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Keyboard Layouts for the 21st Century?
jules asks: "Trying to do some programming on an iBook the other day brought to my attention the fact that despite the constant improvements to the design of computer hardware and software, the keyboards we use are still a throwback to the early 1980s. I mean - my Mac doesn't have room for page up/down or home/end keys, but it devotes a whole key to a sort of double-S shape that I will never press. And my PC keyboards all waste plastic on a backwards-apostrophe key and a scroll-lock (+ LED!), while functions that you use all the time, such as switching between windows, cut/copy/paste, back/forwards, undo/redo etc, all have to double-up with other keys.. Have any organizations actually tried to re-invent the keyboard recently? (..not counting the manufacturers who stick a few 'multimedia' keys along the top for consumer PCs). Would this be doomed to failure because of the tens of thousands of legacy apps that expect things to be the way they are? What sort of keys would you include in your fantasy keyboard layout?" It's not just the keys on your keyboard that are important, it's also how you arrange them. What kind of keyboard arrangements might we see in the future?
My super fast dvorak skills
Suck it qwerty (queer-ty) lovers.
Must not be a *nix user if he has no use for the tilde key!
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
I think what I would like to see is a keyboard wich changes contextually. Something like a screen with different kind of keys in differents applications. Of course there would still be some always there keys.
ctrl alt and delete. Sorry, it had to be done.
You never use the back tick? How's Microsoft Windows treating you?
yes, but where do you buy these things?
:)
i tried to rearrange my qwerty keyboard, and ended up finding that the keys on row x are only meant for row x, and won't work on row x+1...!
i did manage to break my space bar too
so, my question is: if i have a keyboard that doesn't lend itsself to mod'ing, where can i find one of those fancy keyboards?
One key,
that turns the microphone I use for voice pattern recognition, login, and entering commands in a
simple, easy to use voice command structure. Maybe
some sort of bastard child of the keyboard built
for one hand specifically for the types of games
that benefit from a bunch of extra programmable
keys.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
To start press any key. Where's the any key?
will be nonexistent. comnputers will operate by voice control and touchscreen technology.
no big sig
Of course, we will always have to balance between supporting legacy apps and the increased productivity of innovation. If you want to see changes put into effect, though, put your money where your mouth is when you next see a keyboard layout that really cries out to you. Then post a review to slashdot.. ;-) Geeks have a lot of buying power collectively.
----
That which does not kill me makes me stronger;
That which does kill me I'll deal with when I respawn.
Throwback to the 80's!? Rows of buttons and blinking lights just seem so 40's!!
Seems to me like the most promising development for command-oriented input like the kind that the poster mentioned are the recent batch of gesture-based devices like this one.
And that is the Happy Hacking Keyboard designed explicitly for RMS. If you aren't using it you aren't hacking.
What 'double-s shape' is this? Can you provide some sort of picture?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I xmodmap useless keys to more linux friendly functions. E.G. the `windows' key is mapped to next workspace.
Oh damn. I've been draeming about this for a few months now.
;-)
I want a keyb that has pry-out keys which each contain a resistor/whatever to mark what they are.
Then I can remap my keyb without confusing my coworkers (well, some of them) and I don't have to wonder which mapping is in effect. Also I want to be able to "break" teh numpad off and move it to the left side and back, or even leave it totally seperate.
And I want a pony.
Alternatively, an LCD touchscreen wouldn't be half bad.
Hey IBM, if you make either of these things can you please give me a big fat check? Or at least a demo unit? You b'stards seem to make things I think of whether I keep the idea to myself or not... and god knows that simply thinking of an idea on your own proves that you own it.
okay i luv you buh bye
~the alternating coward
We need a pr0n key that logs into the set p2p network and downloads all the latest pr0n
Banaaaana!
Anybody care to explain the purpose (if any) for the Sys Req button (shared by Print Screen). My impression of it is that it may have had some use way back in the day before my time, but can't think of any purpose today.
$cat
Realize that the PC revolution was fueled by worprocessing and spreadsheet software, which both lend themselves to keyboard/keypad input devices. At some point -- aren't we living in the future yet? -- the input devices must make an evolutionary leap. If you look in the video editing and medical imaging field, the input devices reflect the nature of how the work is done (dials, sliders, toggle buttons). A fictional example of one possibility is the type of 3d input device used in Minority Report. We still are mostly creatures of the keyboard (damn blogs!), but at some point, the next killer app may bring about the emergence of a better input device. Oh yeah, and voice recognition might not suck so much someday ;-)
-duck
I borrow an ibook from work every now and then and it's frustrating to have the fn (function) key be the bottom left most key where on my Sun and PC keyboard it's Control. I've made many a Vim error due to it, good thing there's undo.:w
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
You should be able to set up your own keyboard map and touch type (or draw on your keyboard). It isn't the most elegant method, but you can really optimise your keyboard usage. I personally like the current setup (on standard PCs, don't get me started with mac keyboards), everything is right where it needs to be for speedy use. I wouldn't dream of using anything else, especially since I touch typed this comment.
Yet another signature that refers to itself. The irony and humor is dead.
cmd-` is a common shortcut in apps to cycle windows (standard behavior in Cocoa, I think).
;).
As for keyboards of the future, there won't be any. People will simply "plug in" using a more direct neural interface
BG
The new MS Office Keyboard from Micrsoft not only includes multimedia and office launching buttons above the function keys but also buttons to the left of the standard buttons dedicated to cut, copy, past, backwards, and forwards. Aside from Undo/redo that accounts for the extra functions you wanted. It even includes an extra large scroll wheel.
As a software developer, my keystroke volume is not really huge, and I end up using the mouse very frequently.
Therefore for many months I have been on the mailing list, waiting for the "coming soon" X2 version of the half-keyboard.
http://halfkeyboard.com/products/hkbx2info.html
The core principle - I WANT to be able to do the alphabet, the underscore etc, and the cut/copy/paste with my left hand only. This would produce so much "consumer surplus", that I think folks might then switch. ANY new keyboard design should incorporate this general principle, even though the details might not be a-la-Matias.
You could always just remap some of those useless keys to do something else.
There's only one company that universally changed the keyboard for virtually all PCs: Microsoft.
Sorry to say it, but only a monopoly could do that. If logitech made keyboards with extra keys, and bioses/oses didn't support the extra keys, it'll die quick. Plus, my special keys are better then your special keys, so in the end we get nothing. Sun is the other example, but they also have a monopoly (on Sun boxes).
boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse
I mean come on! Changing the keyboards now would be like changing all the highways in america from the width they are now to half as wide to accomidate smaller, faster (albeit narrower) cars!
But in all seriousness, everything I need to do in programming and even quite a lot of word processing (I was using vi for corporate memos until about 1999 when I was forced to use a Word compatible program) I can do without my fingers leaving their home positions on the keyboards. We don't need better keyboards -- or better mice for that matter. What we really need are better applications that either dynamically adapt to the condition at the time, or take better advantage of the hardware that we've got.
The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. -- Calvin & Hobbes
I think this would be the perfect addition
The primary addition to the keyboard Layout
Any takers??
And most of all, all keyboards need an analog volume changer. With IBooks, you can change the volume using some function keys... but there needs a little spinny thing to change the audio (like what is in most refrigerator's to change the temp).
And lastly, I can't seem to find that double-S thing on my IBook?
--sex
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
all waste plastic on a backwards-apostrophe key
But how will we use TeX without it??!
---
As far as things go, I'm sure the average user has more use for a multimedia-specifc keys or internet-specific keys (quick access to their CD/MP3 player, or Internet Explorer) than do programmers.
When is the last time you saw your mother, et al, use the curley bracket "{". What about the pipe "|". Or the carat "^".
I know I could not live without them, but most people could easily give them up.
Have any of you programmers actually used Dvorak or Maltron keyboards. I have. I can still type on either one, but programming on one sucks! The curly bracket is one of my most used keys and it's totally not in the right place for *me*. Anything optimized for writing english text is going to be horrible for any other symbol system.
Maybe we will get custom keyboards for different sections of the population before too long.
The reason that keyboards haven't changed much is because they don't need it. If something is (almost) as good as it's going to get, why jerk around and try to make it better?
So what do I think is the best keyboard I've used and wouldn't bother trying to improve it? I've used everything from a VIC-20, TRS-80 keyboard, to those old IBM electronic typewriters, to a Fujitsu 4725 PS/2.
The Fujitsu cost me $70(CDN) and I swear it's the best keyboard I could've purchased. Not because it's the good ol' QWERTY layout with a nice big backslash right below the backspace (where it DAMN WELL belongs,) and not because it's the same layout that everyone's been using for decades (and is most comfortable with and thus fastest with,) and not because it's so indestructible it'd probably work well as a bludgeoning weapon in case I were ever attacked in my room:
No, not for all that. What makes this keyboard better than any other I've so far used is that this Fujitsu has *perfect* key action. It's clicky--but soft enough that it just *begs* you to type as fast as you can. It can take all the pounding you can dish out, and the tactile and soft audible feedback make it a real pleasure to work with.
Thank you Fujitsu, for making REAL keyboards!
I haven't looked into it since I have heard why the keys are in the order that they are, but I have heard before that in the beginning of typewriters keyboards were in alphabetical order and the keys would jam, so they did this to slow people down. If this is true would going back to an alphabetical order help us improve in speed.
Personally, I feel that allocating seperate/special keys for specific commands will simply make keyboards clunkier and more obtrusive. ctrl + c and crtl + v works fine for me, i don't have to move my hands very far to perform these tasks. Unless keyboard's undergo some sort of radical changes, which is unlikely due to the fact that everyone has been trained on qwerty style keyboards, additional keys will be tacked on in places that are not convieniently reached by the hands. Two and three key combo's improve efficiency, not hinder it.
> I mean - my Mac doesn't have room for page up/down or home/end keys,
> but it devotes a whole key to a sort of double-S shape that I will never press.
That would be the paragraph sign. It's used in law.
I'm American, and only fluent in English, but I travel a bit, and end up using foreign keyboards for months at a time. I'm rather irritated by how these are all set up. For example, why make two keys (one for the character and one for its accented form), when a combination would be much more space efficient (and nicely compatible for a few different languages)? For a lot of the non-alphanumeric characters, foreign keyboards require the use of the 'Alt Gr' key.
With the migration to larger character sets/encodings (UTF8, UTF16, various Unicode schemes), keyboards should be better designed to access all the characters.
I happen to be using a French keyboard as I type this, and it's not even properly set up, so the mappings from keys into the character set is a big mess, and I need to do some trial and error to find the right keys.
Anyone ever try one of those "chord boards" where you only have 5 or so keys, on each of two hand held devices, and you type by pressing the keys in the right combinations? Those seem nice for mobile devices (I hate typing on laptops and cell phones).
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
I'd love to see a holographic keyboard, where we can just move our fingers in the air, and the motions would be scanned in by a motion detector or something.
Although, we'd probably have voice recognition (or mind-reading!) before that ever came to fruition....
that makes things go bang.
The poster, in my opinion, makes painfully stupid arguments. His argument basically comes down to, "I'm not using it, so NO ONE is using it; It's useless to me, so get rid of it." Maybe he has no use for a tilde key, but a lot of us do. And maybe he has no use for a Scroll Lock and wants something else, but some of us certainly have uses for it and don't mind having Undo set to Ctrl + Something.
However, this gave me an idea. Some of us need a tilde key, some of us don't. Some of us need scroll lock, some of us don't. So why not just use the same keys that are already set up in a near-perfect fashion for other things? Personally, I've never had any use for the Numpad (it's faster for me to use the numbers above the letters), so I have Internet Explorer, AIM, Winamp, etc. set as Windows hotkeys on Numpad 1, 2, 3, etc. But what about Scroll Lock? Do Linux, Windows, or any specific programs for them let you set something permanently on or off by having Scroll Lock set on or off? And what about setting keys like the tilde key to other things within the OS besides hotkeys, such as resetting it to Ctrl + C for Copy, Ctrl + V for Paste, or setting it to whatever combination of keys Undo or other specific commands is set to in programs like Photoshop? I haven't used Windows XP or Linux yet, so I'm not really sure if either of them has this capability built-in.
Lately, MS has started (and Logitech is following) changing the F keys. Apparently, now, all the F keys have some sort of new default meaning to them (for example, new document, open, copy/paste, etc etc (I'm sure you can find a full list somewhere)). You want to use the standard F keys? There's an F-Lock button to use, similar to numlock. Probably shift will allow you to access the standard F functions, but I haven't tried one.
I personally don't like the idea, but they seem to be holding on to the ball with both hands and running.
... here in the UK, ~ is above #, which is next to the Return key.
` is shared with , and is therefore pretty much useless. I use all the keys on the keyboard except that one. So the original poster is correct - and I use terminals all the time.
I, as many of you probably, find the layout annoying for programming. I hate having to hold the shift key to enter \/ and so forth, should be placed more conveniently on keyboards, also, more programable shortcut buttons should be placed on keyboards.
YOU SUCK BALLS!
Not necessarily a standard key, but if one of those keyboards with one-touch Internet buttons would add a "Pornography" button it would save me some effort.
... we need a key for CTRL-ALT-Backspace!
I think the original poster is right about we needing keys for the most frequently done operations. My take is that we need extra keys that do the following:
- Copy
- Cut
- Paste
- Undo
- Help
Optional keys:
- Volume up
- Volume down
- Mute/Unmute
- Play
- Stop
- Record
- Fast forward
- Fast rewind
- Next (chapter/song/video)
- Previous (chapter/song/video)
I also wonder how many people actually use the ALT, CTRL, SHIFT and similar keys on THE RIGHT SIDE of the keyboards (for as long I can remember I have NEVER pressed any of those keys on the right side, I only used their sister keys on the left side of the space bar).
The Microsoft Office keyboard has app-fwd and app-back keys, as well as dedicated cut, copy, and paste. Plus, it shows the most common uses of the F-keys, instead of 'F3', it says 'Open'. Plus, it has a scroll wheel, for those who want to scroll a few lines at a time without using the mouse. Plus, things like having an extra backspace (as well as open and close parenthesis) above the number pad. You can click here for Microsoft's page on it.
There are a few companies that make clones of this keyboard now, complete with scroll wheel. I don't know the names of any of the clones, all of the ones I have seen are by very generic companies.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
---Trying to do some programming on an iBook the other day brought to my attention the fact that despite the constant improvements to the design of computer hardware and software, the keyboards we use are still a throwback to the early 1980s.
Yep. All the way back to my Piss 2 I'm typing on now. More coffee spills on it and it still ticks. Cant say there's a better keyboard.
---I mean - my Mac doesn't have room for page up/down or home/end keys, but it devotes a whole key to a sort of double-S shape that I will never press.
And I say that about my windows key, Caps lock, scroll lock, num lock, SysRq, and that windows menulike key. Why do I need a numlock? Just make it on default. As long as we have arrows, no big deal. Second I'm not using winderz, so why do I need the windows keys? The original keyboards didnt have a caps lock, and I love those. And WTF does SysRq do? (I know, the 1984 keybaords dont have windows keys, but newer ones do-got mine in junk pile)
---And my PC keyboards all waste plastic on a backwards-apostrophe key and a scroll-lock (+ LED!),
Too true, yet keyboards these days are TOO light. Most jump around when I type.
---while functions that you use all the time, such as switching between windows, cut/copy/paste, back/forwards, undo/redo etc, all have to double-up with other keys..
That's because they're caught by userspace or kernel space (in case of ctrl-alt-del). And about cut/pasting, only Windows does that right. Linux BLOWS at that. Some apps like it, some hate it and some ignore. The sad thing is that X11 supports a MIME clipboard. Yet nobody interfaces to that. With that, even lowly TWM could cut/paste sound samples from audacity.
---Have any organizations actually tried to re-invent the keyboard recently? (..not counting the manufacturers who stick a few 'multimedia' keys along the top for consumer PCs).
If they have, they're dead already (the designs, not the company). Still, I HATED those split "health conscious" keyboards that chopped the board in half, and spliced them at 45 degree angles. I wish those dissappeared off the face of this earth.
---Would this be doomed to failure because of the tens of thousands of legacy apps that expect things to be the way they are?
I dont follow. Textural data is textural data. If you convert it right, no big deal. Judt dont think people wouldnt resist.
---What sort of keys would you include in your fantasy keyboard layout?
Boss key, Any key......
---It's not just the keys on your keyboard that are important, it's also how you arrange them. What kind of keyboard arrangements might we see in the future?
If anything, we'll get rid of the keyboard and go to neural interface. Keyboards suck compared to mind speed. To get to that tech is a whole another story.
I found this kewl keyboard =) http://store.yahoo.com/pfuca-store/ Anyone used this? Looks kinda nifty!
This reads like a troll. For instance:
If you're using a Mac without using the command key, you're really not using the Mac. Unless you're running PPC Linux?
Ok, you're apparently not running Linux, or you're a Unix programmer who doesn't know how to use backquotes for command substitution in shell programming. Using familiar keys, try entering "man sh ".
Yup, they double up with other keys - through the use of that command metakey you've never hit. If you have a way around this that doesn't involve doubling the size of the keyboard, please share. Try this, just for me - press the little funky "double-S" key (the technical term, btw, is "whee whee propeller!") and hold it, then press shift and hold it, then press the key with a slash and a question mark on it (phew!). Now read all about keyboard shortcuts.
There are umpteen things wrong with modern keyboards, though - you just mention none of them. In all seriousness, have you considered the possibility that you're just an idiot?
So remap your keys. I rarely need caps lock, so I mapped it to become a compose key. Now I can easily add àccènts to text. I don't use print screen, so it's mapped to "hide window and create icon in systray". Scroll lock? That's now my caps lock, because it might be useful now and then. My higher function keys do things like start gaim, adjust volume, etc. Your keys don't have to do just what they're labeled as.
I bet those laser-style keyboard projector thingies could easily be programmed to show a different key layout. I could see a use in gaming for that, WSAD is useful, but there could be better layouts.
I see this issue coming up more and more in the years to come, as the mass health effects of computer-related careers become more commonplace.
Sigh, eventually I'm going to have to unlearn QWERTY typing, and I only just started getting good at it, after years of practice!...Sigh...
