 99.5% of anything I want to do on a Palm I can achieve with a fingernail just as accurately. In fact, using a fingernail makes my graffiti moreaccurate. The real pain about a thumbboard, I'd imagine, would be having to use two hands and a flat surface (or two thumbs) to type fast.

(That's why I dislike PDAs with keyboards. They force you to continually switch between finger and stylus. Maybe some people are dextrous enough to multiplex their keyboard/stylus hand. I'm not. Not that I'm any good at Graffiti or Jot. For me, the ideal is a stylus-compatible keyboard.)

The new Zauruses may be as small as "other" PDAs. But the keyboard and the L-shaped design make them too much like subnotebooks for my taste. A good slate-style tablet PC is actually closer to the PDA concept than the Zaurus. A slate-tablet may cost 4 times as much, and be way to big for your pocket. But at least it preserves the strolling user concept.

If you haven't already, you might consider MessagEase for your Palm-type PDA - it's pretty competitive with Fitaly in the Dom Perignon contest, with either you're likely to go much faster than 10-15wpm after training.

There was recently a discussion on the perl6 list (laugh but all your bases will belong to parrot real soon now) about what keys could be used to represent some new functions people might like to add if there were some reasonable one to three character symbols that could be made out of them. As long as they're going to change the concatenation operator anything goes right?

All which I would not have known if it were not for the wonderful summaries of the discussions on perl.com.

I'm thinking it might be useful if you could buy extra usb keyboardlets - like numeric keypads - with keys that would make your programming more powerful (otherwise you have to spell things out in english phrases). No danger of APL-ness since the system will be able to translate between the idioms effortlessly. Doubtlessly emacs scripts and something wierd for vi would be possible.

But something tells me the future of computing is going to have more to do with being able to get a heck of a lot done with a lot less typing, either because of a plethora of great snap together libraries, semi-intelligent self-programming programs, or just plain telling the thing what you mean in english (or interlingua) and having a system that will just do it. It is not critical that we add more cryptic things to our programming prose, but I'd certainly welcome more powerful idioms and innovative input solutions that don't penalize their adopters. (I certainly will check out the Kinesis keyboard, earlier poster.. thanks.)

FYI:

this article: unicode operators, supercommas, french quotation marks.. shades of APL

.. and squiggle operators

There was recently a discussion on the perl6 list (laugh but all your bases will belong to parrot real soon now) about what keys could be used to represent some new functions people might like to add if there were some reasonable one to three character symbols that could be made out of them. As long as they're going to change the concatenation operator anything goes right?

All which I would not have known if it were not for the wonderful summaries of the discussions on perl.com.

I'm thinking it might be useful if you could buy extra usb keyboardlets - like numeric keypads - with keys that would make your programming more powerful (otherwise you have to spell things out in english phrases). No danger of APL-ness since the system will be able to translate between the idioms effortlessly. Doubtlessly emacs scripts and something wierd for vi would be possible.

But something tells me the future of computing is going to have more to do with being able to get a heck of a lot done with a lot less typing, either because of a plethora of great snap together libraries, semi-intelligent self-programming programs, or just plain telling the thing what you mean in english (or interlingua) and having a system that will just do it. It is not critical that we add more cryptic things to our programming prose, but I'd certainly welcome more powerful idioms and innovative input solutions that don't penalize their adopters. (I certainly will check out the Kinesis keyboard, earlier poster.. thanks.)

FYI:

this article: unicode operators, supercommas, french quotation marks.. shades of APL

.. and squiggle operators

I beg to differ. I used Graffiti for about six months after I first got my Handspring Visor and got reasonably good with it, but I still wasn't satisfied--even with six months' experience, there were quite a few errors. I looked around and found this stylus-tap keyboard. I much prefer it--there are fewer errors, and I find it faster than using Graffiti.

