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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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