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
I want one of these guys. Plus, either with lighted keys, or better yet, a whole "key screen" (LCD?).
If your looking for something Windows based (and since your not using the backtick, I'm guessing you are), try the new MS Natural keyboards - not only are they *very* comfy for a touch typer, they also have the function keys mapped to do key things, such as Undo, Redo, New file, Reply to an e-mail - and yes... they can be remapped for non-MS software, although they're not *nix supported.
And before everyone jumps in, I'm typing on one right now.
With the ability to project or display a keyboard in any configuration is some way towards the ultimate input device. Unfortunately tapping away at a desktop or a screen does not give the haptic feedback that many of us find necessary in a keyboard. What we need is some kind of material that gives the "push-back" of a good keyboard wherever it is pressed.
Life is too sho
Had to buy a PS/2 to USB converter so I could keep using my Kinesis keyboard. Bunches of people I work with swear by the Mac pro keyboards but they drive me nuts. I absolutely love my Kinesis I made it a requirement for employment when I started at my current job. My boss thought it was weird but didn't have a problem laying out the $300 or so for the keyboard to get me onboard.
:)
Frankly, this is a career. I fuck my fingers/wrists up and I don't have a job. And I swear, that keyboard has saved my wrists. I had all sorts of problems after years of using a normal keyboard, but after taking the time to get used to the Kinesis I found my tendonitis receeding and the pain going away. I still have to take breaks while doing long keyboarding sessions, but that keyboard saved my career. I like it so much I bought one for home. I can't recommend it enough for the serious typist.
I would liken the keyboard to keys shaped along the inside of a bra... and that always helps when I'm typing away.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Well if you've used a SUN recently (I have one on my desk at work), you'd probably know they have a full 8-something extra buttons. These include cut, copy, paste, stop, volume, and other such nonsense like that. To be honest, I don't use them, except for STOP. The new ones have USB connections on the back, so they're actually somewhat nice because they plug into anything. Having extra buttons can be fun if you like to play with your keyboard mapping.
If you want to go the other direction, the whole wearables scene has come up with some good ones, especially the twiddler.
And finally, if you're interested in other keyboards that might be questionably functional but still look cool, you can find virtual keyboards, a lit keyboard, and a rollable keyboard. But I think in your situation, you might find the twiddler the best bet for "cool and useful item".
At least all possible sorts of key layouts.
Even single handed keyboards, which -while obviously costing you more presses per character- would allow you to keep your other hand on your mouse all the time. This however, probably wouldn't be much good to a an 'all console, all the time' kind of person.
In the end, changing anything but adding a few buttons or functions to existing buttons, would scare of probably 99% of the existing pc userbase.
Requiring people to learn to type all over again is not a very good market strategy. Alternatives do exist, but they will remain sparse.
Ofcourse, having said that, a 'Fuck it' key would be nice...
I would be glad to dump my "obsolete" keyboard if I could replace it with a 104-button mouse. :)
I notice the original author complains about some keys that he feels are a waste of keys, and also complains that keys he needs are either not present or need to work in conjunction with modifiers/dead keys.
It seems the whole post and the idea of redesigning a keyboard (at least in this context) means, "redesigning the keyboard the way I need it to work for me."
Maybe this hits me more than others because I'm a writer first, and a programmer second (I'm only programming while I need to, to develop the software for my company so I can make enough money to get back to writing full time). However, I find a bothersome trend with many developers to assume that "what I need is what we all need."
I don't know how it works on a Mac, but I would think under OSX, if one does not like the way a keyboard is mapped, one can simply change the key map.
I know for me, as a writer, the keyboard works fine, and I'd rather not see it changed (much), because I'd rather not have to learn a new layout.
But for me to assume that since the current keyboard works well for me, so it should not be changed, would be as absurd as the original topic, which assumes that most people need keys to switch between windows more than they need other keys.
(Yes -- I know. I'll be modded to troll immediately because I dared to say the slightest negative thing about a programmer or developer!)
'Nuff said.
remember star trek, it seems that talking to a computer instead of typical typing would be an improvement, no more of that tunnel syndrome stuff. and then a durable lcd deal that changes configurations and layouts for like games or what ever. but hey that doesnt meen u cant go out and get a joy stick or MIDI device.
Win32 vi, you say?
Try this
I know this isn't the same as having a vi interface for Outlook, etc...but I'm in love with it.
There are 3 directions of keyboard evolution I see:
First is so-called ergonomic keyboards. They usually, split in two halves, have weird shape, etc. I still to have use classic keyboard on my laptop, and I if I get used to this weird shape switching between laptop and desctop will be nightmare.
Second direction is so-called "internet" keyboard. Usually they just put on top row of keys for browser functions like "home", "back" and sometime sound controls. Usually it makes keyboard bigger
and overloaded with functions.
And there is third direction, which I welcome most - simplification without getting to far away from original layout.
I am typing this on Apple Pro keyboard. It does not have "scroll-lock", "print screen", "pause" keys. Layout is very clean and easy to use. What I miss is a "click" feel, but this is a metter of personal preference. Built-in 2-port USB hub is also nice. And yes, it costs $59.
Hey man, I loved the QWERTY keyboard so much, I named my cat after it. She is a grey and white cat, and very friendly. And she'll punk your ergo-friendly Dvorak hamster in a second.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
What is the poster talking about?
I'm looking at my iBook keyboard, and the only key or part of a key (e.g. shifted part of a key) I never use is the caps lock and some of the function keys. (F1-F12).
Perhaps the poster is under linux, and so doesn't have a use for the apple key?
On my Debian box, those are assigned to Meta, and I use them all the time.
I'm pretty happy with my Happy Hacker keyboard. I think the only thing I'd change about keyboards in general is to put the letters in alphabetical order.
Key order doesn't do shit for typing one way or another. I can type 100wpm with two fingers and I don't move my wrists so I won't have to worry about repetitive stress. Putting the keys in alphabetical order would just lower the learning curve and let schmucks use my keyboards that have the symbols worn off.
I do like one handed keyboard/mice like the Twiddler. When they release a reasonably priced wireless version I'll buy a few.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
No-one stops you from changing the function of the keys to your liking with xmodmap and window manager/desktop env bindings configuration.
For example, I use the right control key as a Compose key to enter characters like ñ in two parts. Menu key brings up Services menu in Sawfish, letting me to run commands (Open URL, search in dictionary) on X clipboard selections.
I have mapped the "multimedia keys" using hotkeys, as it let's me use the keys without screensaver interfering anyhow: one button switches to next screensaver (yes, I watch those instead of TV %-) and another uses gdm-flexiserver to launch a new X server login for my guests when the my screen is locked. My laptop has play/pause/etc and vol up/down visible even when the lid is closed, and they are the fasted way to control music anyway.
I would like to see a keyboard that is just a touch screen with a bios of some sort that draws out the keys and translates the touches back to the computer. this bios could be programed to include any arrangement of keys in any size shape or color, and could be made to change depending on certain applications
The remote for my home theater is an LCD screen with "keys" that change based on the context of the device I'm operating and the level of complexity I need.
A keyboard for a moron like my brother's wife (no offense, but she's been on the web for six years or so, and didn't know what the "back" button on her browser did until yesterday. AOL really does make you dumber) could be simplified down to five or six HUGE keys, while a guru might be able to access 150 keys in the same program.
I'm a pianist, so I wish chording off a single hand were possible. It's not. Too many idiots in the world can't handle hitting one key at a time, let alone combinations of three.
I'd rather have an electrode-interface for interacting with a PC than deal with voice. There are lots of privacy issues there that I don't think have been addressed.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
What I'm quite amazed at is no one tries pushing keyboards with keys in alphabetic order, as opposed to QWERTY.
The majority of the people out there using computers don't know how to type and really have no intention to learn. If pushing CTRL-C is too much work as the poster states, imagine the frustration of a new computer user trying to hunt down C in the first place.
The QWERTY keyboard should be to the vast majority of computer users what the DVORAK keyboard is to the vast majority of us geeks - an interesting keyboard layout that's suppose to allow someone to type faster whose learned to use it.
I mean really - here are some newsflashes for you:
1) Backtick (your so called backwards apostrophe) is still used frequently in *nix programming - especially script programming. Also (as someone else pointed out) apple-` is a useful key.
2) Most of us are used to that "double-key" format you are looking for....even if they did expend real estate on those functions in a single keystroke, I imagine most would use what they already know. This is why dvorak and other new layouts have not gained widespread acceptance - people tend not to learn a new layout since they've already learned qwerty and it works for them. This is the same argument used for switching words processors or anything else with a command structuure (even car alarms - albeit, it's an extreme case - but is there any uniformity to keyfobs?) - we tend to like to stick with what we've invested in learning - and not to have to relearn things.
3) While I agree many keys have probably out lived their usefulness - how do you prioritze which keys we replace them with? Why isn't num lock outdated on laptops (I mean, how many people really use that brained dead slanted numberic keypad)? Before you know it, we'll have keyboards with apple keys and windows keys (oh wait, we do have those).
3) X-land folk can remap any key to anything they wish...so it really doesn't matter what the keyboard looks like as long as there are a bunch of keys. And guess what? You can do this in Windows (esp if you are a programmer) - albeit, it's a bit tougher.
Personally, I'd like to see keyboards easier to reprogram - kinda like programmable buttons on phones. Perhaps that what we need. We also need more intuitive mice that don't require a lot of movement away from the keyboard (and I don't mean those stupid stress sticks from IBM that keep breaking on you).
How about a "#include" key or even "printf("?????
That's why I love the ThinkPads--good keyboard layouts.
As far as having less useful keys around goes, I suppose one could always use a remapper. I always swap the CAPS LOCK with the Left CTRL key, for example.
Speaking of which, pckeyboard.com offers a bunch of Linux friendly keyboards with this configuration AND the bulletproof IBM Model M construction. Great keyboards, if a little pricy, though.
We have many different types of keyboards these days: cordless, black, split/ergonomic, even those you can roll up. But it seems that there is no longer much variety in layouts. I can't find one without those pesky Windows keys, for example. My personal issue is the ctrl key placement: my fingers being programmed for Emacs (and before that, Wordstar), I like it where the caps lock key is on the home row so it's more accessible. The classic Northgate Omnikeys gave me that option with a DIP switch setting and replacement keycaps. Alas, the old Northgate died (spilt coffee: my baby's fault).
Stores don't seem to sell keyboards these days with any significant variation in layout, nor keyboards that allow layout customization. There are ways to accomplish this sort of thing in software, but that has its limitations (such as switching between X and text consoles). I sure would like to see a little less conformance in keyboard layouts.
While I agree with your basic premise, the particular example you use causes me to vomit. That is one thing wrong with Windows, and PC keyboards - they're short one meta key. Just having Alt means the control key has to be overloaded for, well, control functions. You'd think that would make sense, but since control characters were enshrined in ASCII they lost their "meta" status, and lot of people need to type them into terminal windows (while also requiring quick key, non-strain-inducing shortcuts for copy and paste). That overloading of the control key is one of my pet peeves about Windows. Half of my use of the Mac is as a terminal to Unix command lines, whether local or remote.
Please consider joining SPOB, the Society for the Preservation Of Buckybits.
Actually, yes. I've been using Dvorak for about a year after having a couple random RSI flareups, and did a bit of kernel hacking for school last semester. Not to mention other classes and my own programming projects. I got used to it. My braces/brackets keys are the two to the right of zero. I like the underscore placement (on the key marked: ' " on qwerty keyboards) since I use lots of underscores in variable names.
Random fact: Rik van Riel uses Dvorak.
That would be my deepest dream.
It's annoying to have to remember to hit numlock before you type in an IP address. I'm at the point where I can hit numlock automatically but now half the time I end up turning it off instead of on. Looking at the LED before I hit numlock doesn't work because the LEDs are not allways accurate right after boot (I don't know whether that's a problem with the BIOS, kernel or KVM).
It's time to say no to numlock.
the computer will be able to read your gestures in the air and you'll be able to use a gun like interface consistently for games.
I got my first computer in 1990 and whenever it's been convenient to bring up I've always asked what the SysRq button was for... anyone know?
sig.
You're telling me you don't think the backquote is still useful? On OS X, which is a Unix-alike, as is Linux, the backquote is still quite useful at a prompt, for taking the output of a shell command and using it in the command line of another. The tilde is useful as well, for jumping to home directories.
Removing keys from the standard keyboard layout isn't necessarily such a good idea, because of that - pretty much every "modern" operating system has some use for those keys, so removing them would harm more than it would help.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
The any key . . duh
Also the DVD/RW/cup-holder is a must.
Fingerworks makes a good start. This is a little non-traditional, and I like it.
But, if we're going to stick to a solid mechanical design:
First of all, I would set an emphasis away from lazy ASCII-ism. I want to be able to type En and Em Dashes, as well has hyphens and minuses--not this silly "hyphen-minus". I could have this right now by killing macron, tilde, acute, and fixing the hyphen-minus as a hyphen. I'd kill backslash too.
Meta keys are nice, but need to be redesigned. All "edit" functions should fall under an "edit" meta, instead of "control". "Shift" has always bothered me for some reason, but I can't suggest a change in behavior beyond what I describe below.
Capslock is obviously the first against the wall when the revolution comes. I like CTRL in that position, a lot. I'd put my magical "Edit" meta right there.
Let's rename "Alt" to "System". Function keys are poo-like. I suggest we have the whole keyboard available for "Function", with the number row providing "F1-F12". Now, we can hold "System" and "Edit" and have "System Edit" keys. Isn't that neat!
Of course, all this could get confusing. So, my Keyboard Of The Future(TM) will have little displays on all the keys, showing their current function in BIG letters. No silly upper-lower-inthegroove-inblue print on the keys. Hold "Edit", and the Edit functions will be displayed instead of the typographical functions.
I'd like to note that Apple has taken some of these steps. You can get Em and En dashes with some keyboard combos with the hyphen key. It helps ever so much that MacOS X is totally Unicode. Juxtaposed with x86, Apple is a little bit more consistent with their Option/Apple/Control mechanism, but they still get things confused.
Really, I think my Dream Keyboard(TM) would be based on the FingerWorks keyboard, only combined with a display. Remember that magnetic paper slashdot covered endlessly? Seems like a perfect application right here.
I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.
It seems like most of the interface enhancements have been made to the mouse. I think this is because interface designers are trying to alleviate the user from using the keyboard. The keyboard looks the same after 20 years, but the mouse now has a third button, a wheel, and in some cases a fourth and fifth button (which can be used to go back/forward). Before you unix guys jump all over me, saying that keyboard navigation is 80x faster, or whatever, let me say that I know. I still use the command prompt to do a lot of stuff in Linux (my most-used OS). I realize that it's quicker to "man foo" than click through some help index. I laughed my ass off when Strong Bad says "the cheat, your computer needs more keyboard and less... computer". However, using the mouse is easier when you're doing stuff for the first time. Once you design the interface to use the mouse for all manipulation except text, then the only thing that limits the user is their typing speed. This could be sped up with Dvorak keyboard layout and some new typing lessons, but that's about it.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
I wish someone would bring out a new version of the space cadet keyboard, with Linux drivers. Learn that keyboard and you'll never need anything else. Anyone know if someone has recreated a PC version?
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
A lot of work is being done to simplify keyboard layouts. Soon all keys will be replaced with brightly colored rectangles. Instead of 101 keys, you'll have a few large buttons which, coincidentally, lend themselves beautifully to touch screens. Instead of one character per button, each one is labeled with a multi-digit number. This way they were able to greatly reduce the number of buttons needed.
Here's an example...
As you can see, they're very efficient. A panel like this can control an entire starship.
Aside from what everybody else had said about backticks (`) being needed for today's keyboards, I end up using pretty much every key on my keyboard.
PrintScreen/SysRq for capturing data and bring up emergency consoles. Scroll-Lock for it's orignal purpose of pausing a screen of data for you to copy down, particullay when it's scrolling fast.
Pause i don't use much anymore, but it used to be a god-send in old games. Break for when ctrl-c is assigned to something else.
Tilde and backtick are widely used in many programming languages.
However, the sole keys I don't have a use for on my keyboard are the annoying start menu keys and properties key. I need to use a USB keyboard because I'm on a non-legacy system, and I have not been able to find one that doesn't have those keys. I would really like some more modifier keys on keyboards, like the UNIX keyboards of old, that got up 17 different modifer keys at one point. Emacs becomes MUCH easier to use when single pair keystrokes are available instead of sequences of 2 or 3 pair keystrokes. Meta-Q for quit!
ICQ# : 30269588
"I used to be an idealist, but I got mugged by reality."
there will never be a keyboard so lovely, although a kinesis almost makes do
At least the standard US layout for QWERTY keyboards is programmer-friendly. :-) ). :-|.
I, as an example, live in Portugal and use Portuguese layout keyboards (usually with a US map loaded in the OS
The slash (/), for example, is shift+7, which totally sucks when "navigating" a unix filesystem. { and } are Alt+7 and Alt+0, and [,] are Alt+8 and Alt+9. Try programming with that
I don't know which genius created these layouts, but they're as stupid as you get. Why the f*ck do I need to press *three* keys just to get a single backtick? AAAARGH!
I've got a whole drawer full of them. It's oddly satisfying to pry them off with a penknife and toss them in the drawer, knowing you'll never need 'em.
Cantankerous old coot since 1957.
Salesman: Look, the new Cyrius Cybernetics keyboards can talk! Describe whatever layout you want, and the AI in the keyboard will implement it. His name is Marvin.
Customer: Hello, Marvin. What are all those blinking lights for?
Marvin: They hurt.
Salesman: Shut up, Marvin. They're primarily decorative, but Marvin can assign them to whatever LOCK keys you specify.
Marvin: I've had this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side. I mean, I've asked to have them replaced, but nobody listens.
Customer: It seems unhappy.
Salesman: Well, Marvin would feel much better if someone took him home, if you take my drift.
Marvin: No I wouldn't.
Customer: Are you sure it will work with my Compaq 8000, at home?
Salesman: Definitely.
Marvin: They plugged me into a compaq once.
Customer: And what happened?
Marvin: It committed suicide.
Customer: Why are you so unhappy?