You're absolutely right that you have to be looking at it in order to use it, unlike Graffiti, but for me that's a minor inconvenience, rather than the major issue it is for you. It's pretty rare that I'm trying to write in the dark, or write when I'm talking to someone, but if I do the keyboard can be turned off with a single tap and I can revert to Graffiti. I can see that Graffiti might be better if you frequently use it in those conditions where you don't want to be looking at the screen, but that's not the case with me.

The advantage is that the keyboard is designed to lessen pen (stylus) movement based on common words. It is highly customizable and supports international characters. shifting, special characters, etc.

I like it and it works for me. I won't miss Graffiti at all. Worth a look if you're interested in alternatives.

HandyKey Twiddler 2The Twiddler2 is a pocket-sized mouse pointer plus a full-function keyboard in a single unit that fits neatly in either right or left hand. The Twiddler2 plugs into both keyboard and mouse PS/2 ports on any computer that accepts standard PS/2 mouse and keyboard input. WearClam: A Wearable Input InterfaceThe WearClam is an wearable Input device, developed for those situations where you need keyboard-like input nearly all the time. It is an ergonomic ring which resembles a real Clam's shape and as such it could be considered as a wearable interface for a wearable computer. L3 Systems WristPC KeyboardL3 Systems has developed the WristPC Keyboard for portable and wearable computer applications. The WristPC is a rugged QWERTY keyboard with a standard PC keyboard interface. The housing is a black anodized aluminum. Completely sealed, it can operate in the rain and other harsh environments. Fitaly One-Finger KeyboardThis "keyboard" is optimized for entry with a single finger or with a pen, as is the case on a pen computer or a computer with a touchscreen. The Fitaly One-Finger Keyboard minimizes pen or finger travel as well as hand travel. Tactex smart fabric technologyTactex's Smart Fabric technology enables the manufacture of both expressive and rugged control surfaces, which can be presented in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and surface finishes. A retail product, the MTC Express, is about the size of a mouse pad, and is produced for Mac and Windows platforms. Senseboard virtual keyboardSenseboard (tm) is a virtual keyboard, designed for the millions of mobile computer users, struggling with their tiny or nonexistent keyboards when trying to communicate or type. The VK hand mounted devices allow the user to type on any surface as if it were a keyboard. Sensors in the units measure the finger movements and artificial intelligence and a language processor determine appropriate keystrokes or mouse movements. Thunbscript Input DevicesThumbscript (TM) is a patented universal text entry system for mobile people and devices. Equally at home with Pen based devices like the Palm Pilot and keypad devices like your telephone or TV controller, Thumbscript offers users a single system that is simple, inexpensive to implement and easy to use because it is visual. FrogPad keyboardThe "FrogPad" is a 19-key device that uses patented simultaneous key function change technology to emulate a full-size keyboard, and requires a fraction of the physical space. Kord Interface TechnologyKord (R) Interface Technology (Kord [R] IT)is a suite of hardware and software that creates "an ambidextrous, chordic Human Machine Interface HMI, suitable for any computing device". Essential Reality P5 GloveTo digitally "walk" through an online room or actually "pick up" objects in a video game requires the ability to manipulate in three-dimensions. Not through complicated keystrokes but by the simple movement of your hand in space.

I used the trial version for a little while until it expired. I have to say it was faster than the handwriting recognition or tiny virtual keyboard, even though I didn't use it enough to get accustomed to the layout. The keys are layed out so you move your stylus as little as possible, with more often used keys in the middle:

ZVCHWK
FITALY
sp NE sp
GDORSB
QJUMPX

They sell the software and templates (required for PalmOS) here.
I'd buy it if I used my palmtop more frequently for data entry.

Typing 25 words per minute is nothing, now write 25 words a minute.

There are so many applications that are too complicated for little pocket devices, but for which "real" computers, even laptops, are too clumsy and inconvenient. Casual reading, browsing a museum web site. I guess most of them are recreational -- when you're trying to relax, you don't want to be tied to a lot bulky hardware, and you probably don't need to do a lot of complicated interactions.

