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(Nearly) Zero-Force Keyboard
ahertz writes: "Just ran across another nifty keyboard, the FingerBoard from FingerWorks. It's like a giant touchpad (although the technology is a bit different), so you can type with virtually zero force. It also works as a mouse, and lets you perform guesture based commands. Would something like this be good for someone with RSI?" To me, this looks like the most unresponsive, most annoying possible keyboard, even if I'm a QUERTY typist rather than a shuffle-weird-disc-items typist, and trackpads always seem wibbly to me.
Er, QUERTY, eh? Didn't you notice that you weren't using the keys at the top-left of your keyboard?
- Boxed with a device that physically proxies between the port on your motherboard and the actual keyboard. This piece of hardware would remap all keyboard requests to dvorak, or perhaps other key mappings.
- Tactile keys that don't resist key presses worth a damn, they just fall under the lightest touch and go click
- A hardware option to override BIOS key repeating and have rapid fire like the old NES Advantage controller on the Nintendo - you hold down one button, and the system registers massive repeats. I would use this to up my key repeat rate from 30 to an inane number around 200. Rare few people might remember the TSR Hyperkey for DOS that had this same effect.
- Macro recording and playback.
- There are no damn windows keys, ever. Logitech bonus keys are out, too.
- Function keys on the left, perhaps doubled with the ones on the top.
- Bundled with one of those keyboard skins, because you can never buy any that fit your keyboard perfectly.
- Scroll lock, num lock and caps lock rights in the upper right hand corner, so light flashing programs don't act stupi.
- Big backwards 'L' shaped enter key.
- Long wire
- Phat plastic design that allows you to drum on the thing below the spacebar and have it sound like a wicked snare drum. I hate keyboards that are too solid sounding.
- Can withstand a few punches.
Given a few different circumstances, I may have gone into producing such a device years ago.\\\ SLUDGE
I have said for years that Microsoft should just give up the software game and stick to what they do best - make computer input hardware.
I never buy anything but Microsoft natural keyboards and the MS Intellimouse.
I've had one of their Sidewinder joysticks too and it was great. I've got big hands, and most mice just don't fit right - the intellimouse feels like it has been made just for me.
Pity they made the latest natural keyboards smaller and bunched up the arrow keys - if you can lay your hands on old stock of the first generation MS split-key sprawlers, buy it.
An RSI-free keyboard would have to take the opposite tactic from the 'no force' approach. Bring back the Big Iron. No one ever got RSI from an old Royal manual typewriter.
**>>BELCH
hear hear.
My IBM PC/XT has a keyboard that weighs 12kgs (26 pounds), and has fantasic feel. If only it would work on newer PCs... apparently the 'PC-compatible' world is not actually compatible with the original PC anymore.
The XT also has tank-like engineering throughout compared to newer machines. You get the impression that when IBM told the guys at Boca Raton to do it cheap, they didn't really get it.
According to some correspondence I had this weekend, the IBM Model M is what to look for, although I'm not sure where - EBay I guess. Nearest I've gotten brandnew is the IBM 42H1292 from http://www.pckeyboards.com/
--
the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
Apparently the newer ones (1992-94) have some sort of gutter/drain arrangement to stop exactly that. See the first link I posted for more on that...
:) Make sure it dries properly though - I guess with all that steel, rust would be an issue.
If you've written it off anyway, try the dishwasher - it rescued one of my MS Natural Keyboards that way, although it did change colour a bit
--
the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
'lo Stuii :)
No - my brain was broken. It's 5.5 lbs (== 2.4 kg). Divide, not multiply, innit?
Anyway, the point was, it's damn heavy. You could use it self-defence and then plug it back in and use it with a quick wipe down.
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the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
Here is where you can buy real keyboards
www.pckeyboard.com
They bought the original IBM PC keyboard design/patents, and manufacture leaf-spring keyboards.
We're talking "wing o' death" keyboards. And, as a bonus, they've redesigned the wing o' death and come up with some *great* new designs that are smaller and perhaps even better.
Check 'em out!
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Yeah, I'd agree with this. I'm a programmer, so although I can do 80-90wpm with no errors, I rarely need to sustain it - type for a couple of minutes, think for a couple of minutes, repeat.
