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?

Comments

Keyboards not just for typing

[A_Duck_Named_Ping]

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 used to have...

[sawilson]

A keyboard with completely blank keys. Sure pissed
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. :) I'd have to mentally
remember "ok, pink goes on key next to capslock,
skip two from left pointer, put right pointer there".

LCD Keyboard

[iamacat]

Better yet, why not design a future keyboard with a small, backlighted LCD on top of each key? Than each OS or program can customize key labels. So when you change the input language, labels change. And in Quake the numeric keys will really show different weapons.

Also imagine the pure joy of virus writers when they realize just what they can do with the victim's keyboard.

Programming and dvorak

[IdahoEv]

Have any of you programmers actually used Dvorak or Maltron keyboards

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:

{
<cursor left here>
}

one key in the middle of the board saves me about eight awkward keystrokes.

footswitch-"f" gives me:

for (<cursor left here>;;)

saving me about a dozen keystrokes.

I've got dozens of such macros. I never ever type "" or "{" or "(" (except I just did :). Every common syntax, keyword, or markup tag is a one-key macro. I rip off HTML/XML and C/perl/java like nobodys' business.

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.