Marvin: I've got a brain the size of a planet, and look at what they've got me doing.
Customer: Do any of the peripherals here have better personalities?
Salesman: Oh, no...
Speaker: I wanted to let you know what a joy and a privelege it's been to make error sounds for your computer enjoyment! It's been really wonderful! Would you guys like to hear some public domain music? I used to be an elevator!
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Do you mean a key to hide the 'Porn key' or a key to hid the pr0n? =P
Banaaaana!
Go to home dir and assign output of shell commands to variables.
Maybe should get rid of those stupid windoze keys on my keyboard. And scroll lock WTF is that for.
Well, first of all, I use Scroll Lock pretty often, thanks :3 Although much of the time I use ^S/^Q, since I'm on a KVM and Scroll Lock does something special. You know, to momentarily pause text that's scrolling on a terminal. (Yes. I still use terminals. A lot.) And backquote. (I see you don't do shell programming, or use TeX. ^^; )
... and no matter what you take away, somebody's going to be very unhappy about it.
Besides, standardizing what to add, and how, would be a huge pain, and probably nobody would really be pleased
The problem with legacy apps isn't assuming layouts, so much. (Any program that reads scancodes direct is broken, and assuming layouts isn't the best idea either, at least if you can't rebind keys.) It's more like, there just isn't much you can safely remove.
see post above. It was introduced with the protected mode as a method of accessing low-level OS functions while working in a different app. That was before multi-tasking windowing systems were avaialable for the PC.
I presume the hardware designers back then expected multi-tasking to work so that only one application at any given time could occupy the screen and you needed some sort of key to switch between them.
"Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
Em dashes (maybe to replace the underscore, now that command-line operating systems are dead for many people and since the underscore has no function in English) and Euros.
A complete Unicode keyboard would be cool too, even if I'd have to take the door off the house to fit it in.
I mean - my Mac doesn't have room for page up/down or home/end keys, but it devotes a whole key to a sort of double-S shape that I will never press.
Not to mention that the little bump things are on the K and D keys (for home row)...(Or have they changed this since I last used a Mac?)
a one-handed device -similar to the twiddler, but better-designed and cordless- that combines mouse and keyboard. this would work very well with a tablet setup, as everyone knows that they can type much faster than they can write, and it would be good to have one hand free for... ...ahem... whatever reasons....
I'd love for my keyboard to have the following buttons/changes:
-- Caps Lock. Gone.
-- Control moved to where Caps Lock is.
-- Curly brace and bracket switched (so I don't have to use shift to get a curly brace)
-- Windows/Menu keys gone.
-- Right Ctrl/Alt/Shift buttons removed.
-- Print Screen/Scroll Lock/Pause/Numlock removed.
-- Pipe moved away from that damned enter button!
-- In all that freed-up space, some general purpose buttons that I can bind to whatever applications want. For example, a button could open files in most applications, but, for example, it could create a new session in Konsole.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
The keys are just multi-pole switches. The little circuit board in the keyboard figures out which key is being pressed by looking at closed circuit combinations.
If you want different key locations, fabricate and program a new board with dip switches on it, which are used to designate a layout. You can then pop the key caps off and rearrange them at will, and just flip a switch to go to another layout.
It seems complicated, but I promise you it's easier than putting logic in each key switch.
A keyboard with completely blank keys. Sure pissed :) I'd have to mentally
of co-workers wanting to borrow my system, which
was the problem and the point. It took a few hours
with some 200 grit sandpaper. I even sanded off the
little home key nubbies.
remember "ok, pink goes on key next to capslock,
skip two from left pointer, put right pointer there".
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
I think they are fine the way they are. If you don't like em, a GOOD OS (think linux or BeOS) should allow you to redefine the keys.
scroll lock is useful on *nix systems in console
it really does lock the screen so you can read it =)
the only keys i don't use in linux are the flag keys & menu key
How about the TouchStream ST?
I haven't seen this mentioned yet. I've always wondered about possible improvements over the standard keyboard/mouse combination that's become so ubiquitous. I like the idea of merging keyboard and mouse functions into a single area, especially since neither function slows down "access" to the other.
It's actually a flat "touch surface" rather than a keyboard. Not thrilled with that idea. I like the mechanical feedback of a real key. But overall it looks interesting.
I haven't tried this or spoken to anyone who has. I'd be curious to hear from anyone who's used one.
My preferred keyboard has things like cut, copy, paste, home, end, undo, help. I find it quite useful.
Follow me
Dude, you've posted this like 30 times in different threads. We're all sick of it and we all get your point, alright? You don't need to repeat yourself ad nauseum.
Personally, I'm a UNIX user who adores Mac OS X, and find it completely usable on my iBook. The keyboard doesn't pose any significant problems for me. I understand why you'd want the mappability (the default layout suits me fine), but it's still usable without it.
nt
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
There are attempts at this right now, but the best solution so far is probably the 2 dimensional equivelant from www.fingerworks.com. They have keyboards, mouse pads, and number pads all that combine both traditional input buttons and gestures to do things like cut and paste. Of course, like all new technologies, it's on the expensive side, but hopefully in the next 10-20 years we're controlling a 3 dimensional display by waving our hands. (Will make playing spell casting games a lot funner.)
I do security
Has all of the above (spinny analog v control, play/stop/prev/next buttons, mute, etc. and some useless buttons -- shopping, favorites, etc.)
Review of Logitech Elite Keyboard (scroll midway-down for a big pic)
otherwise a kickass keyboard, been using it for a while.
The analog vol control especially is excellent and one of the few keyboard gimmicks I've seen in the past few years that I actually find myself using a lot.
-fren
"Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?"
And all my PC keyboards waste plastic on these little windows looking keys next to alt that seem to do nothing in linux.
They don't do much in windows either, except piss me off. I HATE playing a game, and hit one of the windows keys, and the damn thing swaps out. You swap back in, and the whole world is sideways. (that means your dead, to all you non-gamers)
I don't use the number pad keys personally. I use the arrows for gaming. I still use my old IBM keyboards without windows keys on most of my windows boxes. They are also just better keyboards. Way better.
I want a keyboard with no windows keys, and a removable keypad button set, making the keyboard narrower. I don't need more keys, I can remember all the combinations I need, I just want a smaller more comfortable keyboard.
Oh, and decent TACTILE feel. God I hate the mooshy feeling of most keyboards, including the Toshiba laptop Im typing on now. Thats the main reason I still salvage old IBM keyboards.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
It's probably already been done I'm guessing. Be nice to have a toggle too to switch between dvorak and qwerty layout.
I wish there was an easy way for us to switch everyone over.
I am running XP on my Mac to some DOS/Win games. You should check out Virtual PC. However, ` is pretty useful in MacOSX, at least if you use Terminal.
The backward apostrophe has a really good use ... it's the Ctrl-X-` command that takes you to your next compiler warning when you compile from within Emacs. Course I wonder at the unncecessary nature of your silly Apple key...
I want to see the ultimate Macintosh keyboard ... one big white button in the center. That's it.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
... have an extra ten keys down the left hand side that are used for window cycling, iconifying, cut & paste etc etc. i'm quite lost without them now and find myself pressing tab all too often by mistake when i'm using a pc keyboard. now that the type 6 keyboard is usb, i've been thinking about using them on a pc or Mac.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
After a while I drilled a hole through the keyboard to add a push button to act as instant reset. A sort of Ctrl-Alt-Del with only one key (it'd have saved on finger wear if I'd done the same thing at the time of Win98).
Non-Linux Penguins ?
And my PC keyboards all waste plastic on a backwards-apostrophe key
This guy is Obviously not a BASH scripted - I love my backwards apostrophe key each an every time I want to use the results of a command as a parameter in another command!
If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
I've just acquired a laptop from work, and it's a right pain in the neck for working with.
There's no '|' key on the machine so I had to remap one from elsewhere on the keyboard.
Also there's some funny 'function' key in the left hand side - just where I want the control to be.
Still xmodmap is a wonderful tool - it's just a shame I can't relable the keys neatly to show what they're mapped to.
Still it's old, quite rugged, and runs Debian happily - so I guess it's not all bad news!
Um, you mean the command key? Speaking from over a decade of experience with Macs, that is one of the most-used keys on a Mac keyboard. It is the universal modifier. Notice its symbol next to almost every menu option?
It's not just the keys on your keyboard that are important, it's also how you arrange them.
We all know that's just what women say.
I think the next big wave in keyboard will be a blending of the keyboard and monitor. Imagine a computer whos input was another touch screen that replaced your mouse and keyboard. Applications wouldn't need to depend upon a standard keyboard setup, they would simply create a unique set of clickable icons (cut, paste, BFG...) that would be exactly what you needed for the program you are using.
"DENIAL"-How an optimist keeps from becoming a pessimist- \ \
Also imagine the pure joy of virus writers when they realize just what they can do with the victim's keyboard.
the Any key to be added.
Where the @#$% is it and why do all these programs ask for it?
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
http://halfkeyboard.com
Well, if Apple had their way, the keyboard would only have one key. ;)
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
And my PC keyboards all waste plastic on a backwards-apostrophe key and a scroll-lock (+ LED!)
The backquote? If you've ever written a shell script, you'd realize how useful the backquote is. Besides, its not really wasting a key since its also the ~ key which is also highly useful in the unix environment as a reference to your home directory.
It's not the keyboard's fault that you haven't thought of a use for the scroll lock key (and its LED). That LED can be activated via software, so I use it to indicate that I have new mail (without wasting screen real estate like xbiff or equiv would do). My windows key launches an xterm, which is really useful. I don't really need to put a little xterm-icon on the key. It's fine as-is.
In fact, several of my keys don't do what their label says (like xmodmapping my control key to the One True Non-Fattening location).
Good window managers and text editors let you use keys to invoke code. The more keys the better!
(for a while I had the windows key drop me to the console, to make it the ever-ironic anti-windows key, but that was more of a joke than a useful feature)
If a disabled person can use a certain design, then imagine how fast an un-handicapped person could use it!
Focusing on such designs could lead to some amazing improvements.
they have 'copy', 'cut', and 'paste'
they also have the 'front' key which is the same as 'alt+tab'
there's some other nifty ones too
Every night I cry myself to sleep, lamenting the absence of an option key on the right side of my keyboard. As any Photoshop user knows, opt-del fills the selection. Over the years, I got so I could fill quicker than Wild Bill Hickock could draw. Then a couple years ago, Apple got rid of it! Now I have to use TWO HANDS to fill a selection! The horror! The. Horror.
c-hack.com |
It sound like the Sun keyboards. Unfotrunatly most of those keys dont work.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Me: Why did the chicken cross the road?
You: Why would a chicken cross a road to begin with?
As another poster said, you could cook the chicken
and make hotwings, or perhaps a good soup.
Me: No man, It's a joke. You know? Something that's
supposed to be funny?
You: What's a joke? Everything is supposed to be
serious on slashdot. Now about that chicken.....
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
"DESTROY THE WORLD (UNCONDITINALLY)" would be a nice key, that or "OPEN PORTAL TO DIMENSION-X AND BRING FORTH KRANG". these keys would lead to a better life for all - the tyrannical reign of Krang would at first seem wrong; humans would come to live with it, though.
Unfortunately, a lot of the keys that are thought of as useless are actually quite useful in a programming / scripting environment.
$ for i in *; do `echo $i | awk '{print $1}' | sed -e '/s/foo//'` ; done
The Scroll lock is a throwback to a time of 300 baud monitors. Instead of piping the output through less or more or whatever, you could stop the terminal using the scroll lock key (and know it was locked instead of having terminal problem by the associated LED).
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
Actually, IBM is the one to blame for the current layout. Before them, every manufacturer had different layouts, barring the core qwerty keys.
Someday I am going to program my own JEFFKeyboard.
Do they still make those? Maybe it's the fact that I live in a spanish speaking country, but I can't find a keyboard anymore. I got my hopes up a couple of years ago when all the computer stores started putting up posters with little penguins on then, but nothing.
And it's not because I'm a linux fanatics who refuses to use a keyboard because it has a little window on it; I just want to play doom2 without the annoying windows menu popping up! is that too much to ask?!?!?
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Incidentally, if you never use the ~/` key, you obviously aren't playing enough Counter-Strike...
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
I use mine all the time. Just cause you use an inferior operating system doesn't mean you should ruin it for the rest of us.
Copy : M-w
Cut : C-w
Paste : C-y
Undo : C-/
Help : C-h
Big levers instead of keys.
:-P
You have to put your whole body into it, like rowing a canoe.
It'd be slow to type on, but it'd get us into shape
Seriously, that'd be cool.
Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
Oh, if only I had mod point for you. :)
Who said Freedom was Fair?
You should have a look at look at your menus.
:)
:)
MacOS, and so the mac apps, have plenty of use for those F keys.
F1 is for undoing
F2 for cuting
F3 for copuing
F4 for pasting
F5 for switching the controls strip bar
etc.
As they are standard shortcuts, they are always the same in all your applications.
And as for a better keymap, well you know...
I am a french informaticien, so I do a lot of programming, but I also type on plenty of texts.
So I need a keymap which can suits me in both case.
So, practicaly I need (nearly) everything, but not at the same time. And as I am lasy, I don't want to learn a new keymap
But there is one thing that I don't like: having numerals as main keys instead of symbols. For numbers, I use my numeral pad on the right. Otherwise, I will always have to search for the shift key for common char like éèçà.
I don't think that there is any definitive solution, specialy if you are moving from computer to computer all the time.
So better to get use to our actual keymap, and to dream of neural interface
Ultimately we should be leaving the keyboard behind and move to some other method of text input. I suspect that we will get some combination of pupil tracking, voice recognition, and somatic cues that when put together will end up being much more efficient than current input methods.
I don't agree... I think the future of input might not be the keyboard, but it will always focus on the hands.
The thing is, any other method is just too inefficient and prone to error. Speech in my mind is way slower than simply typing what I want... my thoughts and hands are always faster than my speech. Vision tracking is a neat idea but not at all useful for the majority of people - why did people lear to touch type if they need to be looking at something specific to work? I type often while looking at other things. I am often doing lots of things with my hands while vision is off on some other task, and I would hate to give that up.
To paraphrase an old quote on democracy, typing is the worst form of input - except for all the others. The only forms of input that have really ever stuck have been related to the hands - keyboards and mice (and game controllers), so far. I just don't see that ever changing short of neural input devices, but even there I'm not sure how well they will work compared to direct interaction with the hands and how well the majority of people would be to "jack in", even if it was only a proximity neural sensor and not a real jack. Heck, I don't even think that "virtual keyboard" the projects a keyboard onto a surface will really take off.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd keep PrintScr because its easy to caputre your screen and just edit in Photoshop or paint or something
let's see
we are closing in on 750000 users. You have over 520 friends?
wow, you must be smart enough to use the word "Sex" on a male dominated, geek site.
perhaps you can hold off on the whole "look at how many friends I have" until you get a whole 1%?
thanks a bunch
Don't know about the future, but maybe we could take some lessons from the past. The TI Explorer, a short-lived LISP machine from the 1980s had a great tactile surface, and a RubOut (backspace) key to the left of the 'a' key. This took a little while to get used to, but quickly became automatic to use. It seemed much more natural and efficient than reaching for the top right-hand corner to backspace.
...has the ~ and the ` which are used all the time in shell scripts? Who says they're useless???
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
One that has the numberpad replaced with all the common hotkeys used in vi. That would effectively double the size of the keyboard though...
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
One of my friends pointed Unicomp to me a while back. They make the old IBM keyboards [I assume it's similar to how Lexmark is the old IBM printer division].
Yes, it's $50 for one of 'em, but well, those people who like the feel of the keyboards think it's worth it. [and it's heavy enough to beat your annoying co workers with, or even stop a rampaging day-trader].
Oh -- and it's dirt easy to move the letters on the keys, as they letters are on a little cap which it not actually part of the key.
It's useful for playing pranks on people who hunt and peck, or for confusing people and hiding random messages. [and after someone's going away party, I'm short a few 'e's and 's'es, as I had to strip down one keyboard just for the letters].
And speaking of rearranging keyboards -- why is that computer keyboards have the 1-3 row on the number pad at the bottom, while telephones have it at the top?
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Are you actually using a Mac OS on your iBook? If so the "double s" (actually the command key, sometimes referred to as the apple key) is a key that is used constantly in the Mac OS interface. It makes the OS much easier to use, especially on a laptop. Instead of reaching to a menu to perform functions such as printing, saving, closing, quitting, etc, you can press the command key and a modifier (cmd-p to print, cmd-s to save, cmd-w to close, cmd-q to quit). And best of all, these are system wide shortcuts, so you can use them in EVERY program (well, every program that follows Apple UI Guidelines).
Use this knowledge wisely...
I dunno who it is
but it prolly is fhqwhgads.
Can someone explain what exactly Meta is supposed to be, compared to Ctrl and Alt?
My server
Microsoft has already invented an extremely convenient keyboard, with every required and useful key on it! They're a little hard to find these days, but I think more and more people will start buying them for the convenience!
I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven...
Like you, I am also an Emacs user and have no use for the windows keys... I had taken to buying older keyboards (that I like better anyways) at garage sales and things.
I also have a Powerbook now, that I dock and hook up to an Apple Pro keyboard - I like the layout of this pretty well, and was thinking it might work well as a keyboard for a PC as well. It is just a USB keyboard, no reason it should work...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
i think we're missing the biggest point of this whole ask slashdot topic.
:)
:)
most of his problem with all these useless keys and such is the fact that he's a mac user.
i mean apple got rid of the other "useless" mouse buttons, so why shouldn't they get rid of the rest of the "useless" keys on the keyboard?
so this whole problem of "useless" keys would be solved if he just got a real operating system and a real computer
Sun Microsystems is an excellent example of an organization who has done something basic and useful with a keyboard. Sun keyboards (as I'm looking at my sturdy 5c) have useful keys such as cut/paste/copy/find and even Props (guh?). I've had many occasions to use these keys in addition to the ` key while programming. Even if you don't find them helpful in their current state I'm sure that they can be bound to something else whether you are using Solaris or Linux.