But I have found that my unorthodox typing style means I can go long long periods of time (60 hours once) with few breaks and not get wrist/finger strain.
I tend to leave my wrists (and usually my left forearm) flat on the desk and let my fingers curve up to the keys. While not typing I tend to rest my fingers on the keys lightly (this helps keep position and rests my hands) and I can keep up a pretty decent drum beat with my thumbs on the bottom of the keyboard below the space bar.
I tend to avoid using the mouse, but I take the same approach - wrist resting on the table, minimal hand movements and letting my fingers do the work.
I've tried using keyboard rests (those spongy things you put between you and your keyboard) and they really kill my wrists - because I am having to hold my forearms and wrists above the desk height there's much more strain on my arms, and pressing keys requires an intentional downwards push, rather than my usual approach of letting them just rest more heavily than normal on the keys.
So yeah, I agree, this new keyboard sounds like an RSI nightmare - keeping your fingers hovering is immensely more expensive (physically) than being able to relax and rest on the keys.
~Cederic
Timothy writes:
> [...]and trackpads always seem wibbly to me.
"I saw A.I. last weekend, and I thought it was simply shwark. A total tobble-fest."
"The Diablo II expansion set is perfy, and certainly nittie-ho, but is it too moibly?"
"The Jeep Liberty is pure thrangal to drive -- but boy does it look like umgah!"
The is something charming about reviews with made-up words. Just not informative. Sort of like reading A Clockwork Orange without realizing that there is a glossary in the back.
So for /. editors, the paperclip will say "You do not seem to use the apostrophe, should I show it in the future?" :)l
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
That's just so you can hit BACKSPACE and DELETE with the fifth finger of your right hand. That way, all those high-school typing classes weren't a waste of tuition.
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--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
You need to watch Next Generation some more. On the bridge and in engineering, they're ALWAYS typing fast onto their touch screens.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
As a touch-typist looking for a nice long-travel clickety-clack USB board, this looks abysmal. I can't see how the claimed RSI benefits will come about - try "typing" on your desktop (real, not virtual) for a bit to see what I mean.
-- open source? sounds like the real book --
I think it may have been in Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two. Something was mentioned about even in the world of touchscreens and pads, real buttons and switches were still used for critical things like engine activation. There is something to be said for the satisfying click of a good old-fashioned button.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
Looking at the image, I can't imagine why I would type with my hands crossed.
The picture shows an image of a right hand on the left hand side of the keyboard.
A solid flat surface keyboard -- it's Dillinger's keyboard from Tron! w00T!
"You shouldn't have come back, Flynn"
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Give me a nice, clicky keyboard any day. I have a Focus 2001 at home, and I put in a bid on eBay for an IBM Type M...that one's coming to work when it arrives.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
They've got several Model Ms available. I just snagged one a few hours ago; with shipping, it should still be under $20, which is less than you'd pay for a reasonably good keyboard most places (PC Club and similar places usually have some under-$10 keyboards, but I wouldn't want to type on one for an extended time...the one I have is plugged into the server in the coat closet.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Actually, Linus has trademarked Linux for purely defensive reasons. Indeed, before he did so, every couple of month or so, a "clever" businessman would register the Linux trademark in some backwater country, and attempt to extort money from various distribution makers. AFAIK, none of those extortion attempts succeeded (it would have been very easy to invalidate those bogus claims, if ever it went to court), but nonetheless this was a nuisance. In order to put a stop on those shenanigans, Linus eventually trademarked the Linux name himself.
TO7 is a bad example, because you could purchase it with a real mechanical keyboard (the same thing applied to other Thomson computers. I had a MO5) .
It was also the case for most old 8-bit computers. ZX80/ZX81/Spectrum also had a flat keyboard, but you could also buy a mechanical keyboard.
Flat keyboards are error-prone. You can easily type a key twice, or mix characters if you press two keys by error. But when they require a zero force (or a low force), they are relaxing for the wrist. And damn quiet.
-- Pure FTP server - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.
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Ok, well everyone here seems to be down on this technology but I think it would really be useful. People are complaining about the sensitivity but from what I understand it reads your hand position, not the points that you are touching. That means that your hand does not even have to touch the surface to make a gesture.
