Slashdot Mirror
Not A Bat, Nor A Plane, But A Vertical Keyboard
A reader who chose anonymity writes: "As usual ZZZ online was updated this Sunday. Nevertheless the issue number 67 contains quite unusual info about vertical keyboard. It is made by splitting normal keyboard into two parts and and rotating them by 90 degrees. The human imagination has no limits, vertical keyboard looks really weird." It also looks much comfier than most flat ones. Maybe that would make me learn to truly touch type, as well?
I have one of those split-keyboards which raise up a fair angle, but there's one major drawback that comes up when I use it - mouse control.
Although most of my machine usage is within a shell and using vi as an editor, but on some occasions, I find I need to take one of my hands away from the keyboard to make use of the mouse.
What would be truly cool would be some mouse control on the ergonomic keyboard. That would be handy - bridging these two worlds.
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
some raised charatcters on the key caps? I really want to know. A keyboard alternative like this brings up a few ideas like a curved forward keyboard ala the m$ one but with more curvature forward and vertically. Not to the extreme we see here where its perpendicular to the workspace. I think more in the range of 60 degrees up and 40 degrees forward (adjustable would be nice so while I'm dreaming...). The tactile sensation of the finger tip could easily recognize the shapes after a few uses. I worked on a CAD system for a few weeks in '86 (i cannot remember the name possibly microcadam) that used a breakout keybord to input commands that lit up when they commands were active and had recognizable shapes on the keycaps. It made using the system very easy to learn.Why don't these newfangled keyboard designers use the raised symbol/character idea and build us a real keyboard that everyone could learn to touch type with?
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
This thing was invented at least ten years ago. It didn't end up in volume production at least partially because the guy who patented it wanted it built in the USA only.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This keyboard looks a little like a chair to me. Sit on it and operate the keyboard(s) on either side of the butt. Next step, sit the keyboard on top of a tower-format PC. Use LCD-head-up display instead of a CRT monitor. Lower a cardboard container around yourself. Hey presto, you're in the ultimate cubicle. Fit 20 software engineers in the area normally needed for one! Hell, why not stack'em too?
And when the dot.com crashes the Boss can just open the garage door & push them out on the street.
Remember, you read it here first.
Regards, Ralph.
Hmm. Maybe they were appealling to the mass market rather than to the perfectionist properly taught typists.
Personally I've never been taught to type, I find that the 'b' key is on the wrong side of the MS split keyboards for how I type, but (and I just checked this) the '6' key is on the correct side for me.
Then again, I can only touch-type with 100% accuracy at 80wpm, so I'm not exactly an expert. Anybody that can do 100+ care to comment?
~Cederic
ps: I have no idea whether it's appealling or appealing. But one l looks better.
seing several vertical split keyboards over the years.. the most notable one being adjustable, so you could set any angle from a flat normal keyboard to pretty much 90 degrees vertical.
It also had some small, rounded but hard (plastic) wrist rests.. but they were designed to keep the forearm (just behind the wrist) supported off the table, so you didn't get guerilla-arm syndrome from typing on the vertical pad.
Yes, it's odd, but this is really not that newsworthy a story.
/. And I'm a part of the group that this would supposedly be "great news" to.
As someone with carpal tunnel, I'd say it's great that it might someday exist in a usable form, but nobody is going to take this on.
Carpal tunnel damage occurs as the tendons scrape the walls of the carpal tunnel from repeated motion (i.e., typing). The vertical keyboard would, theoretically, have your hands resting in a way that your wrists would not need to flex, thereby avoiding the damage.
However, I'd bet that if there's _ANY_ flexing on the vertical axis, lifting your hand sideways will be _MORE_ stressful, just from the extra bit of resistance provided by gravity.
Anyway, this story is still not worthy of
-k.
When I want to explain ergo keyboards to people, I ask them to hold their hands out in front of them at chest height. Go ahead and do it. Now look at your hands: your hand will be in a straight line with your arm, and your hands will be slightly angled. It isn't natural or really comfortable to bend your wrists at the precise angle needed to line up your fingers in a flat row for a normal flat keyboard.
Now look at a Microsoft Natural Keyboard. The angling of the keys allows your hands to be in more of a straight line with your arms. The bulge in the middle more closely matches the slight angle you want to hold your hands at. It helps.
The Microsoft Natural Keyboard is nowhere near as extreme as other ergo keyboards I have seen, but in my experience it makes a big difference. Once I strained my neck muscles, and typing on a flat keyboard became very painful if I did it for more than an hour or so. Since I was programming for 10 hours a day I had a problem. I tried the Microsoft Natural Keyboard and I was able to type on it all day, even with the strained muscles. I very much doubt that this new keyboard would have helped me.
P.S. Of course I could be wrong. If you naturally hold your hands out angled and rotated in such a way that your fingers are in a flat row, congratulations! You are perfectly evolved for non-ergo keyboards!
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
...specifically, a chord of about 8 inches diameter cut from a sphere of about 2 feet diameter. You could wear it on your chest and look like Tarzan beating your chest as you type -- but I think it would be pretty comfortable to use. The slowpokes could look down and see the keys, too.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
This keyboard would be successful in reducing wrist strain only because it prevents people from resting on them or using those stupid wrist rests that only increase pressure on the wrapping wrist ligaments. Of course, if you just support your lower arms (and most importantly, your elbows) off your work surface, much the same way a pianist does, it might be a little cheaper even though a little extra work until you get used to it.