Why can't I highlight a block of text and then press CAPS LOCK to toggle between all caps and all lowercase the way I can say with bold, underline, or italics in my word processor of choice? It doesn't make sense to have to re-type the text in upper case.
why is that computer keyboards have the 1-3 row on the number pad at the bottom
Computers have 123 on the bottom because adding machines and calculators have 123 on the bottom.
while telephones have it at the top?
Telephones have it 123 on the top because rotary-dial telephones had 123 at the top of the dial.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Why have a Ñ key when we could use ~n, for example?
What's that ``double-S'' thingy you speak of? And what kind of poor excuse for a programmer/writer are you if you never use the back-tick and/or wiggly (tilde in some locals) key?
I sure hope this isn't the guy who redesigns _my_ keyboard to get rid of the useful stuff...
Posted from the wireless couch.
Coding sucks on all keyboards right now. When i'm typing html, i just use like mad, and when i'm typing perl, i use /, \, $, &, and # like it's my job. But shit, what are you gonna do?
Outside of having different layouts for different applications, nothing will make everyone happy. Most commands are fast enough even though they are 2 key strokes; i think it's hardly worth moving letters for.
I have no focus in this post.
The original poster made much of the fact that there were several keys that he never used - the back-quote (used in word processing) and the Scroll Lock (used by many KVMs). Maybe manufacturers need to produce specialized keyboards based on what tasks you regularly perform.
Accountant Keyboard - Prominent numeric keypad and shortcuts to Excel macros. No caps-lock and only one set of Ctrl and Alt keys.
MS Office Keyboard - Microsoft has already done this. Don't really care for the mouse wheel located on the keyboard, but I only use Word and Visio to draw up requirements documents anyway. Has no brace {}[] keys.
Software Development Keyboard - No numeric keypad, but has assignable keys down the left like the original Northgate keyboards. Arrow keys are in inverted "T" pattern like God intended.
*nix Keyboard - Has no shift key (just kidding). Has the punctuation marks and numerics reversed on the keys along the top for easier shell script writing (must press Shift + $ to get a "4").
L33T 5p34k Keyboard - Looks remarkably like a cellphone, except the letters and numbers are randomly jumbled up.
Chip H.
OK, I've been trying to find someone who makes a true split keyboard for a long time now. And I don't mean a keyboard with the keys separated in the middle, I mean a keyboard that's in two halves that I can put on either arm of my computer chair and type with my arms in a relaxed position. Anyone seen these anywhere???
CODITO, ERGO SUM: I Code, therefore I am.
When I got a new machine at work, it came with a standard English (US or ISO? Don't know) keyboard layout. It wasn't until then that I realized that most formalisms I use require heavy use of English-only signs: C has {curly brackets} all the time, (La)TeX uses the \backslash and {curly} and [angled] brackets.
On my German keyboard (Titanium Powerbook), I need to press three keys to produce a backslash, and two keys to get the brackets, which aren't even marked on the keys (5,6,8,9).
Switching between my Powerbook, the Linux PC and the G4 Desktop is big-time annoying.
Anybody here interested in trading an English Titanium keyboard for a German one?? Do I really need to put little stickers on the keys of my 2.5KEUR design laptop?
There was recently a discussion on the perl6 list (laugh but all your bases will belong to parrot real soon now) about what keys could be used to represent some new functions people might like to add if there were some reasonable one to three character symbols that could be made out of them. As long as they're going to change the concatenation operator anything goes right?
All which I would not have known if it were not for the wonderful summaries of the discussions on perl.com.
I'm thinking it might be useful if you could buy extra usb keyboardlets - like numeric keypads - with keys that would make your programming more powerful (otherwise you have to spell things out in english phrases). No danger of APL-ness since the system will be able to translate between the idioms effortlessly. Doubtlessly emacs scripts and something wierd for vi would be possible.
But something tells me the future of computing is going to have more to do with being able to get a heck of a lot done with a lot less typing, either because of a plethora of great snap together libraries, semi-intelligent self-programming programs, or just plain telling the thing what you mean in english (or interlingua) and having a system that will just do it. It is not critical that we add more cryptic things to our programming prose, but I'd certainly welcome more powerful idioms and innovative input solutions that don't penalize their adopters. (I certainly will check out the Kinesis keyboard, earlier poster.. thanks.)
FYI:
this article: unicode operators, supercommas, french quotation marks.. shades of APL
Combine it with speech recognition, and you're set. (Maybe handwriting recognition too... something good enough for doctor's handwriting!)
What keyboard layout would I like to see? One where the keys can be rearranged, and the keys have some kind of way (electrical, optical or mechanical) to signal which key it is.
So basically anyone could customize thier keyboard as they saw fit. Apps could ship with thier own keys, and dedicated users could replace unused keys with super-commonly used keys. Use { more than [? Find a key where { is unshifted, [ is shifted.
I bet replacable keys would work really well for secondary keyboards. Imagine if you could buy and customize a simple ten-button keyboards when the computer only really serves as a VCR/jukebox? Or get a really honkin 200 key keyboard for complex video editing? Perhaps "one hander" re-arrangable keyboards could become popular for counter-strike or BF 1942?
When can I get a "boobies" key for my keyboard?
The poster has plainly demonstrated that he is neither a Unix person nor a Mac person, which makes me wonder why he is using an iBook.
The back-tick key is indispensable for 'nesting' commands in a single line. And the tilde as a shortcut for $HOME.
Plus, on Macs (and maybe on Windows too) the back-tick is used in the sequence to produce characters with a grave accent. Anyone who has written documents in French won't call this key "useless".
I looked at my iBook keyboard, and the only key I saw that could possibly be described as a "funny double-s shape" is the command key. Uh, this is the primary modifier for keyboard shortcuts on Macintosh systems. If the poster really "never uses it", then he must do absolutely everything with the mouse, in which case he has no right to complain about keyboards being inefficient.
As for special keys for special functions, though, I've got to agree and wonder why PC makers seem to have been so slow to adopt these. The six (I think) year old Sun Type 5 keyboard I'm typing this on has keys for volume adjustment, cut, copy, paste, sending windows to the front, and so on.
Although they're a pain in the ass to get working in window managers other than CDE or Sun's version of GNOME, they're much quicker to use than ctrl-C and ctrl-V.
This is the direction I'd like to see keyboard layouts progress in: custom keys that are bound to frequently used functions that normally require a modifier, such as copying and pasting, or a trip to another window, such as changing the volume or ejecting removable media. Sun got it right a long time ago; Apple's newer keyboards are getting there, with volume, brightness, and eject keys.
Most PC keyboard makers, though, seem more interesting in making keys that open IE or Outlook.
Ubi dubium, ibi libertas.
...to pull down the console in Quake and other fps games.
-prator
In windows it is supposed to be the equivalent of pressing the right mouse button. Why have a key for that? What a stupid concept... you already have your hand on the mouse so use it.
What about those who because of a physical disability cannot use a mouse or trackball and instead navigate Windows with a keyboard? What about those whose pointing device has only one button? (No redundant Mac jokes please; some early Windows laptops were like this.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
It has tried to solve a problem similar to what I'd like to see solved on PC or notbooks. Generally speaking, a keyboard layout should be dynamically changed in context of application.
Of course, in many cases the alphabyte part will still be the same. But the navigation shouldn't. And especially so-called "functional keys" must become really functional. No more "F1" - it must be called "Help" if it helps.
Let's not stop on key locations. How about menu displayed on the keyboard rather than on the main screen. I want to make a choice of another graphic filter and I want to see the picture in the full-screen preview.
Of course, such "keyboard" can be used just as another screen too. So, perhaps the new generation of notebooks will be a dual-head notebook without keyboard, but with touchscreens on both foldable screens.
Does anyone know where to buy it?
Less is more !
What about those of us who can type faster than they can talk? (A problem i've aways wondered about in 'futuristic' movies with voice operated computers)
How would you code? would you want to waste more time by saying "return, open-bracket,etc." ??
Sometimes, a comment contains humor that's so subtle that the average mind doesn't pick it up, and the reflex to help overpowers the reflex to laugh. And sometimes, people respond to sarcastic trolls to set the record straight so that others don't incorrectly take the troll at face value.
When I use sarcasm, I try to make it clear using homebrew XML tags such as <sarcasm />.
Will I retire or break 10K?
A meta key is a key that's all about other keys. It doesn't do anything on its own, but modifies the function of another key (on the Mac they call them modifier keys). "Meta" key is just the elitist "I read the whole jargon file every week you bastards" geek way to refer to them. ;)
Control was once a meta key (in the terminal days) because it did something out-of-band - like rang the bell, or moved the cursor - instead of just sending another character to the teletype. Arguably it isn't really so meta anymore because everything it can do is contained in ASCII (in essence, the band widened to contain it, mostly because people wanted to remotely control or script things through terminals that were once directly attached).
Unfortunately meta keys are the least standardised part of the keyboard. Macs now have five - Control (if you include it), Shift, Command, Option, and the newest "Fn" function modifier key, which is ironically used partly so other keys (like the function row) can be used for direct control of the hardware (backlight, volume, etc) - analogous to what Control originally was.
The saddest testament to Microsoft's user interface design is that they managed to use their monopoly power to swiftly add not one but two new keys to the standard PC layout, and still managed to do virtually nothing useful with them. At least you can map them to interesting things in X (or to get the option key back if you're using a USB PC keyboard on a Mac - more irony there).
causes me to vomit
That would be your pink Imac
I am running XP on my Mac to some DOS/Win games. You should check out Virtual PC.
How do you get Windows platform games to run in Connectix Virtual PC emulation with full frame rate?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Case in point - years ago I got me the first ergonomic keyboard marketed -- now a fast forward to 2003 -- name 5 people you know who've got an ergonomic keyboard, which is a rather unimpressive variation of the old standard keyboard.
And sometimes people are really thin skinned and :)
call something a "sarcastic troll" that isn't.
Lighten up! The fate of the free will doesn't
depend on my kindhearted jab at someone that
didn't get a joke. I do agree with your logic on
the "reflex to help", but for christ sakes. The
post had already been modded +5 funny. And as he
stated in his post, someone else had already
suggested the exact same thing. So rather than
assume it was a "help reflex", assume it was a
typical "me too" and "I'll feel superior if I
make a huge point" type posting, like it was.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
I frequently make use of the scroll lock (thats how you scroll in the freebsd console, and it can be used to interrupt fast scrolling text in pretty much any textmode environment) and the ` key, for instance in a unix shell when you include a command embedded inside ` ` it will execute the command inside the `` and feed its output into the commandline, so for instance:
`echo bleh`
is equivalent to:
bleh
Ofcourse, it has far more practical uses than this...
The other functions you mention, cut/copy/paste atleast on X11 is handled by the mouse (select the text with the mouse = copy, middle button = paste) and is certainly far superior to having to press several keys at once, ofcourse even using a single key to copy/paste wouldnt be ideal, you have to use the mouse to select text so why not use it to copy/paste too, save you moving your hands back and forth all the time. Ofcourse, its possible to configure a key to emulate the functions of the middle mouse, this is done typically on apple mice which have only 1 button.
As for switching between windows, this should be the job of your window manager, and any semi decent window manager will let you configure which keys are used for these functions.
Back/forwards is typically done with the left/right cursor keys, in browsers atleast.. unless your in a text entry box like i am right now, but this is down the the individual app author to define, and again, decent apps should allow you to reconfigure the keys. The same for undo and redo.
A new keyboard layout likely wouldn`t take off, there are far too many people invested in the qwerty form now... we have well over a hundred years of qwerty typewriters, and books/training on the subject, and most people are familiar with the qwerty layout and would take time to learn anything new... and ofcourse, most people resist change, even change for the better.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Yeah, every day. I switched to dvorak six years ago. True, the pure dvorak layout is not well designed for programming. But it's advantages in English are astounding.
I use dvorak layout on a Kinesis contoured keyboard.
Cool thing is, the 'board is hardware macro programmable. A footswitch puts the keyboard into "second layer", which normally maps the right hand keys to a keypad. Instead, I have the second layer activate macros. On my left hand, keys with the footswitch down activate HTML macros, like followed by eight left arrows and a carraige return. On my right, single keys activate macros, like "t" (where K is on a qwerty) gives me a pair of curly braces on two lines, and arrows back up to put me on a line in between them, like this:one key in the middle of the board saves me about eight awkward keystrokes.
footswitch-"f" gives me:saving me about a dozen keystrokes.
I've got dozens of such macros. I never ever type "" or "{" or "(" (except I just did
No carpal-tunnel strain from reaching for weirdly placed "{" and "" keys all the time, because they're all in my macros.
The 'board is USB and mac/pc switchable and the macros are in hardware, so I can take it with me to group meeting / LAN party / whatever and work with any machine, anywhere, with all my layout customizations and macros.
And I won't even get started on the kinesis' contour shape, which addresses 8+ major ergonomic concerns where things like the MS Natural and such only address 1.
I can switch between qwerty/dvorak with a keystroke, without losing my macros, so that friends can try out the keyboard.
I've been using this setup for half a decade. Kicks ass, I'm telling you.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
I use the Dvorak layout for programming all the time. The braces aren't a problem. I mean, do you currently find it a problem typing the underscore, or '==' or '='? The braces and those keys just swap places. They still use the little finger of the right hand, too.
Depending on your editor, you can also use auto completion of braces, which saves you from typing one brace, and even auto typing of both braces after creating classes/methods/functions/for loops/while loops etc...
If you really like the dvorak keyboard, there are other options for those braces. But if you are really happy with whatever you're using, then there's no sense fixing what ain't broke (unless you're trying dvorak to reduce RSI, which may or may not work).
I typed all of this using ALT and the keypad!
And IIRC, it was almost identical to Dvorak. So just learn Dvorak, that best layout probably wouldn't give a very big improvement. But I think it was done by processing text in English and source code, so it's probably not optimal for other languages.
Anybody got a link?
I created an alternative keyboard idea back in April of 2001.
I haven't had much success but maybe my idea can give others some inspiration
Since then, I had an idea for an improved layout, but I haven't done much with it...
http://www.geocities.com/e2e2e2e2e/
mirror:
http://members.fortunecity.com/2e2e2e2e/
Steven Shultz
Bellingham, WA
How'd they type on Star Trek TNG? - couldn't see any keys just a screen and a button... (maybe it was an Apple keyboard)
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
I don't actually know, sorry. I found the basic Matias principle, which I understand to be something like "the same finger does it, just on the other hand", interesting enough to want to try an X2, if they ever ship it. But I have never tried their software-driver to make an ordinary keyboard work like the half-keyboard. At a guess, the principle seems symmettric to the right hand.
lot of people need to type them into terminal windows (while also requiring quick key, non-strain-inducing shortcuts for copy and paste)
Ctrl+Ins and Shift+Ins work fine for me. I press RCtrl or RShift with my thumb (I use an IBM Model M keyboard without Windows keys so that my thumb can reach the RShift key when needed) and Insert with my middle finger.
Will I retire or break 10K?
There will be no keyboard innovation until some one is willing to pay for it. Most people buy keyboard as an afterthought with a new computer. I wish I could count how many time I have seen someone buy a $1000+ computer and a $40 mouse to pick up the cheapest keyboard they can find in the store. Personally I like the layout and feel of the old IBM Model M. I just wish had a "windows" key. Think of it as another meta key.
Since the stone age Toshiba laptops always had an analog volume control. At first I was quite concerned because you know how analog vol control tends to degrade over time as it becomes dirty, and my previous Dell laptop has a digital one (press Fn-PgUp or something to raise the volume).
After a while, I practically stopped using windows volume control altogether and rely solely on the analog dial. It's just so much better and faster than click-click-click-click required to lower the vol just in case someone is coming in the middle of a pr0n.
Sometimes analog is not necessarily bad like what the tech industry tried to tell you. Toshiba seems to understand it for a long time. No laptop/desktop that I know of still includes an analog vol control and keeps doing it even in their highest end model.
if you use one of those other editors that forces gratuitous use of the CTRL or ALT to do just about anything, then switch editors instead of messing with the damn keyboard :)
One thing I really like is the Sun keyboards. They have dedicated keys for Undo/Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Front (X users will understand this), Open, Help, and a few other keys. Oh, and they keep control where it should be.
:) It also has the function keys on the side, requiring less stretching to reach.
Now as a C/C++ programmer what I would *really* like to see is a row of keys for all the non-alphanumeric keys, i.e. !, &, {}, *, >, etc. I know I could just use xmodmap to remap the numeric keys, but I happen to like the numeric keys across the top as well.
My old Northgate keyboard has some cool features, like a full keypad for the cursor keys, not the inverted T, and a dedicated * key. For the Windows users it even has a Ctrl+Alt+Delete button
A good keyboard would also eliminate the CAPS LOCK key to block all the AOL posters.
-Aaron
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
just like a famous eject switch.. there better always be an eject button.. especially if I can trigger it remotely.. and it's attached to the other person's chair.. muahaha *evil laugh*
The SysReq or "System Request" key is a key left over from the IBM 3090. 3270 Terminals (of which the PC could emulate with the appropriate expansion card) interact with mainframes in a very similar manner to Web browsers with a CGI form page -- everything is stored locally in a buffer, then sent in a transaction when the "Enter" button is pressed (which, by the way, is not the same as the PC Enter button, so when in 3270 emulation mode, the ALT keys are reassigned to this task). The terminal then waits for a response back from the mainframe, usually an entire page of text & input boxes to display all at once. The cycle is then repeated.
Occasionally, just like with web pages, the transaction would somehow get lost in the ether, and the terminal would just sit there forever waiting for a response back from the mainframe which would never come. This is where the SysRq key comes in. You would then press the SysRq key, and the transaction would be cancelled, and control is returned to the terminal.
So, in effect, the SysRq key is the Mainframe equivalent of the "Stop" button on a web browser.
The fact that the SysRq key made it onto IBM PC's shows you just what IBM's original strategy was with the PC market: A "brilliant" mainframe terminal; that is, a terminal capable of doing a little bit more than a simple 327X "Smart" terminal, but ultimately, as far as IBM was concerned, it was still a Mainframe's world, and the PC was ultimately beholden to it.
The Optional keys you mentioned are found on a number of third-party keyboards out there. The Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard and the most Logitech keyboards have multimedia keys that you wanted.
means section... look in penal code books.. i believe they use that symbol in there.