From the FAQ: Isn't the MultiTouch Surface just an oversize touchpad?It also goes on to say that after you start the gesture/keyboard input you can rest your hand on the surface. It is supposed to be smart enough to differenciate between gestures and resting (I'd like to see that!).
And I agree that it would be great for Macintosh users (layout/graphics operations).
BTW: Check here for details, including the price of $289 (which puts it in the ballpark of the Happy Hackers Keyboard).
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Later...
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
It amazes me that every time the word touchpad is mentioned we have dozens of people who tell us they hate them and can't get used to them.
We can write in machine code, we can give commentary on laws on countries we don't live in, we tell of how we beat 'the man' in his own game, and yet we can't use this little 2 inch square we call a touchpad.
I love my touchpad. It lets me do things you can't do with a mouse, even when you add 5 extra programmable buttons to it and several scrolly things. I also have a mouse connected to the same computer for tasks where the mouse is more suitable.
Now back to they keyboard. I can try to imagine that it would be OK for typing tasks and such, but when it comes to games, it's gotta hurt when you're hitting keys madly but find that you're drumming against a brick wall because there's no give...
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Say no to software patents.
* Big backwards 'L' shaped enter key .
Why? Having changed to a "Happy Hacking" keyboard (with a small enter key), I don't understand why anyone would want a big enter key. It's just a waste of space.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Just hope the keyboard doesn't piss out after a few months.
We should ask the guys of Microsoft what to do with this... They probably will dynamically change key so you have to look for them all the time! And finally some annoying paperclip will say: "you do not seem to use the 'e'. Should I show it in the future?" A nightmare!
... since contrary to pouplar belief, it is not the force of pressing keys which causes the problem. Your fingers are built to grab, press and hold things, so this kind of movement is seldomly a big problem.
In fact it's the strain of constantly having to hold your fingers up above a too-sensitive keyboard to keep yourself from unwantedly pressing keys that causes most of typing-related injuries. If you want a keyboard that helps your RSI problems, get one that needs MORE force, so you're able to rest your fingers on the keyboard, relaxing the muscles and tendons on the back of your hand and arm.
A keyboard with zero-pressure keys is likely to worsen the problem instead of helping it
yours,Cheetah
... the harder the keyboard, the better it is. Do you see pianist with RSI? No? Don't you wonder why? After all, they spend as much time playing we we do typing...
The problem is that our keyboards are too soft, not too hard!! And a pianist always chooses a hard keyboard. Our wrists, arms, hands are not supposed to be jiggling about, not using any strength. A hard keyboard improves your wrists, makes them less susceptible. This I know from experience.
Another thing which leads to RSI (which I read somewhere it's just a fabrication, and doesn't really exist?) is the position of the arms. Again, has every piano player has learned, the arm should be bent at a 90 degree angle.
So, as much as that keyboard is fun to use, I guess it's completely off-course as far as RSI is concerned...
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shana
- I like to have to exert force on keys - I can currently rest on the home keys or even brush past others without my cack-handedness appearing on screen.
- How on Earth would you touch type on this? I'm not the greatest touch typist (got bored with Mavis Beacon too easily), but I still like to be able to type about half of what I'm writing without staring at the keyboard.
- I've seen similar products that are too slow, or unresonsive (there was some stupid programmable game controller like this a few years back with interchangeable sheets for different games, that was horrible to use) - does this suffer any of these problems?
There's probably other potential problems, but even from a cursory examination it seems like a waste of cash. Thoughts/opinions?This is actually an urban myth, and a false one. QWERTY was developed with ergonomics and optimal typing speed in mind. It was also influenced by some mechanical restriction that are not anymore a problem, but that wasn't all. Unbiased studies have never shown QWERTY to be significantly slower (or faster) than alternative layouts.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
I must say that the direction keyboards has gone to, from the clickyclick '80s keyboard to the unusable cheap devices available now, could be one of the sources of RSI. After reading the documents on the zero-force keyboard, you'll see that one cannot hold their fingers on the keyboard while typing. It is however possible to bang all 10 fingers simultaniously on the keyboard to indicate a "rest".