Tablets are only a part of the solution. You also need networking that's secure, reliable, reasonably fast, and affordable. A sort of "last inches" problem.

People will need to do some text input with their tablets, and few will be satisifed with handwriting. It's doable (despite the fuckups with early Newtons) but as you point out, it's too slow. I expect there to be a lot of work on things like virtual keyboards., special kinds of electronic shorthand, and fancy one-handed input devices. Actually a lot of these things have been worked on for years, but haven't found a market yet.

... get a regular Palm and buy Fitaly Stamp

One of the key features for me is that it be very small and light. I need to be able to carry it around in my pocket, and it needs to be durable and well-built so I don't have to worry about it breaking quite so much. And obviously, the more storage space the better. a gig would be nice, but 10 gigs would be better. It'd be nice to be able to toss a couple of movies on there, or a few simpsons or something for a wait. Batterly life is also important, as is 802.11b (or eventually UWB or whatever else we end up with). That's pretty much the list, far as I can think of.

Cheers, Joshua

Have you played with the new iPaq? That screen is big enough to watch a movie on, and it's big enough to read /. on, and the Transcriber is pretty fucking acurate and seamless now. And the fitaly keyboard is pretty damn fast input.

Screw Nokia, all I want is lots of really good, small computers, with fast input, and good output. I want to see 802.11 on them, and that's all I need. That form factor is small enough for me.

cheers, joshua

...of having a virtual keyboard for a Palm handheld computer, if you can't hold the keyboard while you're using it?

Another cute idea, but I can't see it taking off. Either the popular folding keyboards or some modified Graffiti-ish entry system like Fitaly seem to work much more "handily."

cheers, joshua

Aside from that, the main problem with PDAs and cellphones in general right now is the problem of input...

QWERTY keyboards are great (maybe not as great as DVORAK, but great) if you've got ten fingers to type on. Graffiti, to me seems a poor solution for devices of the palm-size form factor. A better solution for any device with a stylus is the FITALY keyboard layout, designed for either a stylus, or one finger.

FITALY is great, but as screens get cheaper, and power gets more abundant, we're gonna want Star Trek style pads, and we're going to want them bigger than the current palm-size form factor. We'll need a bigger size, and for that, I don't think FITALY is the right input method either. What will be needed when devices of that form-factor come out is a one-handed, or five-finger keyboard. Any mathemeticians out there want to have a crack at a layout? ;)

cheers, joshua

Click to see the video's of the winners of Fitaly's last fast-typing competition ...

Back when I had my Palm PDA I used FitalyStamp as my input method (a version is also available for the PocketPC). It's significantly faster than graffiti, and according to a contest held last year the fastest "tapist" could tap out words at 81.74 wpm! Sound crazy? You can see for yourself how fast they tap.

Back when I had my Palm PDA I used FitalyStamp as my input method (a version is also available for the PocketPC). It's significantly faster than graffiti, and according to a contest held last year the fastest "tapist" could tap out words at 81.74 wpm! Sound crazy? You can see for yourself how fast they tap.

Back when I had my Palm PDA I used FitalyStamp as my input method (a version is also available for the PocketPC). It's significantly faster than graffiti, and according to a contest held last year the fastest "tapist" could tap out words at 81.74 wpm! Sound crazy? You can see for yourself how fast they tap.

However, I eventually got real tired of even the better-than-average handwriting recognition in the Palm. Have since installed the fitaly hack, and now that's not a problem either (or least, not so much, not so often).

So, you can feel smug being a traditionalist all day long, I'm not going back to dead trees any time soon --- not until they pry my PDA... you get the idea...

Ron Obvious

If I bought a palm, I would get the Fitaly Stamp for it. ;)

cheers, joshua

Terradot

Fitaly. If you want to use your PDA as a laptop, it's not gonna work, but if you just want to be able to write down phone numbers, addresses, and so forth as people are telling them to you, this is the way to go. It's been reported on Slashdot before (too lazy to look up right now). The company homepage is here.

