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Spherical Keyboards?
Jesse Middleton asks: "I was wondering if anyone knew of an ergonomic keyboard that is a ball shape? Someone told me about it, but I can't seem to find it. I would really be interested in it. In otherwords, it is shaped like a ball and you sit it on your desk and elevate your hands and type sideways. Any help would be appreciated!"
It seems to my that your arms would get very tired if you used one of these for a long time, considering there is essentially nothing to rest your arms upon. Holding arms in the air for a few hours while manipulating fingers at >60WPM would get very old very fast.
Man, I havn't had my tentacles on a shperical keyboard since Randall Carter was alive!
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The requirement of this keyboard is that it be shaped like...a...ball?
Well guys, you asked for an Ask Slashdot that couldn't be solved by a google.com search. Be careful what you wish for...
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
This?
/.
Not spherical, but you type sideways.
How about this rather unique solution? No tired arms here!
=Smidge=
Knowledge Adventure presents a whole new concept to the Baby Software world with JumpStart Baby with Baby Ball. The ball is big and sits on the desk in front of your child. Rather than clicking a mouse or striking a key on the keyboard baby pushes down on the oversized ball and gets the same effect.
I had this image in my mind of my boss walking into my office, while I'm not just posting to Slashdot, but doing it moving a Teddy bear around by pressing on this big baby ball on my desk with a big, stupid smile on my face. It must be a good thing, after all a happy worker is a productive worker. Just think of my productivity increase as I make the bear run around the screen pecking out C code. Go Teddy go!
what I saw on ebay
spherical keyboard: current bid $1200
Seller: lekan abiola
Location: Nigeria
My boss has been telling me to get on the ball for awhile now...
Whoever said this one was gonna be a hard one to google away was right.
However, you might try http://www.keyalt.com/kkeybrdp.htm for a fairly complete selection of ergonomic keyboards and related hardware.
You could also check out the Keyboard Google Directory Entry.
how about the orb from Woody Allens "Sleeper" ?
I did find a link to an old ball shaped typewriter(from a google link). While there doesn't seem to be a currently available product, this idea and one of those flexible rubber keyboards might be a good starting point.
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Before I start, I'm not sure you want a true sphere. It seems that such a design would make you move your fingers a very large distance to hit the proper key, and when pushing down, would get a narrow hole, easy to accidently push another key. This would also necessitate large gaps between keys, or else the keys would ram into each other when pressed (unless flexible keys or some wildly different approach was taken).
:-) That being said, lets see what I can do for you.
It seems like a better idea would be making the *interior* of the ball be the keyboard, have a hole for your hands, and possibly make the thing transparent. It'd minimize hand movement -- your hands stay in one place, and the keyboard spreads out from that point. Hell, heat the sphere and you can avoid those cold "typing fingers" in the winter.
First, you could use this, this, or this slid at such an angle that the keyboard approximates the sides of a sphere.
Second, you could use one of the many keyboards that look like this and wrap it around a spherical object.
Third, if you want something with serious hack value, modify a idea like this to work from the angle needed to be typing on a curved surface.
May we never see th
...a Mosix cluster of these?
Someone told me about it, but I can't seem to find it. I would really be interested in it.
Is this "someone" a reliable person? Have you seen a picture of it? Does this "someone" have others who can back up his claim?
Needless to say, if no one here on slashdot says they've heard of such a thing I think chances are pretty good that it doesn't exist.
GMDwatch this
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
Offtopic: The first link goes to Bill Buxton's web site. He's the chief scientist for Alias|Wavefront. Might be some interesting reading there if you're into 3D.
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Your dog starts bugging you, so you pick up his toy ball and throw it. "Fetch!"
Then you turn back to your computer... To find his pink toy ball sitting on the desk, and realize you've just thrown him your keyboard.
maybe it was a spherical mouse that just had a whole bunch of buttons... i can imagine that being much more plausible.
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~j
http://www.ergocube.com/pckeyboards.html
Lord of the Squirrels, Ambassador to the Moles, Minister of Rodential Information
The ball would have keys on the bottom; basically qwerty but looking from above, Q and T are switched, P and Y etc as hands are now facing up. This is the position one holds a speherical object. Reaching all keys is achieved by pivoting the wrists on the flat plane, another natural move. Ball would be quite large.
http://www.worklink.net/products/kinesis.html
I don't know about the ball shaped keyboard you are looking for, but in my personal experience the best keyboard in the world is the Kinesis Contour.
It has depth setup keys (indented in a Sphere shape), non-angled keypaths, hardware based key-mappings, better placement of important keys, easy way to flip access to number keys with you right hand, and an array of other features.
It takes about two weeks to get used to it (with real practice), but once you get used to it, you will ensure one is always with you. It totally elminates pain from typing and makes it enjoyable once again for even people that have had bad wrist pain.
Somewhat expensive, but well worth it:
http://www.comfortkeyboard.com
It's extraordinarilly configurable and I think you can get it to a state close to what you'd expect of a spherical keyboard.
I have mine with left and right halves widely separated, tented at very steep angles (about 80-degrees), with a kensington track ball sitting in the middle. The keyboard firmware isn't perfect, but works well enough. The trackball stands up to all manner of neglect and abuse.
I've also found it handy to mount a couple of button boxes around the keyboard (I have around 200 keys in easy reach -- roughly half bound to my favorite emacs commands) but my button box manufacturer has been a twit and their firmware is annoyingly flakey, so I don't have a specific recommendation here.