:]
Such keyboards might be very interesting in places where it is necessery to keep dust and dirt away (like in kitchens), but as a working keyboard I think it misses the comfort of an "old" keyboard. I still think it's a step into the right direction however. Maybe time will learn. At least these keyboards look quite "startrek" like
This is a replacement signature.
It was called a ZX81.
Trust me, you fingers like tactile response. I always figured the Star Trek keyboards gave some sort of vibration or something back to the fingers. Think about it -- do you want your weapons control system NOT controlled by a button that you can feel push in?
I had one of these machines, and it had a touch-pad style keyboard. OMG it sucked. half he time you would brush across the wrong key. I ended up having to sell it and getting an Atari 800 with real keys.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
In my country we have a few ATMs with keyboards similar to these and although they might look cool and have few moving parts, they are just too sensitive, and as a result, people tend to mistype alot. I don't know about most people, but without the feel of the keys I'd have a hard time navigating a keyboard like that and would have to resort to hunt and peck. The horror! The horror!
I don't care how Star Treky people might think it is. It actually isn't. Everything in Star Trek is high res touchscreens with GUI-interfaces. People in Star Trek do not spend hours on end typing stuff in, they dictate to the computer, that's why they don't need traditional keyboards.
A penny for your thoughts.
A witty
lets you perform guesture based commands
Oh dear. If my laptop starts to understand some of the gestures I make to it, it would never talk to me again.
Wouldn't a zero-force keyboard result in random input to stdin?
Another problem would be that almost anything could trigger a keypress. If you thought the cat on the keyboard was bad, how about that annoying fly trying to get at the spilled Coke stain on your keyboard.
A keyboard that senses the heat from your finger may help, but these keyboards are annoying because they can sense any heat, not just your fingertips. So when you go to hit keys at the top of the keyboard (numbers, F-keys etc,) your palm can trigger the lower keys. Perhaps a minimal force/thermal combo-keyboard could address the issue.
I don't see what the big deal is. I don't mind the clickitty-clack of current keyboards. It gives me feedback when I am touch typing and not looking at the screen. If I had one of these keyboards, then I would have to set my computer up to beep at every keypress like those annoying computers in the movies.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
The real reason you find so many compuers with crummy cases/speakers/powersupplies/etc is due to the competiveness of the market and the stupidity of the buyers.
Face it, the average person who walks into CompUSA only understands 3 things: MHz, MB, GB. They don't know a Modem from a WinModem, a 400 Watt power supply from a 125 watt one, or a GeForce 2 Ultra from a Raedon. Unless you tell them how fast the processor is, how many MB of RAM and Video memory it has, or how many GB's the Hard drive is, they don't know how to compare the two. (Trust me on all of this, I unfortunatly worked computer retail sales and sold several computers to darling 12 year old sons of the Mother with the credit card.)
Computer makers realize this. They know that they can shave $30 off by putting in some lame WinModem, save $50 and even LOOK BETTER by puting in a 16MB S3 instead of a 8MB TNT2, save more by putting in a minimal power supply, and even save the phucking 30 cents a substandard case gives them. And then they use all that savings to price themselves $50-100 less than the computer next to them. That is how they generate sales.
The real kicker? They get away with it. Why? Because anyone who knows enough about computers to even understand the difference between a WinModem and a Modem is out building thier own computer.
--Demonspawn
who didn't wash its hand and left a skin-oil trace on those keyboards?
I'm a student at the University of Delaware EECE department, where the people who design and make the Fingerworks keyboard come from. I've used one for a short while at an IEEE meeting that was held here on campus where the technology was demonstrated, and I must say that, for the short time that I used it, the Fingerworks keyboard was very difficult to type on quickly.
However, one of the men who invented the thing (Dr. Wayne Westerman, Fingerworks CTO), demonstrated to the audience that it's quite possible, with practice, to type at around 50-60 WPM on the things without your fingers getting in the way of each other. He did say that it would be difficult or impossible for most people to reach the level of typing speed of a regular keyboard, but also demonstrated that the Fingerworks technology has several uses in areas where typing speed doesn't account for everything.