I've always wanted a keyboard that I could change myself, move the keys round and swap them. Also there are certain keys that I use a lot when developing and it would be nice to have them available and not 2 key presses away being able to eliminate a key and replace it with a more useful one would be lovely. Come to that I'd love to retrain to dvorak, maybe with this I could do it one key at a time and not lose too much productivity?
Now this could be done in software but then the keys would be labelled wrong and, although I'm technically a touch typist, I look down at the keyboard from time to time and it really throws my off when the key says the wrong thing (I recently had to work on a German keyboard, mapped it to UK but still found it confusing). So I'm looking for a keyboard where I can either replace one key with another (lego style?) or with a built in display.
Of course at this point you start needing to be able to take your keyboard layout with you and standardisation goes out the window but you can't have everything.
This thing about national keyboards is completely bogus. The "standard" was really about 7 bit ASCII, which ignores all of the other languages of the world. There is a keyboard layout for KDE. called US-International, that allows most western European languages to be entered without changing layouts. That is trivially easy. It would be great to have a single keyboard for the world, with a couple of modes, and characters from all the major character sets on the keyboard.
:-)
So one could go to an Internet Cafe in Japan or Egypt and see the same layout, and be able to function, with it, ie. touch type. All you need are enough keys to support text entry in any language, plus a few for navigating language maps, and storing them into a few keys, and an input system that is universal, maybe the controller hardware could spit out straight Unicode. A nice touch would be LCD's on the keys, to change the display as the mappings change. otoh, that's way too complicated, let's just have everyone type in English
These Ask Slashdots aren't improving.
the keyboards we use are still a throwback to the early 1980s. I mean - my Mac doesn't have room for page up/down or home/end keys,
That's likely because it's a laptop.
And my PC keyboards all waste plastic on a backwards-apostrophe key
Try writing a document with LaTeX, then complain about this key. Personally, I use that character quite a bit.
and a scroll-lock (+ LED!),
A lot of *nix users like scroll-lock. I know I do.
while functions that you use all the time, such as switching between windows, cut/copy/paste, back/forwards, undo/redo etc, all have to double-up with other keys..
This is largely to prevent accidents. I'd hate to be typing along and accidently hit the single "undo" key.
By the way, did you know that lots of operting environments let you create keybindings? Just an FYI.
Have any organizations actually tried to re-invent the keyboard recently? (..not counting the manufacturers who stick a few 'multimedia' keys along the top for consumer PCs).
Yes. All their "improvements" suck (except for a very small few, highly specialized designs -- like onehanded keyboards or even 5 key chords).
Would this be doomed to failure
Most are.
because of the tens of thousands of legacy apps that expect things to be the way they are?
I don't see why legacy applications would prevent new keyboard designs from coming forward. Any keyboard design will fundamentally have a mechanism for alpha-numerics. Specialty keys are up for grabs. What you're talking about sounds mostly like keyboard layout. In that case, there's a LOT of variety.
What sort of keys would you include in your fantasy keyboard layout?" It's not just the keys on your keyboard that are important, it's also how you arrange them. What kind of keyboard arrangements might we see in the future?
Oh well, let me think about this one. I would probably want some letters. Maybe some numbers. Perhaps some special symbols like dollar signs and parenthesis. Maybe some other non-printing characters for special functions -- keys that I could map on a per application basis. Wow, the possibilities are endless. If only we had such an input device...
How would I arrange them? I would imaging in such a way that my fingers can reach them with comfort.
Probably DVORAK.
OKay, so what the hell does this submission accomplish? We've probably just witness the single most ridiculous Ask Slashdot ever, by someone who has done absolutely no research beyond the one or two QWERTY PC-101 boards in his house.
Yes, some changes are good... but most are clearly just crap (web buttons and so forth). We've seen a lot of development in ergonomic keyboards. That's good. We've seen DVORAK become more popular. Also good. What more does this guy want? I suppose he also argues for the revolution of the piano keyboard as well.
Silly. Stupid editors.
Why bother.
...oh...a "keyboard"...how quaint...
Would this be doomed to failure because of the tens of thousands of legacy apps that expect things to be the way they are?
I'm not sure about how to set up a new keyboard, however there is only 1 company that would fully introduce a new keyboard. A few PC manufactures may make special keyboards, but only Apple would ever dump legacy support just to try something new. If we do see a new design that is where it will be from(and just think about the ridicule they'd receive, I bet it would be even worse then when they introduced the CD drive or got rid o the floppy)
Don't save your orgasms for Heaven; Heaven knows we need them here.
Neither Dvorak nor Qwerty is likely optimal for modern computing. I propose setting up a distributed computing effort for finding the best possible keyboard layout.
Get a group of a few dozen computer users that do a fair amount of typing. Perhaps have multiple groups which would correspond to different usage patterns (secretarial, data entry, programming) and different languages, which would each get their own layout in the end. Ideally, the sample groups would have users of both Qwerty and Dvorak layouts.
Install programs on the volunteer's computers to collect some statistical information. This would include the frequency of all the possible two-key combinations (i.e. 'sh' occurs a lot more often than 'zb'). Also, it would collect timing information for various key combinations (the average number of milliseconds between each possible pair of keystrokes).
The distributed program would generate all the possible keyboard layouts (perhaps culling some obviously inferior ones), distribute them in blocks to volunteer machines, and compute a "score" for each layout based on the inter-key timing information and the commonality of key-pairs in the sample workload.
... "Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the w
don't do that, crtl + c is a break signal.
i like ctrl + insert and ctrl + delete.
It works with most applications under KDE, Windows and DOS.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Nothing would enrage me more than to have my software rearrange and/or relable my keys. This is just an absolutely bad idea. You would destroy any learning curve software has and you would demolish any consistency between applications.
I do agree with you that internationalization would benefit tremendously from such a keyboard -- but chances are, if you are an X language speaker, you'll be in an X language speaking area with appropriately fitted computers. Very few international cybercafes as far as I'm aware.
User interface hardware needs to be designed such that it is the same today as it was the day before. Users have a hard enough time with crappy software constantly shifting beneath their feet.
Why bother.
i'd like to see an integrated pointing device as standard (trackpoint) on all keyboards.
reduces RSI and the amount of time it takes to switch between keyboard and pointing device. all round, it's a winner for efficiency, space-saving and convenience.
sadly, (outside of laptop manufacturers) hardly anybody produces decent, tactile keyboards with a incorporated pointing device.
why is this?
secondly, i'd like to see 'power', 'sleep' and 'wake up' taken off of the keyboard - they cause more problems they are worth, if pressed accidentally.
$0.02
<B>note to self:</B> <I>post as html</I>
The qwerty layout was a requirement of the old mechanical typewriters. Certain common key combos would jam the character arms together if they swung in their little arcs at nearly the same time.....
DC
For those who don't "get it" --
Marvin The Paranoid Android
~Berj
Google leads to all kinds of knowledge. Perhaps if you had known about it beforehand, you would have saved yourself some time.
Handkey Corporation
Datahand Ego Keyboard (These are incredible. Used them before.)
Matias Corporation (If you can run it, try their demo -- I found I could get used to this layout in less than 30 minutes)
There's a start. Remember Google.
Why bother.
In Linux/UNIX, some still fight against a Backspace Key (^H), so I would say that they would be stubborn towards adding any new keys, or putting keys in more logical places.
I thought the idea wasn't neccesarily to "slow down typing" but rather prevent frequently used letters from occurring next to each other, hence preventing the jams you speak of. Of course, it does end up slowing typing down because frequently used keys are where you need them. That's more a symptom of the disease though...
On the other hand, I don't find it enough of a hinderance to move from my current QWERTY keyboard to another layout such as DVORAK. The fact is that my fingers just can't move fast enough for this to be a problem.
Here is a pretty good explanation of its origin in the days of mainframes and terminals.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I envision a laptop where there is a second display much like the first on the other half of the 'book' where a default keyboard would be dispalyed. You could then have in your OS an application framework that would handle a UI for this second display, putting up a default keyboard layout. But the second you need something different, simply change the input screen layout to something that suits your needs.
Need a Dvorak layout? A touch of a popup menu or whatnot and you got it! Need lined paper for notes? You got it. Need a turntable? Sure.
And in the future we may end up having tablet computers, but I really think that we will always need a seperate input UI to deal with our systems. You don't just go into to a car and have the very complex essences of it come into your system. We may very well need a small part of the UI cut off that can resemble a keyboard and trackpad, or have this integrated into a part of the workspace apart from the rest of the UI.
Want a gaming controller? Albeit flat, it would work.
http://pixelcort.com/
What *is* the Scroll Lock key for?
I've used a computer since the late 80s, and have never used the scroll lock key once. I assume it has legacy purposes dating back to before that... but what were they? Anyone?
Thanks!
ALL future computers will have access to our thoughts directly. There will be no need for typing. Why would it be any other way? All handicapped individuals will have full access. No special designs to accomidate them. This will of course bring about new ways in thinking like we've never seen before(or thought before
Uhh... look at one of the old sun keyboards. They have all those extra buttons you want. Copy/Paste and the like. Of course the entire keyboard/mouse input thing is stupid but that's what caught on for some god-unknown reason...
What are you? Some kind of clueless newbie?
I use the "backwards apostrophe" all the time. For example, I want to edit my "startx" script. I type:
$ vi `which startx`
and it brings it up in my favorite editor. I suggest the poster should learn the benefits of the backwards apostrophe before dissing it.
Best Buy can have you arrested
And I can't imagine using emacs with the control key so far from the home finger positions. If I had live with control down there, I might even convert to vi.
Think about the keys he mentioned and check to see how often you use them as a writer. Since we're all writing in the English language here, it's likely we're also all using the same number of keys regularly. Do you honestly use any of the keys he mentioned? You might want to check them again.
He never mentioned the 26 alphabet letters, nor the top row of numbers and their associated shift characters, which I assume are the ones that a writer is going to use the most. One of the keys he mentioned is an accent key (reverse apostrophe), which isn't really useful in writing if it's not part of the associated character.
Most of the special characters a writer may need access to on a daily basis can be accessed through OSX's KeyCaps application, or Windows Character Map. Most English typers don't need, for example, access to German or French characters, and if they need them that badly, can order a French or German keyboard. I type in both German and Japanese, and find the input methods available with a standard US keyboard under OSX acceptable (I have a Japanese keyboard as well, and it doesn't differ significantly, except in the realm of punctuation.)
Finally, he also never said he was going to take your keyboard away; he just wants to have alternative choices available. I don't think this is unreasonable. Has the existencee of the Dvorak keyboard rained on your parade lately? What about ergonomic keyboards; are those evil, too?
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
I type up a lot of scientific documents, and would
:)
love it if the windows key was a "Greek Shift" key. Windows+a => lower-case alpha. Windows+A => upper-case alpha.
But, I also wish that Latex could parse unicode Greek characters in math.
Yeah. Waggling my hand around is going to be sooo much more efficient than hitting ctrl-v.
If 3 modal bits aren't enough to make you screw up everey day on your keyboard try 101 modal keys with 7 possible bits on each! This new advanced design will guaruntee to decrease your accuracy more then trying to type with your elbows!
I think one reason the Dvorak keyboard hasn't effected keyboard layout overall is that the numbers to justify switching just aren't there. Back in the day when I bought my first Apple //e and was programming on it in assembler (and realized I could write a program to re-map the keyboard), I read up on Dvorak keyboards and found that for every test that showed improved speeds on the Dvorak, there were 2 tests taht disagreed. If it were really that good, it would be more widespread.
I agree that it's likely you wouldn't see a remapping of the alpha and number keys, but I find I use other keys often enough that shifting them around (keys like alt, control, shift, symbols) would be enough to distract a touch typist.
As for taking away a keyboard -- no, he isn't. But, on the other hand, if all he is doing is trying to have choices, why doesn't he just remap the one he has?
Back when I was using linux I just mapped the windows keys to 'super' and 'hyper'. You can never have enough meta keys!
Maybe that just comes from using emacs too much...
Back in the 30's, when the navy was studying dvorak... The war begun, they forgot about the dvorak keyboard, and now we're stuck with a keyboard designed to slow down people... (when typewriting machines were jamming, they had to think to some layout that will slowdown typists)
Now, every time someone learns i'm typing on dvorak,
(custom dvorak, i didn't like the place of some characters ({},/,-,|....) and the way to get them... what do you use the most, { or [ ? if{, then let it accessible without pressing shift, and press shift to get [ then... this kind of things) she looks me like a freak....
Looks like it's too late to change, so many people learned qwerty and don't want to switch to anything else.... manufacturers makes standards products, typists learn on standards products, and the power users remaps every key on their keyboard... (who needs caps lock any way ? or num lock ? let the numpad only print numbers....)
I'm a happy owner of four OmniKey keyboards with the CTRL key to the left of the A, the ALT key at the bottom left, and the otherwise useless CAPS-LOCK key below the Z and X keys.
Is it just my upbringing in the Unix world, or am I just the only one who is utterly in the dark why modern day keyboard have the CTRL, ALT, and CAPS-LOCK keys where they are? Do people really use the CAPS-LOCK key any more? I find it to be a useless and otherwise annoying key.
Yes, I know I can switch the keys around using the registry under Windows. But, what a pain.
--
http://www.aikiweb.com - AikiWeb Aikido Information
that's right, quit smoking. fucking moron.
Microsoft put out a few unix commands for Windows NT in the resource kit. Vi is one of them.
Search Microsoft's site for "POSIX utilities" or snag a copy of the resource kit CD. On the CD I have, the commands are both precompiled and in source code.
When you hit a key on a keyboard, you generate a scancode. A scancode isn't a tilde, or a scroll lock, it's a smidgin of data... where a smidgin is often equal to one byte, but sometimes not. There's a passel of details about the particulars, where a passel is equal to way too damned much for such an apparently simple tool, but they're not directly important to this discussion. Which is good, because I only ever knew a dollop of details, and I've forgotten several smidgins of that.
The thing is, given a capable operating system, those scancodes can mean what you want them to mean. Vi guys, for example, often remap Caps Lock to mean Esc. Caps Lock, then, can be remapped to someplace where it belongs... a footpedal locked in a closet, for instance.
Linux is capable. Mostly. Configuring keys in Linux isn't much fun, in my opinion. The files are obscure, things are handled differently in X than they are at the console, and different users can't have different keymaps (correct me... please! I'd love to be wrong). You can also botch things up, if you're not careful, and find the changes difficult to undo since you tend to want to use the keyboard to undo them. Configuration under OSX is easy, as you'd expect, and I don't know about other Unixen or Windows.
Anyway, keyboards don't need to change so far as this goes. It's a software issue. It would be nice if the software changed, and it became easier for the average user to remap as he saw fit. It would be nice as well if keyboards weren't so damned cheap, these days, and came with real keycaps like the classics did. You know, the little plastic key covers, which can either be rearranged or replaced with unusual or custom-printed ones.
My guess is, keyboard layouts aren't going to change much for a good, long time. For the great majority of users, there's no reason to change them.
What I personally wish we'd see, and what I'm confident we won't see, in the 21st century, are keyboards with more keys. Real keys, generating real scancodes... the programmable ones with extra keys generally just use the extra keys to send sequences of scancodes normally generated by the other keys. That's very handy if you're unable to to configure things on the computer side... but the computer always should be the flexible, configurable part of a setup. Ultimately, having more scancodes at your fingertips is a better solution (unless you're one of those Happy Hacker minimalists).
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
A couple things that i have to say about this,
1. About keybords that suck.. there are some really cheap ones that have a power, sleep and some other useless key rite beaneath the del,end,pgdwn set. Those have been the most anoying I've ever used, even worst that the keyboards that come with the old imac's
2. Probably the best keyboards (IMHO) have been already built, one is the old IBM Model M and also I once used some keyboards from Sun on Ultra Sparc workstations, those had the copy, paste, cut, front, back and some more keys that could make ur life easier
I can see a problem here. There are some of us that live outside the United States and speak more then one language (ie English, French, and Portuguese). What then? Am I supposed to have three keyboards and switch them when I need the appropriate accents? I have no problem with the way my keyboard is set up. I do use most of the keys in it from just writing English, to French or Portuguese, and programming.
As for ergos, I love them. Typing on one of them right now. Some people can't stand them and I'm alright with that but they just split the keys apart and didn't take anything out.
I once saw a keyboard on internet (but can't remember or find it again), it was supposed to have the feeling of an IBM Model M, but the same distribution as a normal PC105 keyboard, the nicest thing was that it replaced the Windows (TM) logo with a nice Tux :)
You know, it might sound funny, but the best keyboard I've been able to find for my Linux workstation is... A Microsoft ergo!
It was reasonably cheap, (I have the "MS Natural") fits on my desktop, and has done a nice job of eliminating the pain once so common in my wrists.
I can (and frequently do) use a "normal" keyboard, but anytime I do any serious work, I buy/break out the ole' MS Natural. It only takes a single day of good coding to pound my wrists to pain on a "normal" keyboard.
Sick, though, that my Linux W/S has an MS keyboard in front of it!
-Ben
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
When I first became interested in computers, I quickly learned of the deliberate inefficiencies of the QWERTY layout. Since I didn't want to waste my time learning an inefficient layout, I decided to not learn to type on a QWERTY layout. I set my sights on someday learning to type on a Maltron or Dvorak keyboard. But being a teenager with no money and a computer with an integrated QWERTY keyboard, I never attained my goal. Besides, as many programmers will tell you, keyboards with a bend towards the english language make typing code more difficult
Earlier this year, I bought a Happy Hacking keyboard off of ebay, and I simply love it. The compact layout with all the functions available and the "proper" positioning of the CONTROL key has made typing a lot easier and faster with less strain on my hands and wrists.
So now, after 20 years of using computers, I'm going to finally break down and learn to type, because although it may be nice to talk about better layouts for the future, the fact is the vast majority of people just don't want to change.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
How about this keyboard at :http://www.fingerworks.com/
It has all the functions you need without a single button. I don't know if it is actually better but i'm sure you could probably work faster if you don't have to switch between a mouse and a keyboard(its a giant touchpad). All those other functions like copy, cut, paste, etc are just little motions that probably take the same time as pressing ctrl-c or anyother similar combination but give you more flexibility.
