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Pyramid Shaped Keyboard
Lordkolya wrote in to tell us about a pyramid shaped keyboard. It's supposed to be ergonomic, but it sure is ugly. I still need to try one of the Kinesis keyboards out. It's time for me to change keyboards again. I dunno if I can learn a new chording keyboard. I've tried a few one handed boards and had bad luck. Maybe I'm not destined to learn any more chords then E-A-D.
When he demonstrated the orginal computer mouse, Doug Engelbart used a one handed chorded keyboard for his left hand at the same time. The system that they developed allowed users to type all characters using just the chords on the left hand, but they still had a normal keyboard... Why? Because the standard keyboard was pretty efficient. So, what did they use the chorded keyboard for? Functions. Copy, paste, print, etc were all associated with chord combinations. This way, you move your hands away from the keyboard to use the mouse and chord when you want to do functional stuff. But, when you're typing you put both hands on the keyboard and pound away.
The learning curve for a two-handed chorded keyboard is sort of long, but not rediculous. Learning a new layout (e.g., Dvorak) on a standard keyboard takes about 20 hours (e.g., 1 hour a day every weekday for a month). Chording is a learned skill, which can be acquired relatively quickly. I'm guessing it's faster if you have piano skills...
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On a normal keyboard, I usually leave one hand on the keyboard at all times when using the mouse. This hand can hit all the modifier keys(control, option, commands, shift - on a Mac), for when pressing those keys is necessary in what you're doing with the mouse.
With this keyboard it's designed so the modifier keys are split between both hands. So when your right hand goes to the mouse, it becomes difficult to hit the modifier keys with the left.
Also, say what you want about flat keyboards, but being able to rest your hands on the desk or wrist pad is nice. Do you really want to be holding your arms up in the air for hours on end while typing?
"Fundamentally, it is a pyramidal design with two edges rounded to accommodate and orientate the palms of the user's hands."
WTF do people have to make up words like "orientate" when perfectly servicable words (like "orient") already exist?
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The first question that arises is how one can duplicate 101 keys that are on today's computer keyboards with the 24 finger key locations (3-way for 4 fingers of each hand) on the ISOS keyboard . The answer is you don't want to.
First time I saw that I thought they were going to get rid of lesser used characters completely... But then I realized they probably would have had to say it like this:
The irst uestion that arises is ho one can dulicate 101 keys that are on todas comuter keboards with the 24 inger ke locations (3-way or 4 ingers o each hand) on the ISOS keboard. The answer is ou dont ant to.
Wheeeee
...tip sets, like those found in William Gibson novels. As long as we're switching to a different way of talking to our boxes, why not make it something that's a lot more portable and flexible? Yeah, the new interface would be a bit of bitch to learn (now just what gesture do I do for 'q'?), but I think that you could do a lot with a system like this.
For example, the keyboard and the mouse could become the same unit. This would probably be the easiest part of the new interface to learn; after all, how hard is it to point? Even if it was more complicated than that I would be happy to figure it out if it would keep me from having to do that annoying keyboard-mouse-keyboard switch that some programs require.
As for the learning problem in general, we already have keyboarding classes. They'd just have to start teaching the new tech (tip sets) over the old (keyboards). The new generation would laugh at the old until we and our ridiculous habits died out and then keyboarding would join the ranks of punch cards and paper terminals.
Why do I think that tip-sets would be better than your trusty keyboard? Well, what I'm thinking of is gaming. You can go from one game to another and (usually) not have to think about what button does what. Somehow the concept of "My guy needs to jump now." goes straight from your mind to your hands, without passing through any state of "So what button is jump?". I would think that a well-engineered gesture-system would be the same thing. The letters that you wish to enter would go straight from mind to hands. Not that the keyboard doesn't do the same thing, but if your hands are shifted over a bit you'll get all screwed up, whereas the tip-sets are wherever your hands are. You could "type" with your hands lying by your sides or behind your head or whatever. You could also control the mouse pointer from this position, though who knows: maybe tip-sets would bring about an interface that didn't involve a pointer. (Nah.) Also, it would bring us one step closer to a VR environment, something that I believe has a certain amount of potential; especially given the graphics power of today's computers.
Okay, I'm beginning to ramble but the bottom line is that tip-sets are cool and probably more efficient and ergonomic than keyboards and mice.
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I build model citizens.
That is such rubbish. Not only are there six characters in 'QWERTY', but the original layout was not meant to slow down the typist, but to reduce the chance that two letters next to each other in a word would require that two keys next to each other on the keyboard (as viewed from the 'piano keys with the letters raised on them's point of view) be struck, thus increasing the chance of a jam.
So, in fact, the querty layout was designed to speed up typing, by requiring less of an artificial pause between keystrokes.
I've got a Kinesis Contoured 'board at work now, but I'm going to return it.
First, the good: Learning the new key positions wasn't very difficult. They're pretty natural, and the hand position is very nice. Less stress than a standard 'board. The keys themselves are mechanical, not membrane, and low-pressure. Very nice feel, very positive contact, although not much of a click. There's an audible click that you can toggle.
On the bad side, the 'board is almost useless except for typing characters. The control (shift, alt, etc) keys are in difficult positions. A design goal of the 'board, they tell me, was to make key combos like 'CTRL-SHIFT-S' easier to hit with two hands. This may be better for your hands, but at high speed it's very very hard to coordinate two hands to nail a combo like this (and I play guitar, so I know a little about coordinating hand movements).
There's no numeric keypad, but there is another 'layer' that can be toggled with a function key or foot switch. Kind of a pain. The 'board's programmable, if you spring $50 for the extra chip (with that and the footswitch, you're easily over $300), and this helps a little, but not enough.
Bottom line for me: the keys feel beautiful and typing characters is very easy, but the 'board's nearly useless for anything else. It's hard to hit function keys and key combos, hard to use with one hand while keeping a hand on the mouse - in other words, nearly half of what I do. Too bad.
BUT if you do nothing but type all day, buy this board and never let it out of your sight. Your life will improve dramatically. If I could afford to have 2 'boards, this would be one of them.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
man, that's pointy. gone now are the days when we could bash our heads into our keyboards in frustration when 'hello world' didn't compile right.
With this simple pyramid keyboard scheme, you can type not twice as fast, not ten times as fast, but MORE THAN ONE MILLION TIMES as fast as you do now. Do you know what 1 million score -1 Slashdot posts look like? It's amazing!
How does it work? For every key that you press, you will get back DOUBLE THAT NUMBER of AOL "Me too!" posts, greatly expanding your word count by including numerous un-edited follow-ups WITHOUT YOU HAVING TO LIFT A FINGER!
Simply copy this post to 10 of your closest friends, and ask them to follow you up on Slashdot, quoting your post in total and asking them to do the same to their ten closest friends...
(you get the idea)
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
The truth isn't hard to see under the FUD: the QWERTY layout was designed to speed typists on the original machine by reducing the frequency of jams. It did this at some cost (of the most frequently used keys, ETAION, only one (A) is on the home row, and that under the left pinky, arguably the weakest finger). It was a reasonable tradeoff at the time but became a standard, with all the attendent entrenched opposition to change. This is where the FUD starts to come in. Dvorak et al overstated the advantages of their alternatives, and this gave the established manufacturers enough room to "debunk" their claims, launching hundred years of bickering.
-- MarkusQ
Ever thought about that most software was designed for the qwerty-layout? (think about some emacs shortcuts...)
So switching to another layout comes with a double effort: you have to learn new letter positions (for typing) and even more annoying the key-combos (CTRL-C, CTRL-A, CTRL-E...) aren't where they feel right.