The really slick advantage of the Fingerworks technology is that your typing surface can also act as your pointing device, as well as a sort of low resolution graphics tablet. Also, since there are no physical keys, if you could hack the keyboard layout or use their layout design tools, you could make your own key layout that would have keys in non-traditional positions, or as many keys as you want... The keyboard's big enough to have space for about twice of a normal keyboard's keys, if you wanted to get rid of the (rather important) wrist rest area.
The other big deal with this technology is the gesture-based input that Fingerworks has come up with. I've seen it in action, and it's quite impressive. Westerman, at his demo, was scrolling around a document with his left hand, zooming with his right hand, and editing text (cut and paste) with a flicking gesture of his fingers. He made text move around the page faster than most people I've seen doing text editing work. I was quite impressed.
Also, I spoke with him afterwards and he noted that Fingerworks keyboard would be ideal for miniaturized laptops... The technology has the capability to become as thin as a sheet of paper, and space need not be wasted on an extra trackpad or trackball. It would allow thinner machines that have larger effective keyboards relative to their case size.
Don't get me wrong, I think I'd hate to use one myself, but the secretaries in our department use them all day long, and they work very well with them... The keyboard reduce RSI effects dramatically, and they speed up everything but sheer typing speed that a word processor needs to do.
The second most holy is the Northgate Omni series. They even have models with the control key to the left of the A key. I think that's their "Jerry Pournelle" model. (JP is well known as a keyboard bigot^Wconniseur from his Byte magazine columns.)
And thanks for the Model M site link.
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"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I have used Thomson TO7's at school a long, long time ago. Keys were flat but did require a non-zero force, and in fact you had to push them madly to type a character...
OTOH, that zero-force keyboard could be a step in the direction of movement-activated controls in the HHGG, where you just wave at them to activate them, with all the annoying side-effects you can imagine.
A keyboard knows the difference between a keypress and a tap.
This thing might, but it would take learning a whole new set of muscle and pressure memory translations.
The Gesture and mouse-in-place things might save a little elbow grease, but the non-giving surface and variable pressures would result in callused fingers.
And carpal tunnel isn't caused by keystroke, it's caused by bad elbow-wrist-hand-finger alignment, and heredity (and greed).
YMMV.
I just want one of the ultra-quiet keyboards they faked in GATTACA, instead of this $2.99 parts-and-labor[*], $13.99 retail thing I've got here at work.
--Blair
* - maybe less; the other day at Fry's, I saw a pile of boxed keyboards in the keyboard section with $2.99 stickers on them. It wasn't a special price. It was the price. You couldn't tell them from this one without some MTTF testing.
He was the greatest mind ever to have developed a keyboard layout. Far greater than that wannabe Dvorak.
Any hack can study character frequency and place the keys to minimize finger travel (hint: layouts based on past usage are optimized for use in the past!), but it takes a real genius to create a design that lets you spell "typeuriter" using only the top row.
However, there is a better keyboard design, which promises to reduce instruction time to a fraction of current cost by the use of a surpassingly elegant mnemonic device:
\Mr.Jock:TV"
quizPhD,bags
([few])lynx?
And who created this great innovation?
It was found among the lost notes of none other than the great Jock Querty! He invents better dead than Dvorak did alive!
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"It's not about speed, it's about comfort" - I myself did not change to dvorak (I haven't found a layout with german umlauts yet), but the folks I know who switched to dvorak told me that it felt much more comfortable. I don't know if it'd make sense for me - all the studies assume that your fingers rest on the middle row, but I keep my fingers always about 1 cm above the keyboard.
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I couldn't use something like this. I am a very fast typist. I need the tactile feel of the keys to know when I have successfully made a keystroke. My keyrate takes a nose dive when I use a keyboard that has a different pressure threshhold than the one that I am currently typing on.
How about the rest of you?
-You can cry, but you'll still die. There'll be no tears in the end.
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/
I'm just getting used to this keyboard but so far I really like it. Ctrl and Alt are kind of awkwardly positioned, so if you're going to use Emacs you really want pedals.
This FingerBoard looks really cool, I'd love to try it. I have RSI kind of problems myself, and for me, keyboards with lighter touch are definately nicer on my hands and arms. Hmm... gesture recognition... light keys... i'd LOVE to have one of these. I want one now!