Ok, well not having ever really used a mac I can't say much about the double S key (or those keys with pictures of fruit on them, I mean what are those for? Ordering lunch?), but I pretty much use every key on my board regularly (even ^'s!)...
I'm looking over the design, and pretty much eveything is useful &| required. I think I use ~90% of the key's on this board >50% of the time; "What can you really drop?!". Ok, maybe pause/break has lost a little functionality now, and I might not use that one as much as I used to, but I'd rather have that than those windoze keys, you can still pause scrolling bios screens with it if you need to see something pre-boot.
I guess if I had to vote, I'd drop:
1. The caps lock key (when's the last time you typed a whole sentance in caps, or used the caps lock key to do it?)
2. The windows keys (all three of the little buggars)
3. I *might* give up my pause/break.
I cannot say I love this layout though. I do think we need to relook at what keys are where, and the ergo keyboards are kind of annoying (I used them for about 3 years at my job and home, and ended up going back to a flat one).
And just so the rest of the keys don't feel left out...
4678qx#_=+\{}[]
01:36AM up 426 days, 2:46, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.11, 0.05
My keyboard already has a Pause button!
Check it out:
The Infamous Space Cadet Keyboard
Wow. Press [Super][Meta][Shift][Control][Alt][X] to continue... Imagine a Beo^H^H^H one of these puppies!
Clickety Click
When my family got a new Dell Dimension 8100, the keyboard that came with it had 3 programmable keys on the top, so I programmed one to play a .wav of Bill Lumbergh saying "mmmm...yeah...", and got a sticker and named it the "mmmm...yeah..." key. I think every keyboard should have one.
Insightful: 76, Off-Topic: 379, Flamebait: 24, Funny: 152, Interesting: 201, Underrated: 55, Troll: 9, Total: 896
I think before any major keyboard revolution comes there is going to be a trend to switch to speech recognition. A 2.5 Ghz or equivilent CPU is capable of doing better than real time. I realize that keyboards still will have their place but for at 4:00am while finishing a term paper it sure would be nice not having to worry about the ol' fingers having to function properly.
These guys have some intuitive ideas (without escaping the keyboard/pointer paradigm), and were featured on slashdot a while back.
Their layouts include Programmer's Qwerty, Programmer's dvorak, and their own "QWERAK".
What irks me is the overall layout of the device.
Why are the PgUp/Down, Arrow Keys, and Number Pad on the right side anymore? That is where I put my mouse/trackball. Those keys should be on the left. That way, my arm would not have to be turned at an odd angle to reach the pointing device. Instead, it would be comfortably straight out in front of me. Having those keys there really bothers me. Am I the only one?
(i still can't figure out what the double-s key is...)
The problem is, the current keyboard design wasn't designed for Most Users, it just sort of evolved.
There aren't 12 function keys because it's a good idea. In the late-eighties, there was a one-upsmanship contest going on to see who could squeeze the most in the space; for a long ten was the standard, but enough keyboards were marketed as "better" because they had 12 keys that it eventually became the standard.
(is there a single application that uses all 15 F-keys on a Mac keyboard??)
Let's go back to you. As a writer, what do you do with back-tik and Scroll Lock? Wouldn't it be great if you could depend on PrtScn to print? Wouldn't replacing the mess of F-keys with standard commands like Cut/Copy/Paste/Undo be beneficial to your work as a writer? (forget for a moment that you've memorized ctrl-x etc.; wouldn't have been better not to have to?)
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
How about having current keyboards go on to be consumer keyboards, then have some really kickass keyboard with the standard qwerty keyset (i know dvorak is more efficient, but very hard to learn to people with qwerty so engrained in their muscle memory) but have it be a ergonomically split keyboard, add tons of useless-to-consumer programmable keys further left and right. With my mac I use the command, option, and control keys so much, that they are almost as worn out as that one flat spot on they space bar we all surely have. I know it isnt probably a practial device, but i would really like more buttons that i could program without adding all these different devices to my usb hub. Multimedia keys, terminal macro's, program launchers, whatever any of us geeks could think about. Proposition, /. hardware concepts!
I was taught by peers to ignore "fancy" keyboard features, since their positions might change depending on what terminals we were using (and the motly assortment of terminals available in school meant random chance every time I sat down.) Hence, ^H for backspace/rubout and ^[ for esc. (One of them, I think an IBM, had a setting that WHACKed a solenoid against the terminal casing. As if the key followthrough weren't enough on that monster.)
Then a stupid thing happened: companies started putting the control key in completely the wrong place. I was working at Sun when they introduced the Type 4 keyboard and we had a bloody fit. CAPS LOCK in place of CONTROL? Give me a break. Only one person I knew used it, and they were missing an arm. To turn on caps lock, you should have to crawl under the desk and turn two key locks while getting a retina scan. And a colon scan. Friggin caps lock. Anyway, Sun heard the noise and came out with a "localized" unix variant keyboard - control key in the right place.
When I started working on Mac OS X, I couldn't stand the cheesy, mushy keyboards that they were shipping with (net weight must have been like 8 ozs) so I acquired a NeXT Cube and did all my work telneted into the Mac box. The NeXT keyboards were *really nice*. Great feel and of course, the control key is in the right place. (As an aside, since Apple does ship localized keyboards for, geesh, spain of all places, they should follow sun's lead in shipping a "unix" localized keyboard. Naah, the mushyness would still suck.)
I'm currently using a Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite II (USB) on my macs. The keys are mostly in the right places, there's no caps lock (at least, it can be disabled with a DIP and would otherwise require chording several other keys to enable it) but it just doesn't have the full impact tactile feedback of those older keyboards.
I need a thing that hooks to my brain and does whatever I want to do right away!
Think about all the time lost between what you want to do and your body interaction. Major lag...
No more scrolling through menus or finding files. Instant!
Oh well, maybe that'd be the keyboard for the 22nd century...
-- Leeeter than leet
if only we had some sort of 12 function keys on the top of the keyboard...
There's already a product on the market that meets your desires, but it's not cheap. This site sells them, and has a fair amount of innovation beyond the simple hardcoding of Dvorak.
They're expensive because of the very low demand for such products. Convince a few thousand other people that they need one, and maybe the price will come down to one we can afford.
Guys, I really feel that discussing possible layouts for future keyboards is a waste of time. We need a better human computer interface. I don't claim to have the answer but to me the problem seems to be keyboards all together. I think we need a direct cybergenic neuro synaptic nervous system capable interface device. I kid you not. I also want it bluetooth enabled so that i wouldnt need any unsightly jacks on my head, just a 1 time implant.
im a hippie
And my PC keyboards all waste plastic on a backwards-apostrophe key
You are obviously not a Unix user if you think the grace accent is a wasted key.
No, the final touch of authenticity would be having it explode in your face when you take damage in a game.
I never did figure out why the Enterprise's workstations were built of explosive material...
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Using the function keys means moving my hands from the home key positions. While I have to do that for control or alt, it's not that far a move. The numbers are far enough from home for me. Beyond that is more than I want to have to reach while I'm writing.
But that's just me. I map other functions on to the keyboard myself (for example, I write a lot of scripts, and I use alt with different keys for different margin settings and for character names). It would be ironic to think a writer who is more-or-less a part time programmer has a better feel for re-mapping a keyboard than a "real geek" does.
If we will someday have to go through the effort of learning a new keyboard, it should be a one handed keyboard, leaving the other hand free for using the mouse (please no jokes about what other uses exist for the free hand). Constantly having to move one hand to mouse, back to keyboard, to mouse over and over slows down the mind to computer interface dramatically. This means LESS keys for MORE functions. Every key will have to have multiple functions.
Who annoying is it reaching for both the shift and "2" keys when I'm writing someones e-mail address?
Isn't it time to say to the "@" key: "Come on down" to unshifted status? Dare I even say--the bottom three rows?
Don't sweat it, it's only ones and zeros...
Back in my day memory usage MATTERED.
'nuff said.
I'm actually very comfortable with the current bog-standard 104-key ten-dollar-cheapo keyboards they sell these days, except for some labeling.
I keep wishing somebody sold replacement keycaps (doubleshot molded like the caps they replace) for:
- swapping Ctrl and CapLock so Ctrl is to the left of the A. It's easy enough in Linux to remap this, but visitors here who don't think to notice which one blinks the LED get confused even when I scribble a caret next to the new Ctrl key.
- I'd really rather not see that stupid crusade flag (what? you mean it stands for that legacy OS from Redmond?) on two of the keys. Homer Simpson had the right idea: label both of them "ANY", to go with any desktop/OS.
- That other legacy-OS key, the one with the pointer on what looks like an air-conditioner, should be labeled "RMS". If you don't happen to be GNUly-converted, you can say that it stands for Right Mouse Switch.
Surely someone must be willing to sell those...
I don't know if anyone else mentioned this, but Sun Microsystems computers have Copy, Paste, and other such keys on their keyboards. I personally don't mind Key Combos, but single keys would be nice. I actually don't even know what "Scroll Lock" does, so I'll probably never use it.
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
I think this might be the company that makes them, but I'm not sure.
t m
http://www.cvtinc.com/products/keyboards/menu.h
You've never done any Perl or shell programming, have you?
That backwards apostropy is great for executing commands in scripts.
Also, you ever played an FPS? Guess which key the console is bound to... the backwards apostrophe! (actually the tilde, but noone ever listens)
I like my ancient layouts. The only one that should go is that goddamn caps lock.
--agenthh
...has a Help key. I never used it, but it sounds really useful today.
Also I'd like a dvorak layout with F-keys on the side of the keyboard. (or make a new qualifier key to change numpad keys into F keys)
Numlock, scroll lock, printscreen and pause can all go.
I'm done.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
I'd have a pr0n key.
;-)
Hey, they have "email" and "web" keys on consumer PC's... why not?
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
It's the REAL bastard key on the PC's layout. I always suspected it was for compatibility with an IBM terminal emulation or something. I only remember one program that used it, DESQview. For all of you that are confused, DESQview was a multi-tasker for MS-DOS. If you were an old-school MS-DOS hacker you may have used it. If not, be happy that you were spared the pain =). Can anyone else name an app that used it? I'm talking default mappings here. Please spare me the "you used MS-DOS you infidel! I've been using UNIX since I was in the womb!@#!#" nonsense, some of us were young and had shitty computers.
I think the current 101-key keyboard is a jack of all trades, master of none.
What I'd like to see is a redesign of the general consumer's keyboard. I'd like to see the current keyboard design to be sold more as specialized devices. Anyways, here's my laundry list:
1) Remove the Scroll Lock, Pause/Break, and Num lock keys.
2) Remove the numeric keypad to save 4" of desktop space
3) Redesign the page/home/insert/delete section to be more intuitive
4) Merge F1-12 keys with the number keys, "-", and "=". To do a F5, press Fn-5.
5) All consumer keyboards should be USB and be a passive hub for at least 2 devices.
6) Remove the Windows key, or move it somewhere where it won't accidentally get pressed.
Speaking of reading comprehension skills, at what
point did I claim that you called me anything?
I said some people, refering to the type of clueless
idiots you mentioned. If anything, I was adding to
what you said! Perhaps next time you want to defend
one of your prior posts, you can read what was said
a little better, and actually post with your name
instead of assuming anybody would believe that some
AC accidentally found your posting and felt moved
to comment. How does that sound?
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
I have also heard this explanation for the layout of typewriter keys. In the story that I heard, the additional rationale is even more ridiculous: the top row of letters (Q,W,E,..) is designed so that it has all of the letters to spell "typewriter". This was so that the salesmen providing demos of the first typewriters wouldn't have to hunt for the keys but could just find everything they needed in the top row (there was no such thing as touch-typing yet, of course).
Soylent Green: for people who like people.
I just swapped a spare k/b over to dvorak... And hell does this make for slow typing.. But I'm getting a little faster.. Loving the A placement :)..
Rp C jrgse cp/. uaoyfpvvvZZZZ
:)
I know you were joking, but I like to bind the
left hand home position typing keys like this:
a) depends on game. duck, zoom, grappling hook, etc.
s) strafe left d) walk backwards f) strafe right
Then I make the space bar jump, so it's under
my thumb. I may bind some keys around those home
position keys to do other things. The point being,
you can always find your keys in the dark by
touch, and since you use the same keys for you
left hand to type with, it feels perfectly natural
to use them in this way. Aim, walk, shoot, and
switch weapon stay on the mouse. That way if I
need to light up a cigarette, take a sip of a
drink, scratch my ass, etc. I don't have to stop
playing to do this with my left hand.I only give
up a few things for a short amount of time. Comes in
handy! (pun intended)
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
I wish there was a small six-key grid akin to the help/home/pgUp/del/end/pgDn cluster that had:
< / >
@ . "
I would use that every minute of every day.
Kevin Fox
In effect, you would be furiously pounding away at wild combinations of keys to perform an operation that used to be performed with a simple keystroke. This is innovative because it goes along with the general direction of the computer industry. For example, where you'd once just enter some information, you now have to click through 600 screens, all containing all sorts of graphics, sounds, animations, and whatnot, which make what used to be a two second operation into a day's work, all in the name of "ease of use" for all the people who don't know jack about computers, who don't use this software anyway. In other words, software keeps getting worse, slower, buggier, and harder to use, so why shouldn't your keyboard follow the same path?
Look at that touchpad on your iBook. Now, imagine a keyboard made like that, *ideally with an LCD that can display any layout you like*.
There was a keyboard like this previewed in slashdot -- but I can't find it today.
But essentially, it uses the hall effect to tell where your fingers are -- and it reads not only letters, but gestures.
Do something like this, and every keyboard is completely reprogrammable. Why not have a different key combination for every programming word, for example?
Of course, there is the issue of the learning curve -- but you can ease into that by allowing the *user* to reprogram his keyboard, and just keep his keyboard layout on the internet, and download it when he begins work.
That way, for typing English, you use Dvorak. For programming, you use a special programming set, which can alternate to Dvorak for comments or text.
Indeed, I'm waiting until PDAs wise up to this, and allow input by such a "keyboard" as well. I can type quite quickly. I can't scratch the screen as quickly, and I have to press too hard to do it anyhow, and you can't erase what you've already scratched into the screen [okay, that's a joke].
Of course, this all makes me wonder if this isn't some sort of a repost.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
the three keys that I would put on my keyboard consist of.
1. Any Key
2. Yes key
3. No key
this would solve almost to any type of operation that could ever occur on any windoze machine. I've dreamed of these keys.
simpsons part
homer: he types to vent reactor (y-e-s) put hits (y) and pauses to find out that productivity has just has just gone up 300 percent and tells marge.
or hits (tab) to order a tab
classic
SCREW FLANDERS
I would like a Password key. A BIG password key that sits on the top of the keyboard, much like the spacebar sits at the bottom now.
I believe this would save me the most time in my working day. No longer would I have to waste 8 key strokes each time I walk away from my computer for more than 180 seconds. No longer would I have to scribble it down on a post-it note that is hidden under my phone. I could even let other people on my PC if they need important files.
Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I just got a keyboard (QWERTY) for like $6. Where can I get a cheap dvorak, I've been wanting to learn them for ever. A simple google or froogle search didn't turn up anything. Hmm.
I'd heard that the phone company actually put the numbers on 'upside down' because they were worried about people typing the numbers in to fast.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
yes yes, its Micro$oft, but i thought this was a really cool and insightful lecture. The guy shows off keyboards with additional and very much radical components, a gyro/accelerometer-enchanced PDA, among other things:
4
http://murl.microsoft.com/LectureDetails.asp?90
Actually, the idea that the idea that qwerty is slower then dovrak is a myth is a myth.
It was written by a bunch of free-market zealot economists who refused to believe the market could make 'mistakes'. Their only evidence was that the original study wasn't adequate. They certainly didn't disprove the advantage.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
For all I know the function keys were designed so you could
put an application specific paper template around them. This
allowed to easily look up the assigned functions.
Now that GUI's offer menus with accelerator keys, the paper
templates have become obsolete. I haven't seen one in over a
decade.
And with the templates, the function keys have also become
obsolete. Pressing Ctrl-F is more easy to perform and remember
than pressing Ctrl-F3.
So IMO it's time to either remove the function keys or
replace them with something that works uniformly across
applications, and doesn't need to be used in combination
with modifier keys.
I previewed twice and missed the fact that slashcode removed the half-dozen HTML tags that I put in there as examples. (DUH).
For example, there was a spot where I meant to say "...HTML macros, like <TABLE></TABLE> followed by eight left arrows", etc.
I must have gone too many nights without caffeine lately. So sorry.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
This is what should really go there http://tim.griffins.ca/gallery/laptop/fuck-it-key. jpg
We really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
But essentially, it uses the hall effect to tell where your fingers are -- and it reads not only letters, but gestures.
Do something like this, and every keyboard is completely reprogrammable. Why not have a different key combination for every programming word, for example?
Wicked. As soon as they make one contoured to ward off my RSI, sign me up. Maybe kinesis corp is listening....? I'd probably pay close to a kilobuck for something like that.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
I've been toying with the idea of trying to adopt the SMS-style "predictive" input as featured on Nokia phones so I can do all my normal writing with the numeric keypad.
The NiftySuperCoolTypeWeirdCharactersKey, of
course. Like option.
#include printf("[Yeemp: deekoo~tentacle.net]\n");
Even after them, some manufacturers tried to be different. I present for evidence the Commodore64, which used a modified version of that horrid UK layout.
Is there a free utility in Windows to do something equivalent to xmodmap? (i.e. remap "useless" keys to more functional equivalents)?
Also, I remember reading about a utility that could "take over" the three Num Lock/Caps Lock/Scroll Lock LEDS as indicators for user-definable events. For eg: "blink all 3 LEDS in quick succession when I get new mail". Anyone has a link handy?
Just how many people need to post that they know what their back tick is for?
There's only one reason the back tick is useful -- Because it has been on keyboards for years. If there had been an inverted exclamation mark, it would now be used in shell scripts and Perl, too. The same can be said for any of the weirder keys.