I love the Stowaway for it's convenience, but when I'm out and about, I usually don't want more than my phone and my Visor. To that end, I've been using the fitaly on-screen keyboard and I love it. It's designed based on letter frequency, and they've done a remarkably good job) I find that I can type almost as fast on that using my stylus as I can with a regular keyboard (admittedly, I'm not the fastest typist to begin with). They've also got an overlay for the graffiti area which I may have to get. Between Fitaly and the Stowaway, I can avoid Graffiti for all but the briefest of notes. I highly recommend taking a look at it if you don't like Graffiti.

I have a Handspring Visor that I use for pretty much everything in my life.

I use three different ways of getting information into the PDA:

• Grafitti: The built-in text recognition software that recognizes individual characters written in a special area. I can get about 25 words per minute with this method.
• Fitaly Stamp: A little flexible sheet that sits in the Grafitti area that has little squares to represent letters. (See the picture in the link.) When you tap a letter, the PDA thinks that you wrote it. I can get about 40 wpm with this.
• The Stowaway keyboard (as mentioned in the article): This keyboard is a fold-up one. It folds up pretty darn small (small enough to fit in my back pocket) and is a full-sized keyboard when unfolded. I can get regular typing speeds (80 wpm or more) with this.

The other place that the Stowaway is really useful is when I'm on travel and need to dial into the modem pool at work to log on and check email. There's no way that I'm gonna navigate a shell, mutt, and vile with a stylus!

So I would suggest to people to think about how they intend to use their PDA. If it's just for occasional text entry, you probably don't need a keyboard. But if you plan on putting lots of information into it, I would definitely recommend getting a keyboard.

It is worth noting that the only Jot entry came from a "Charles M. Holmes" who got 10.4 with Jot, 14.8 with Fitaly Stamp, and 26.56 with SilkyBoard. It is a shame Charles M. didn't have a Grafiti entry.

wish
---

• The devices are notacably smaller than the Palm III series, and even a little smaller than the Palm Vs. They are as thick as the Palm III, however.
• The devices use an unusual RISC processor for the CPU
• The devices use the FLTK toolkit, and any FLTK application for the Linux desktop should port reasonably easily to the Agenda.
• The application they were showing at the LWCE was a Bash shell, probably to prove these are really Linux machines.
• Input is via a on-screen QWERTY keyboard which is part of the display at the bottom. I hope it is possible to replace this keyboard by a Fitaly keyboard, or by one of the various handwriting reconition techniques.
• The devices will have 2 megs of flash and 8 mega of ram. The person showing off the unit was talking about it being possible to use the flash to store application and possibly data.
• The devices are expected to retail for $150
• They promise to release them around October

- Sam

At the gym I go to, there are computers with touchscreens over some of the exercise bikes, and you can 1-finger type on them. It's a dog-slow way to enter anything, but fine for web browsing once you're past the first real URL, at least given the speed you read the web while biking.

I don't see any number keys - also I assume you are typing IN ALL CAPS...

That's a pretty silly assumption, considering the screen shot very clearly shows mixed-case text (and most of it is lower-case, at that).

Like the normal keyboard built-into the Palm (which is based on QWERTY), numbers and symbols are on separate keyboards. The "123" key switches to the number pad, for example. The "shf" and "cap" keys probably work as they do with the standard Palm keyboard as well, as "shift lock" and "caps lock" keys. (the symbols on the keys also update to show what would actually be generated by hitting that key)

This would suck for typing up Canadian or British postal codes. Having the symbols on another keyboard also sucks for writing code. That isn't what these things are for though. They're for writing quick notes in English. (yes, English; the Fitaly isn't really well suited to other natural languages, because the arrangement of the keys is based on the frequency of consecutive letter pairs in English text).