Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Spherical Keyboards?

Posted by Cliff on from the balls-with-buttons dept.

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!"

7 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Tired arms... by therealmoose · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Tired arms... by Isosonys · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not only your arms. So with a round keyboard I dont have to worrie about the cat on it. But what happens when the cat finds out the keyboard can roll around?

  2. Lemme get this straight... by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 5, Funny
    ...you want a keyboard.

    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.
  3. This? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    This?

    Not spherical, but you type sideways. /.

  4. How about by Smidge204 · · Score: 5, Funny

    How about this rather unique solution? No tired arms here!

    =Smidge=

  5. Baby Ball Solution by Optical+Voodoo+Man · · Score: 5, Funny
    I found this solution that I thought was great. Even if it didn't have keys per say, the description said:

    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!

  6. I can come close by 0x0d0a · · Score: 5, Informative

    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).

    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. :-) That being said, lets see what I can do for you.

    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