The huge drawback I see with this concept is that finger action is no longer aided by gravity. You essentially have to re-learn the pressure needed for key action and don't have any opposing force to steady your arms. Instead, your arms swing like pendulums, your fingers bouncing off the keyboard surface like a repeller. This might work better if the surfaces were at a 45 degree angle or less but 90 degrees? I hope not much federal money went into this project...
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
Heck, just shell out the few extra bucks and get a natural kb.
Maybe if/when IBM makes a split keyboard I'll consider it, but I can't use anything less than an IBM keyboard with those oh-so-wonderful keys. I think I get at least another 20% speed just because of the key feel.
Say what you want about IBM, but they are the keyboard king. Everything else is cheap crap in comparison. Unfortunately, I don't think they make the really indestructable, old-school I-can-kill-you-with-this-steel-case-keyboard anymore. On the other hand, the plastic ones are virtually indestructable, but it would be harder to kill someone. :) [would probably take several blows]
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
It takes you to the same url, but this time, it shows you the picture instead of that message.
It looks like Kinesis (makers of the best ergo keyboard on earth) have a new model out similar to this (only much more practical I think). Check out the Kinesis Evolution Keyboard. It can be adjusted to any size/shape person and even has a trackpad (or two) built in.
-Stype
-Stype
Bus error -- driver executed.
Hmmm... Very interesting idea...
I didn't find the nipple to be that bad after a month or so of using it. Your idea sounds really good, though. You could even have the "mouse key" be something that would activate when you press your thumb against the side of your finger, so it would really be a pointing action. Maybe some slight modification to avoid RSI, but I imagine it could work well. Of course, it's been far too long since I've touched a real erect nipple, so I'm kinda partial to the IBM approach at the moment.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Ooh! Ooh!
No more keyboard-face.
Oooh, baby, yah! Talk to me, talk to me!
I have one of the wing o' deth keyboards. Weighs a frigging metric tonne. Got those sweet, sweet ALPS keys in it... real springs and everything. Built like a freaking brick shithouse. When you put it down, it *stays* put. And clicky! Oh, so clicky!
I was lucky enough to score a replacement keyboard for free the other day. It's not a steel-plate wing o' deth, but it's got the ALPS keys. I figure I can swap out the guts.
For others with this sort of fanaticism for great keyboards, this website looks promising: they repair keyboards, and it sure looks like they're using ALPS keyswitches in their custom keyboards. I'm particularly horny for the one with the rubber joystick-mouse on it: [PC Keyboard].
If anyone does buy a keyboard from PCKeyboard, how about writing a Slashdot review?
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
The vertical keyboard can't be bought anywhere, it has never gone out of the lab. But if you feel like an ergonomics researcher and want to carry out your own experiment, you can always cut up any horizontal keyboard and try to assemble something better. Any other ideas about this keyboard? Don't forget about the discussion board at the bottom of the page :-)
Is it even possible to mod it into this configuration at home?
Goat sex free since 2001
When human hands relax, they curve, going eventually into a fist. This keyboard would require the hands to be flat, only rotated through 90 degrees - a posture that I imagine would become quite tiring. If the keyboard halves were curved, so that using it was like putting your hand around the far side of a cylinder, it would probably be a lot more comfortable to use.
--
--
Wait a minute, this sounds like rock and/or roll. - Rev. Lovejoy
The picture shows the right side of the keyboard to the left. Now I know why typing was so hard!
Mmmm.. Donuts
Your eyes can already pick out a single pixel. At least, *you* know that you're looking at it.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
That exoskeleton's real cool, but after seeing the AVI of it, how does he stop walking? Does it sit back on its hind legs(the endmost leg laying flat) like a dog?
That's funny. When I tried to learn the guitar, I found myself wishing it was shaped like a keyboard.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
and I quote
"The users don't see what they are typing, so the keyboard has two fixed side-mirrors."
Side mirrors? on a keyboard?!
Judge Pag, the Learned, Impartial, and Very Relaxed
This looks like a rather extreme version of the ergonomic keyboards that are split in the center and tilted off to the sides. I'm all for outside-the-box thinking, and I think this is a good exercise, but in the long run, we may be better off with something kinda between a modern ergonomic keyboard and this radical design. Hopefully with a trackball or something in the middle too, because having a mouse that requires taking hands off the keys is a terrible productivity killer. Despite the somewhat small keys, I have never been more productive than on an old thinkpad I once used with the little thing that resembles an erect nipple in the center of the keyboard. I could type and use the mouse without any delay between the two actions. As it stands I have one of those awful trackpads on my current laptop, but it still beats having a separate mouse for most purposes.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Microsoft's new keyboard kicks ass.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
And, as a bonus, this is who to learn to type fast as well. Three rules:
1. Don't look at your fingers.
2. Look at the screen, not your fingers.
3. DAMMIT DON'T LOOK AT YOUR FINGERS, LOOK AT THE SCREEN!!
Put a box over your hands if you have to, but DON'T LOOK AT YOUR FINGERS. In two weeks, you will be typing twice as fast as you do now.
Hell, here's another typing tip. I'm convinced this is how to eliminate wrist problems. The typing books always show the wrists turned, and then the hands being perpendicular to the keys. Don't do this. Instead, hold your hands the way you would on a "natural" keyboard where it's split. In other words, keep your wrists totally straight with your hands at about a 30 degree angle to the keys. You can type just as fast, and I'll bet you'll have far fewer carpel tunnel problems. At least, I've never had them and I've been typing really fast for 20 years (on regular keyboards). Your mileage may vary, but it seems like it makes sense.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.