As things stand, much of the keyboard is wasted space. And it really is wasted -- For every programmer who is glad of their "double S" (he's looking at the ampersand, for those who didn't get it) there are hundreds of users for whom it's just one more thing to search through in the hunt and peck. That's blatantly inefficient -- It would make more sense to have special programmer's keypads, and save a lot of mistypes and desk space for everyone else.
But I do think the comments have given a clear answer to one of the poster's questions...
Would this be doomed to failure because of the tens of thousands of legacy apps that expect things to be the way they are?Yep.
No use for the backwards apostrophe? Obviously you don't do a lot of scripting and TeX. :-p
IMHO, you should not depend on the big boys to bring you a good keyboard. They still only ship the purposefully inefficient QWERTY keyboards... Dvorak keyboards are available, but at outrageous prices. My advice is to help yourself, and make your own keyboard and your own key bindings.
I started by taking a permanent marker and drawing the Dvorak symbols on my QWERTY keyboard. Moving the keys is not an aption, as for some reason they won't fit in places other than the ones they are meant for. Besides, I get a lot of visitors, and I don't expecrt them to learn Dvorak if they just want to use my computer for a while. Leaving the QWERTY symbols in place accomodates those who need them. Be warned though: after you switch to Dvorak, your typing spood will be more awful than you ever imagined. If you persist, you will soon find yourself in the situation that you can't type on QWERTY nor on Dvorak. If you type a lot, however, you will notice that Dvorak significantly reduces strain. Eventually, your typing speed will increase beyond what you had on QWERTY, simply because the upper bound is higher.
One more note about Dvorak: Dvorak also designed keyboards for people with only one hand. These are highly popular (in as far as people consider anything other than QWERTY, that is) today, because they allow you to type with one hand and mouse|phone|drink| with the other. Their layout could also be useful for PDA's, wihich typically have limited space for keys.
Besides something radical like changing your keyboard layout, there are various other things you can do, most notably, assigning hotkeys to common events. What is possible and how it can be done largely depends on the software you are running. If yau are using X11, chances are your function keys mostly go unused. In many window managers, they can be bound to window management events, so that you can, for example, use to switch to the next window, to go to the previous one, to maximize the current window, and to iconify it. This is easily done in WindowMaker through the Wprefs app shipped with it. If you want to assign other shortcuts to common operations like use to save a file instead of +, you could supposedly change your keyboard setup so that generates +. If you want to assign keyboard shortcuts to operations that previously hod none defined, for example, Copy and Paste as New in GIMP, you probably need some specialized software, which I think Apple and MicroSoft ship with their GUIs, but I am not aware of any such software for XFree86.
Those are just a few things you can do to improve your productivity here and now, without waiting for the big guys to do it for you. I've upped my productivity, up yours!
---
"When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout."
-- Lazarus Long
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
What we really need is a keyboard with a seperate key for every Unicode character.
As an alternative to the standard QWERTY model and the Unicode keyboard I've proposed, we should also have a binary keyboard for those minimalists (aka vi users) in the crowd. All you really need are 0, 1, and Enter.
Out there there is more than english.
Si vols parlà català l'apotrof has d'utilitzar.
(If you want to speak catalan you must use the apostrophe)
Need I say more.
If you run a Sun Blade with Gnome or CDE, you can cut/paste and use many automated functions built into the left side of the keyboard.
If you use the keyboard for coding or console commands and feel awkward with your US setup, I can tell you that's nothing compared to many foreign keyborads. On the norwegian keyboard, for instance, if we want to type a tilde we have to use AltGr, and then press a key that doesn't combine with this into a letter (AltGr+tilde, n=ñ).
Ahd the slash and question mark are typed by shifting on the numeric row at the top, i would've loved to have them right next by the right shift key as you take for granted. Also brackets rely on AltGr, and you need shift to get to colon and semicolon, and is the same key with or without shift.
Even worse, on swedish keyboards (which has most of the annoyances describe above as well) the all-important backslash is only accessible by using AltGr.
This also makes navigating certain applications a pain, like some use [] and similiar commands to move around, but they doesn't recognize the new key combinations (like AltGr+9 for a "]" and neither pressing the key that had that symbol on the US keyboard.
I'm wondering what kinds of people designed those layouts (typists, I suppose) and why we've kept them as long as we have.
Also the comma on the numpad seems to be evidence of this, most calculation sw will not accept this as a decimal point.
Run a keylogger for a day and then put the text in this applet
Here's the official 21st century Microsoft keyboard:
. jp g
http://users.pandora.be/jan.taelman/ms-keyboard
or
http://www.isfugl.com/sjov/MS-keyboard.jpg
I felt so inspired by your comment about how nice the model M is that I grabbed mine and plugged it in. I find that the left arrow and up arrow keys do not do anything. The arrows on the numerica keypad work if I turn off num-lock
This is debian woody - but that shouldn't matter.
Has anyone else experianced problems? Solutions?
WHere to look for help?
i MEAN DO WE REALLy need it?
dOES ANYONE ACTUALLY TYPE EVERYTHING IN CAPITALS THESE DAYS?
Not to mention it f*cks up command mode in vi.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/pfuca-store/
i got one and love it, they also sell seperate numeric keypads for it...
What about the 'Happy Hacking' keyboard ? Not a huge change in the way we use keyboards but one of the more popular ones recently. Pity it never found it's way onto a laptop.
I've got three comments I'd like to make.
First off, I only have a laptop, and my last four computers have been laptops (3 toshibas then a dell) . Leaving aside the bad mouse inputs for laptops (and unlike some people, I like relaxing with my feet up in a Lazy boy and typing, so normal mice don't work.)
Laptops have several basic problems with the key lay out. One, the power key, which is in many cases places on the keyboard area. It should have option type keys associated for various tasks, IE, shutdown restart, and hibernate. I'd also stick in a nice hardware device to have it do a hardware shut down if it is pressed and the system is locked.
Second, Laptops tend to double up on keys... Number pads made from parts of the keyboard, pgup and home on the same key, etc. In a good keyboard layout, you'd simply place them on one more row, below all the others.
The same row brings me to thumbs... I'm not sure about you, but personally, when I type I dont use both thumbs to press the space bar, and in classic typing pose, that's where they are... we could have a whole other key, same width as the space bar (to be ambidexerous) under the space bar. It's a waste of a digit any other way.
Finally, I hope something in this century we will do away keyboards and move to a gestural and vocal based replacement. Text would be done with the voice, and commands would be with the gestures. I'm learning American Sign Language, and frankly with good enough recognition by the computer, you would have millions of gesture based commands. Think how easy coding would be if you could assign gestures to common commands or variables. And copying text, as well as cutting and pasting would not only be simple, it would be intuitive.
Anyway just my thoughts.
Gryftir
http://www.santacruzbynight.com/index.shtml Santa Cruz By Night Vampire Larp
...would change size to adapt to the palm of the bearer..., erm, the user. The keys would be blank except when subjected to heat, then the glowing signs (Mordoric runes) would appear.
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
But it is so useful now. Use the apple (CMD) key for CMD-C,X,V and you can copy and paste from your terminal sessions in OS X, without fooling the Unix underneath that you are pressing control. I use it all the time to copy from PINE. It is incredibly useful. Back on topic, the apple pro keyboard I am typing from rocks. After the shaky imac keyboards, the new ones are top-notch.
Has all the keys you need and works great on Linux (after patching XFree86)
Of course, it does end up slowing typing down because frequently used keys are where you need them.
I wonder is that's true. Breaking up common sequences so the characters were as far apart as possible would (probably) make it easier to alternate between hands (for those sequences), which should speed up typing. I expect it would have ergonomic advantages as well.
I would put one key on it that simulates "CRTL+Alt+Delete" for windows user...
I've neve quite understood these contoured keyboards. For example, I tried the MS Natural keyboard, and hated it. It sucked. And it felt LESS natural than my standard keyboard I'm using now.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
There was a keyboard like this previewed in slashdot -- but I can't find it today.
Don't worry, it'll be posted as news any time now.
i dont understand peoples obsessions with keeping the old, or some people who are entirely against anything that has anything to do with tradition... why cant you replace the keyboard mouse combo with a 2 mouse combo? with few keys on each, different combinations of keys giving different commands, a simple 3 keys on each mouse could lead to over 720 commands being used if need be and im sure it wouldnt be much harder to get used to than touch typing...
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
I think you want to be introduced to the concept of "function keys". They are migty powerful and can even replace the any key.
(btw, good question with that 123 at the bottom)
my numeric keypad would also have the ABC DEF GHI-equivalents printed on them so I can make phone calls (y'know the ones with alpha) from my computer.
And please let's get rid of the monstrosity called the 'natural' keyboard. Those are simply too huge even for keyboard trays. I like the size of the Happy Hacker keyboards, now all I need is a keyboard tray that's THAT small and fully articulated and cantilevered or what-not.
Think Geek where art thou in this geek's time of need? Why not a do it yourself keyboard? and tray to go?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I can't believe you haven't been flamed for this.
The double S thing is a section symbol. I've never actually seen it used in a document anywhere; I can't remember how I got this particular knowledge, but here's an example of it.
Cheers,
Costyn.
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
These keyboards are great, you dont have to reach for anything, all is within an easy distance away. Ive happily used one for over two years now!
Here's one - http://www.onebamboo.net/ .
BUT, history shows that it is almost impossible to go up against an incumbent pervasive technology with a similar technology. The new tech has to offer a great deal more for people adopt it in large numbers. This is not to say that there won't always be unusual keyboard variations - but it's likely that these will be marginal.
And now an advert: I know about One Bamboo because they are members of the Cambridge Hi-tech Association of Small Enterprises. Anyone reading this near Cambridge, UK could be interested. http://www.chase.org.uk/ Two meetings a month - the next is a pubmeet at the Free Press on Tuesday 18th - 8pm.
Jeff
The totally disgusting keyboard that I'm using now indicates that I hit every key except the function keys, backquote/tilde, scroll lock and pause, often enough to keep them legible.
As to extra functionality, my mouse has five buttons, one is copy, the other is paste.
Look at a SUN type 5 keyboard, there cut/copy/paste/undo keys and some others like stop, find, open, front aswell as volume controls, up down and mute, and even a help key.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Some people can't stand them and I'm alright with that
And I'm one of em. I mean what the hell is so ergonomic about one of your hands typing at a right angle to the other one? It feels really unnatural to me. Give me a standard keyboard any day. Ditto for 'palm rests'. I sometimes rest my palms on my desk, and it feels fine. But usually my hands hover above the desk, and I can't type properly if I artificially make my palms 'rest'. Anyway I'm not against choice, just saying how many some of these keyboards seem to be.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
[...] And my PC keyboards all waste plastic on a backwards-apostrophe key [...]
Well, you know, that backwards-apostrophe you talk about, amongst other things, is used in many countries (Portugal, France, Spain, etc.) as a vowel accent (e.g. à, è, ì, ò, ù...).
And you should also know that it's used in many unix shells to run commands and pipe the output.
Sometimes when you think that there's no use in a key, someone else created good ways to use them.
Just a thought...
var sig = function() { sig(); }
What exactly is that key used for? it`s present on a lot of PS/2 keyboards but doesn`t function as a regular alt key, and i`ve never had to use it for anything.. Why can`t it just function like another alt key, that way i could switch to TTY12 just using 1 hand.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Sun Microsystems Type5 keyboards. Although the adapter is something bizarro, at least the old ones. The new ones might support USB though.
I'd buy that kind of keyboard in a second if I could connect it to my Intel box.
Where to find one? Go to a machine room near you... find big blue boxes with Sun on them.
Whilst the 'context sensetive menu' key is madness, I have to say that I use the 'Window' key a lot *ducks*
It's incredibly useful (to me) for getting the start menu and taskbar back up on the screen if an application either hogs the whole screen or goes to fullscreen. You must use that or Alt-Tab, except that alt-tab won't work if you don't have any other apps running.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Some companies do think about this, you know... I think one if the best attempts is fingerworks (www.fingerworks.com).
And btw: My iBook (with localized danish keyboard) do have pg-up/down and home/end keys... ok, they are also doubles, but there are there. (and the "double-s" key also includes the $-sign, which is very useful when coding php or perl).
Like ext3, then just SUB :-)
IBM stop screwing up laptop keyboards!
I replaced my Toshiba 35DVD with this pathetic (because the keyboard) IBM X24 Thinkpad that has probably most fucked up keyboard I have ever used!
Do they really have to move the 'Fn' key where you usually have 'Ctrl' key? And WTF for is this ridiculously huge 'Caps Lock' key?
Did anyone else click on the link to the website of the guy who posted this? (jules) - (obviously not many, or people wouldn't be wondering if he's a linux user..) looks like he's written a sequencer for Windows that absolutely rocks!! I downloaded it last night and I'm smitten! Any fans of audio stuff or just good GUI design - I seriously recommend you check his site out.. quite amazing!
Perhaps you mean the Fingerworks keyboard. I have had the opportunity to play around with one for quite some time, and I am quite impressed. The gesture-based shortcuts are quickly learned (i.e., rotating your wrist like opening a jar will open the currently selected item). They are a little out of my price range ($330 for the top-o-the-line full ergonomic Touchstream ST), but the iGesture Pad is reasonable at $179. There aren't many places to try these things out at, but trust me, when you can ditch your mouse (since gestures take its place) and still have absolute control over inputs, it is quite worth the price. Another bonus - you can choose from QUERTY, DVORAK, Programmer's QUERTY, Programmer's DVORAK, and QUERAK, and you can change the layout at any time via software. Check it out here.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Which drooling moron decided it would be a good idea to move almost all the non-alphanumeric keys around? I'd particularly like to introduce their head to a clue-by-four for putting / as a shifted key... at the far top right. Yes, let's put the fscking directory path delimiter for Unix in the most awkward place possible. You're only going to use it, oh, every time you need to run a script in the current directory ('cause you don't have . in your path so you run ./xxxx), any time you want to navigate to the root directory or specify a full path. *slap*
It really screws up any touch typers (e.g. myself) as I end up typing the wrong characters half the time.
Just one of my pet rants about HP systems. My other favourite has to be how you specify the default gateway in SAM... You'd think it would be under network settings, wouldn't you? No, it's under "local hosts file". Obvious, isn't it? *sigh*
escape backpostrophe is a necessity when typing foreign language (like French) LaTEX documents. How would I be able to write accents graves without it ? Agreed, I am transitioning to docbook and they use sgml entities for that (think à an the likes)
As for the , isn't that the currency in SC4 ?
Certainly, and I have seen them used, but there isn't such a creature on an iBook keyboard, at least not the white ones. I'm typing this right now, and like the OP, I've been staring at it, trying to figure out what the submitter could have meant!
Lea
This is why I love my HP48's. They have dedicated math keys, Sin, Cos, Tan, [], x^y, sqrt(x), etc. Sure, I've finally gotten around to memorizing which alpha keys to use when running Emu48, but dedicated math keys would be a boon. It doesn't even have to be attached to the keyboard, an USB keypad would do the trick.
The other thing I would love to see, is a way to DISABLE the Caps key from changing case. I use it in all my games, and drives me nuts when my next team message is in all caps.
Cheers
they need to put the keys in alphabetical order
http://mindprod.com/images/mskeyboard.jpg
(from http://mindprod.com/jglossdsk.html)
That should have been "frequently used keys aren't where you need them".
IIRC DVORAK was designed to be more ergonomic and efficient, with less movement of the fingers for the most commonly used letters. Personally I have no issue with QWERTY, but I've never tried DVORAK...
Configuring keys in Linux isn't much fun, in my opinion. The files are obscure, things are handled differently in X than they are at the console, and different users can't have different keymaps (correct me... please! I'd love to be wrong).
.xinitrc.
This is probably true, except the last statement. Keymaps in X are local to a given X server, so it's possible to modify them with xmodmap and/or select from predefined set with setxkbmap. And put it into your
Life is the slowest way to death.
a', à and á
The backwards apostrophe key is for the few billion people that have to use it everyday. "But I don't have to use it, nobody uses it! Take it off!"
And that "double-S figure" in macs has a purpose.
-- Would it be acceptable to just put my name on my sig?
I too have chosen the Dvorak layout for quite some time. I've never been happier with any other keyboard layout. It's simply amazing how many words are typed without ever leaving the home row.
I don't have a lot of experience with laptops, but I've worked on an old compaq lately. I'm not sure what you mean by "option type keys" but it did have a row of those buttons (well, not IE) along the top of the keyboard. The power button was similar to a the hardware power-off you're talking about, it locked up so I held the button down for 4 seconds (like an ATX MB set up that way) and it turned off.
I have an ergonomic keyboard and it has a split spacebar. The left one is a nice place to rest my thumb, but I can tell by the fact that it's still rough and my right one is smooth, which one I could do away with. Of course, an ergonomic keyboard wouldn't work on a laptop. Still, I'm against putting anything under the space bar. Just maybe split it in two and make the right or left side something else. Make it something common, my left thumb needs to do something.
I have issue with a vocal based replacement. I maybe strange, but damn if I don't write and code better with my hands (i.e. writing or using the keyboard). If I want to talk, it most certainly won't be to my computer.
OTOH I wouldn't mind chat programs taking voice commands. Of course we'll probably end up with just sound instead of a text-based chat when that happens.
I completely agree...They take up way too much space, and I have no idea why people use them.
And how do they know what 'natural' for me is? Do they know my hand size, my arm length, the distance between my shoulders?
Apple had an ergonmic keyboard that wasn't fixed, so that you could spread it more or less as you needed.
All that today's split keyboards are doing is forcing me to use something that was optimally designed for someone else. We live in a day when we can get kitchen counter tops at differing heights, and we can size our chairs, but we can't size our keyboards -- a 6'5" husband is probably using the same keyboard as his 5'2" wife.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I hear ya, but that's nothing, we have both sun keyboards deployed in one of our main labs as well as PC keyboards hooked up to SBCs running solaris. AHHHHHHHH
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
what the hell is wrong with the current keyboard? It's fine the way it is.
Check it out: http://www.frogpad.com/
For several years now (about 11) I've used X11 to make the Caps_Lock key on my various keyboards produce a distinct, generally unused keycode/modifier (generally Hyper_R/mod5). Then I configure almost all of my window manager commands (keyboard or mouse) to use this modifier, effectively turning a giant waste of space and position (the caps lock key on my teeny vaio sr27k laptop keyboard is larger than every key but one of the 2 shifts, spacebar, enter, and backspace, and it's on the home row) into a useful `mode switch'. This is basically the only thing that changed my opinion of the caps lock key, which used to be: ``It should be attached to the bottom of the keyboard, requiring the user to pick up and flip the keyboard with both hands, while then pressing the button with the nose.''.
I'm currently in the middle of trying out a Mac OS X laptop, and this is one of the abilities that I miss most. Yes, I know most new users find modes confusing, but I'm quite happy with it...
The "PC Enter button" is actually a Return (carriage return, CR) key. Some keyboards correctly label it as such.
That's Microsoft's 'Intellisense' and 'Auto-complete' isn't it? Except it works better than a VI-style system because there are no key combinations to rememeber.
If you assume that a) everybody uses a *nix command line, or b) that the majority of users are programmers of some description, I suggest that you wake up and smell the coffee before you diss the opinions of others.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
It came with a compaq that I bought about five years ago. Its a standard keyboard except that the space bar is cut in half. The left side is backspace, and the right side is space. I've looked everywhere to try to find another one, but with no luck. It's not only great for typing, but for Quake-Style games too. Spacebar is jump, and backspace is crouch :)
I just hooked up a second keyboard to my pc. I had to patch X, but now I have a whole array of extra keys I can program and use. Works like charm.
Has not the evolution of keyboards taught you something? Don't you get a clue from the universal hate enjoyed by the "windows" keys? Isn't it obvious that only GENERIC button meanings have a chance of survival? Software functions change too quickly and are too varied between apps and platforms, so tying a key to a specific function at a hardware level is very very unwise. Just look at your current keyboard: those keys that are useful are those that are generic - letters, numbers, numbered anonymous "functions", movement arrows. By contrast, keys that are dead by now had very narrow meaning (sysreq, scrolllock). What you are proposing amounts to adding more of these narrow-minded one-taskers that will be dead and junk (and very annoying junk at that!) much sooner than you think.
How about a keyboard made out of a gelatinous electronically adjustable material. So that it can adjust key positions and heights based on the users typing style. The surface would be like a flexible lcd so that it could display the key labels. Then on top of that add the ability to switch modes and the keyboard will adjust everything for that mode. Oh and it has to be backlit like the new Mac laptop keyboards.
An over simplified version of this would be a standard keyboard with lcds on each key so retards like me can remember where the darn keys are in Dvorak but a standard person could switch it back without all the hassle of pry up all the keys.
I really like the Gel idea though.
I think what will happen is that once wearable computing is a bit more widespread, you'll have people walking around with their own input devices (e.g. like a Twiddler) with keys customized to their personal usage patterns. Then they could just walk up to any computer around them, point their keyboards at it, and through [IR|Bluetooth|802.11b via ssh/x2x|technology of the year] transmit keyboard events & ASCII/UTF8 streams directly to that computer. It'll take some time to standardize on the interfaces and work out authentication & encryption, but it's about time some geeks started setting up terminals like this in their homes/cars/offices to start.
-I need capital numbers when I press shift, who needs those other funny egyptian symbols?
-Five more tab keys.
-Function keys that go to at least F100.
-A key called "The Boss Is Comming", which is obviously pressed with you have things on the screen that should not be there.
-A function I need on the keyboard is that the key must be pressed at least two times before it is registered which will prevent typos. Kind of a confirmation of a keypress.
I think the ultimate user interface would be similar to the NES PowerGlove. By the way, has anyone tried tweaking one for their computer??
Personally, I demand that that the Control key be placed where it belongs, immediately to the left of the 'A' key. Caps-lock needs to be out of the way or disabled altogether. '<' and '>' need to be shift-comma and shift-period, respectively (I've used old DEC keyboards where '<' and '>' are on a single key between 'Z' and shift).
I understand that not everyone shares my preferences, which is why keyboards need to be software-configurable. In Windows 2000, for example, you have to edit the registry to swap the control and caps-lock keys (see
here for instructions). That's ridiculous. In Unix and Linux you can use xmodmap, which isn't *quite* as cumbersome.
I rarely use any keyboards other than my own, and other people rarely use my keyboards, so I don't worry about undoing my re-mappings. But that's not true for everyone. Any user-oriented OS should have a convenient way to define a set of keyboard mappings, an easy way to switch among them, and a way to specify that a mapping applies only to a specific user.
And finally, the physical design of the keyboard has to accomodate this flexibility. Modern PC keyboards actually aren't bad in this regard; Caps Lock is in the wrong place, but it doesn't physically lock when you press it the way it does on some old keyboards.
Ultimately it would be nice for the legends on the key tops to be programmable (but not at the expense of durability). That's not a big deal for me, since I'm a touch typist.
Smiley keys may be usefull...
"WASTE" space on a backtick "backwards apostrophe" key?? WTF are you smoking. How else would you type this character?
/. drivel in microshit word, but i use it all the time since it performs a function in the programming language I use.
Maybe you dont use it writing
The biggest waste of plastic on a kb is those stupid "WINDOWS" keys. How the fuck can hw makers justify customizing hardware for one specific platform? The second biggest waste is those stupid 'internet keys' and whatever other crap the big name OEM makers put on.
Keyboards are *general purpose* devices - just becuase you dont use a particular, *standard* key doesnt mean no one else does.
Forget that almost all 'modern' keyboard are complete and utter crap. Shitty soft mushy keys, control and function keys in the wrong place. Mice suffer from the same problem. If I ever find the person who though it was a good idea to put a fucking *WHEEL* on top of mouse, I'll be sure to smack the piss out of em.
These days, in order to obtain keyboards and mice that dont SUCK, I pretty much have to resort to going thru old used stuff where I can find it. And even most of that is starting to be crap.
One keyboard that *doesnt* suck, is the Northgate Omni/102. Northgate is gone, but someone else bought their tech and is making them. TO give you an idea, their recreation of the 102 costs around $150. Most modern crap keyboards go for $20.
Its sort of like modems (for those without broadband) - You can spend $9 on a piece of shit winmodem, or you can spen $50 on a decent 3com hardware modem.
A mouse that doesnt suck is the original Logitech 3 button MouseMan. They dont make them anymore, and I havent found a source for them.
i recently was looking for a keyboard that had the normal insert/delete, home/end, pgup/pgdn and arrow configurations, but that did not have the numeric keypad - i almost never use it. i would think that most people didnt use it regularly, but for some reason on 99% of the keyboards ive found, its there, or the cursor nave keys are in some crazy configuration, all in a vertical line etc.
r vlet/P roductDisplay?catalogId=-840&langId=-1&partNumber= 22P5150&storeId=1
this is amazing, i searched for days to find one that simply had the numpad lopped off, no luck. i told a friend, he couldnt believe it, searched for days, no luck. another friend etc.
finally, i stumbled onto this (no i dont work for ibm):
Trackpoint USB Space Saver Keyboard (SB)
http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/se
at $100 it will set you back, but its exactly what i was looking for, and a built in 2 port usb hub for my mouse (mac style/although on left side)/digital camera, mp3 player etc. once in a while i press the eraser mouse by accident, but no biggie, also, that is sometimes convenient for sitting back in my chair when surfing.
hopefully this helps any of you with the same need, and saves some desk space.
"Now, were the heck is the BRIEF INSIGHTFUL SUMMARY key on these Apple computers"
-- P.J. O'Rourke
Wheres the button that causes pain. I know the computer can't feel it, but I would feel alot better. Especially if the monitor flickered or something.
Ok - but note that this is a solution to a Windows problem you shouldn't even have - and it's so close to the alt-tab meaning that you should just be able to use one or the other, consistently.
This guy doesn't use command-line much, then? ;o)
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
The interesting question would be why the adding machine manufacturers all standardized on the 123-bottom arrangement.
Adding machines are based on the values of numbers. Because nine is higher than three, nine should be higher than three.
With telephones, on the other hand, zero is greater than nine (it sends ten pulses on a rotary-dial phone), so it should be on the side far from 1 and close to 9.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I can't actually use Windows without the Windows key. If I need to do any of the following on a keyboard that lacks the Windows key (be it through mutilation or antiquity), my face scrunches up into a frustrated scowl:
Win-E: call up Explorer
Win-F: find files
Win-D: show desktop
Win-M: minimize all windows
Win-R: Run
Karma: Chameleon (Mostly affected by the 1980s)
mail jules@xyz.com -s "th1s 1s
Note the extra 23 keys in the keypads to the left of the main keyboard and above the keypad. It's hard to explain what they all did if you're not familiar with the Apollo DM user interface, but basically you had keys for:
cut,copy,paste: Point mouse anywhere on screen and hit key; cut either selection or whatever was in the area of the mouse
again: point mouse at any command in a window, hit key, command is executed again (like double-click, drag, middle-click in xterm but without all the gymnastics)
arrow keys that moved the mouse so you didn't have to take your hands off the keyboard...
open shell window, open editor window, open editor window read only, ...
page up, page down (nothing unusual there,) page left, page right for when editing those huge images or documents...
window system command: think +nw+ret to change stacking order of windows where your cursor is. Anything you could do with the mouse you could do with two-letter commands and the window command key...
Of course, HP bought apollo and killed the line. And now instead of 23 keys that were actually useful, we all have 12 function keys that almost no application ever uses...
I'd like to see some new controllers on the keyboard, such as a jog-wheel (typically used in professional video editing), as well as various pressure sensitive keys.
This dude created a Dvorak for programmers:k /
http://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvora
I've been using it for a few weeks and while I'm still a bit slow I can certainly see that the effort will pay off. Unfortunately I'm also left-handed so what I need is a left-handed programmer dvorak layout!
Rich
I worked in text editing for a lot of time, and have become a firm believer in a concept where arrow keys for left and right were below the space key, right under your thumbs. I think all text-editing people out there, at least those that don't use Vi, would really appreciate this. But I never saw it. Did anyone run into something simmilar?
/wrld
Hell, I would kill for feet. I have to put the foot-pedal on my desk and hit it with my forehead. Unfortunately, I can't see what I typed until I lift my head back up, and the dizziness goes away.
Seperate keypads? I don't see them....
Has anyone seen or done some fancy algorithms to really get the ideal keyboard layout? You might need some user-input to know what is important and all, but let some good old programming do the thinking for us. Then the top 10 can be programmed into the LCD keyboard someone thought of in this posting.
I have to say that the Volume up and Down as well as the CD Eject Keys are all very nice additions to the keyboard on the new iMacs. That said, I have the same functions, plus some on the keyboard for my NeXT workstations from the early 90s.
I got a black keyboard with white letters painted on instead of burned on as on the white keyboards.
I removed the Windows logos with nailpolish remover (from the hardware store!) and painted on diamond symbols. ("") Mapped to Meta.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
What I would love to see is for someone to find a way to make kind of a combination of touchscreen/keyboard that would basically allow you to any kind of crazy custom keyboard layout. But of course there is obvious problems with that like touchscreens sucking and probably not being good for typing on extensively but I just want to see some kind of truely customizable keyboard. Hmmmm, maybe a keyboard thats an entire filled grid of keys and you can remove the ones you don't want to use and customize the layout for the rest? Just some ideas.
I don't have a sig, can I borrow yours?
http://tim.griffins.ca/gallery/laptop/cwdata/fuck- it-key.html
I have two different suggestions, depending on the type of keyboard you prefer.
If you prefer the laptop style keyboard (as in thin keys and very little noise from the keyboard), go with the TypeMatrix keyboard. It's a dvorak style key layout, although the keys are reprogrammable, with laptop style keys and all sorts of special keys. Additionally, the keys go straight up and down, rather than at angles. A picture is available here. My roommate uses one and loves it.
Alternatively, if you are a big fan of the "kacink" (tactile feedback) style keyboard, go with the old IBM keyboard. If you don't want it making so much noise, put a piece of foam under the keyboard. Aparently, the reason they are so noisy is the table underneath acts as a resonating board, so the foam dampens this effect.
There's no sig like SIGSEG
Didn't you know that fuses went out of style sometime in the late 22nd century??
Lame-o
//FIXME: Bad
Since its obvious that we can't have the perfect keyboard for every programming language and OS - why not write a program that works w/ virtually all Operating Systems - and allows u to rearange the keys however u see fit (any key u want including customized combos for burger king....errr sorry ....different programming languages and operating system commands). It would have to be a truly elogent programming pearl to get it to work easily w/ any major OS (perhaps written in Assembly i dont know) while maitaining a slick intuitive interface that doesnt get in the way of your coding. Anyone have any idea if a good one has been written?
I bet you support the idea of One World Government, too.
Go back to Russia, you fucking pinko.
Scroll lock was originally indended for use in spreadsheet programs. With scroll lock off, the arrow keys would move between cells. With scroll lock on, however, the page itself would move.
Go into Excel and give it a shot; it still works today.
A caret is a printable character, but it's down low, where a comma would be. Unicode U+2038 (hex) is its hex code point.
Enby in Waltham
Hey - leave the backwards apostraphe alone - it didn't hurt you did it? It's used in PHP to run shell commands - i.e. `ls *.monster`.
Gee, what an enormous amount of reactions to such a silly topic :-) Leans me to never try to look into the minds of Slashdot readers...
:-)
Anway, what I'd really want is a keyboard which let you be active on you programmer's job, so that working with the computer will have the same healthy physical implications as other day jobs. Using your muscles in a normal way (= w.o. the constant pressure) is probably the best thing against RSI, and because it takes some physical work, you automatically will take your breaks.
I was thinking about some foldable, rubber 1,5 x 0.5 mtr sheet with cushions for every button or so. But resurrecting the typewriter may also be a good option; typists never had RSI simply because of the good old-fashioned muscle-work it took to press those buttons. (They had other profession's diseases though, like a pink stuck between the keys.)
I guess that real geeks rather take the pain of programming than go sporting, but as more and more "average" people have to use computers all day, ther might be a real market for a keyboard like this!
I would be interested in having such a thing, anyway, so if you know any such thing or looking for a business to start up..? Reply!
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
I am a French speaker (which may reflect in my bad English). For Engligh-only speakers, several other languages have some special charecters (called accents) which appears on voyels. Our keyboards are the same as the US one (except we have a key between left-shift and Z to type special quotes () that I think we only have in French). Obviously in order to have accents on the keyboards some other less-frequent characters are moved away (square and curly brackets for example) and only accessible through a key combination. For the matter the right-alt key is independant from the left-alt key and used to access those characters.
When I am typing in French I need those accents on my keyboard, but when I type in English (and particularly when typping in code) I want the brackets, slashes and other characters readily available with one single key stroke. Windows has a multi-keyboard featrue which let's me have several keyboard layout available at the same time, and I can switch from one to the other quickly with a key combination (I like ctrl+shift for the matter).
Now I am completely with everyone making the "must not be a *nix user" comments, but jesus what is with all the surprise? And better yet, to the guy that made the Microsoft Windows comment, how the hell should he know how it is treating him, did everyrone miss the fact that he was using an iBook . Sure *nix with run on them, but why would you install Linux or *BSD when you could run MacOS X *snicker*. And go ahead and port Microsoft to run on that hardware, I dare ya, no really, wast all that nice hardware.
Doesn't mean it's not useful.
And you can always remap the commands you need onto keys you don't use.
The old ACT Apricot PC had six function buttons on the keyboard which were labelled with an LCD microscreen. Applications could change these labels and functions of these as they saw fit. Unfortunately the Apricot was killed by the standardisation on the IBM PC.
Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the full user community (AKA Shipping the Program)
About your OTOH... I hope we still have text records of the conversation. I find that it's a lot easier to remember what you typed then what you said. Perhaps convert it to text, and have each statement hyperlink to a copy of the sound? It's sad, but you can't really talk about keyboard layout on it's own.
And your right, a split space bar is better. You could even split and combine with a bar below to have four buttons.
I'd be interested in your ideas about gestural coding.
Gryftir
http://www.santacruzbynight.com/index.shtml Santa Cruz By Night Vampire Larp
(is there a single application that uses all 15 F-keys on a Mac keyboard??)
Some of the default shortcuts in WordPerfect 3.5 utilized F13, F14, and F15. This was most inconvenient for myself since with the advent of the iMac keyboard (which Apple sold exclusively during the reign of the Blue G3), Mac Keyboards went straight from F12 to 'help' 'home' 'pg up' 'pg down'.
BTW, the iMac keyboard is a highly underrated keyboard, and other than the lack of keys and trendy caps lock (I'm talking about delete and end here, not the missing F-keys), it's really excellent. Which is to say it had really good key action and layout.
I'm not a smorgasbord.
Small detail as it is, the @ sign has become far more used than the ' sign in the past decade, agreed? So why not have @ as the default press, and shift + @ = ' ? Also have the colon and semicolon swopped round, and have a key of it's own for the euro sign: ; it is far more in use, at least on the continent... What was the original use of the scroll-lock key anyway? Can anyone answer that?
:)
Sorry I was a dick about it. I'll be nicer in
the future! I'm sure as mature adults we can
all get along or something!
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
I play Nerd-Folk!
I don't really need an improved keyboard so much as I need something like "Superkeys" (a Windows utility) in Linux. This (if I recall the name right) is a utility that let's you assign an arbitrary sequence of keys to an arbitrary key combination. For example, s might insert my signature in whatever application I happen to be using.
I'm sure other people would like the same thing -- after all, at least one person made a comment below about his keyboard that does that in hardware.
I really don't understand why a utility like this is not available in X -- I have seen a statement in the XKeyCaps Manual (http://www.jwz.org/xkeycaps/man.html) under a section named "THINGS YOU CAN'T DO" which says:
"People often ask if xkeycaps or xmodmap can be used to make one key generate a sequence of characters. Unfortunately, no: you can't do this sort of thing by manipulating the server's keymaps. The X keyboard model just doesn't work that way."
What is it about the X keyboard model that prevents someone from implementing something like that? (I've done a little (very little) digging into the X documentation and don't understand why it could not be done -- looks like you'd have to do it in the X server (rather than the X client) so it would work for any application you might be using, but surely it's possible?