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Strange New Keyboards and Mice
robyn217 writes "Over at ExtremeTech, I just reviewed a few strange new keyboards--and they're pretty "out there". On Monday, we posted a review of a vertical keyboard (imagine a standard keyboard split in half, with both side vertical). Today we posted the review of something that doesn't even resemble a keyboard--it's a whole new system of input. Tomorrow and for the rest of the week, we'll be posting new reviews of strange, but interesting input devices."
Brave, insane souls...
I'd love to see my boss apply his hunt-and-peck approach to typing on that vertical keyboard. He'd probably end up in traction.
Let me get this straight...
You post something nerdy to Slashdot, with a site whose articles are multi-paged, with images, running IIS and ASP?
Jesus, that is extreme!
as long as it does something about wrist pains or even carpal tunnel--something which plagues a surprising amount of people--it's probably preferable to a normal old keyboard. but i still can't get used to those s-shaped keyboards...
Not exactly new. There are more, I'm just too lazy to paste them all.
The vertical keyboard looks nice. I just wonder how it will work since i usually rest my wrists on the table... Would be neat to try out if the price was lower :)
Unicomp Buckling Spring keyboard when they pry my cold dead hands off of it. New sometimes is not better.
Get a free ipod.
Weird keyboard weird.
Weird mouse good.
The next big thing in Keyboard design will be one handed keyboards optimized for the internet.
;)
:)
Sure there have been "internet" keyboards for awhile now with little speed buttons to launch your e-mail client or a web address. But a one handed keyboard will be optimzed for the #1 use for the net these days
A special IRC client could be included with each unit sold... you could call it jIRC
It doesn't matter at all if the design of the keyboard is over 100 years old. The wheel is way older than that and we're still happily using it. What I'm saying is that comparing keyboard design with the speed of a processor is not a valid comparison.
Is a Special Mouse Necessary? Yes, it's not easy to flip between the SafeType keyboard and a standard mouse because it requires the forearm to swivel from a neutral position to a pronated position very frequently. After a day or two, the wrists can get a little sore.
The cost of the keyboard and special mouse is $329 USD, easily more expensive than some top of the line computer hardware and rivals some high quality monitors as bank breakers. With that considered, not to mention having to get used to games with this setup, few games will ever use this, let alone see or touch it in real life.
If you're typing on a standard QWERTY keyboard, and most of us are, then your keyboard design is over 100 years old (135 years old, to be exact). Can you imagine using a hard drive that was designed a decade ago? Or a processor from two centuries past?
I call bulls--t!
The hard drive of today is a highly refined, miniaturized version of a design that goes back at least to the 1970s.
My ergonomic keyboard was definitely *NOT* designed 135 years ago. Mechanically, it has as much in common with a mechanical typewriter as a lawn mower has in common with a vibrator. (basically, nothing)
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
It's nice to see Safetype actually making these boards.
When I was out and about searching for something beyond the flat-as-a-pancake keyboard, I'd originally seen this design all over the web, but only as the product of research at Cornell, with no actual plans to put it into production. Seems they've changed their position on that front, though.
Here is Cornell's white paper on the vertical keyboard and its effects on posture and the like.
I ended up with a Goldtouch, which I am very happy with not only because it relieved any problems I was having, but because their customer service is among the best I've ever dealth with, anywhere, for *any* product or service out there. Wonderful people. They really stand behind their product.
Ack!
yes... it was a joke, laugh.
I believe the fellow who invented the mouse also had a matching one handed keyboard that never caught on.
Also lets not forget the game oriented sort of keyboard devices like the Nostromo, and the claw. And I'm suprised noone mentioned things like the DVORAK and split-maltron keyboards and such that are designed to speed up touch typing rather than slow it down (turns out the gains are really offset by the amount of time it would take to have everyone relearn touch typing).
My general problem articles and reviews such as A Week of Wacky Input Devices is that they are not empirical. That is, little soft or hard research is done. I'd like more data bases on market research, user surveys, usability studies, and so forth. Opinions can certainly interesting and useful, but they don't have the same bite as research. Give me more data!
If you are interested Dvorak keyboards, I suggest you check out The Fable of the Keys by Liebowitz and Margolis (1990). At a minimum, it is a long article on why Dvorak failed economically, but it covers more ground than that.
How to Download YouTube Videos
He's referring to the keyboard layout. The QWERTY layout is actually designed to slow down typing. This is because if you typed too fast on an old mechanical typewriter you would jam up the keys.
Shh.
Ok, I can understand the keyboard has more stuff in it and is more expensive. But $295?!? $100 for a mouse that is basically different molded plastic? That is worth what... maybe a buck?
It's good that people are trying to break the old molds... I'd like a keyboard shaped like a football I could put on my lap, typing like scratching a cat's tummy. Only thing is though, a keyboard needs to have fast access to the mouse too, which the traditional flat models provide.
It's just natural for your hands to be in the position for the vertical keyboard. I *too* would like to try one out -- if only cheaper.
Who wants to send me one?
"How am I supposed to remember you, when you won't let me forget?" --Bare Naked Ladies
those ms 'ergo' keyboards that all the cool kids had a while back? with the blink-lights in the midle? (and the first keyboards i remember to have come with a warning-tag that using them might cause your wrists to go bad)
and a much more further.. anybody got info on some spherical keyboards that were in use in 'ancient' typewriters? i just remember reading about something shaped like a ball that you had your palms around, that got swept away by the qwerty(i don't rember exact years when they were tried even, might have been 1800's, or beginning 1900's)..
i tell you what i could use though, a keyboard that at the same time was dead silent, yet gave response to my fingers that the button was pushed, be totally flat too.
come to think of it, screw that. i want one of those "do what i mean to do" devices.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
As a sidenote, I think the reason that why we don't change keyboard layouts as often as processors (or at all) is because of the time required to learning to use a new layout, let alone something like the vertical keyboard. And many of the things we do are centered on the way our keyboards are designed. Things like key-combos, controls to certain interfaces, controls to games, and so on.
Crashes Opera 6.11 linux on each page load.
And they even admit that their readers probably include Linux users!
(to their defense, it might be weird javascript coming from some of their obnoxious ads)
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Bigotry? No, EFFICIENCY keeps those stupid things off the market. Why the fuck would anyone want to hunt and peck over a 4000-key keyboard, when a 105-key one will do? For Chinese, type your shit in pinyin, convert to the appropriate character of your choice. For Japanese, type in romaji, convert to the character of your choice. And etc. ad nauseum.
Stop crying racism where none exists, fuckwad.
LOL - so offtopic, but I I had a good laugh at its expense.
"I have a dutch accent, isn't dat vierd?"
"How am I supposed to remember you, when you won't let me forget?" --Bare Naked Ladies
Troll. The least you can do is first learn about Asian languages.
Let's see.. Japanese uses a set of syllables, Chinese has a phonetic system as well as a system where users compound symbols into complete characters. Korean and Thai have alphabets.
I think what you meant to write was "Chinese character devices." And even that might not be entirely appropriate given the number of dialects. Regardless, let's not lump all Asian languages together. For instance, Korean has 24 characters (14 consonants and 10 vowels) which is a far cry from 4000 characters.
The keyboard is a little small but a nice touch that it's detachable making it a nice slim portable keyboard that happens to match my PowerBook G3. I hunt and peck anyway (but still 40 words a minute)
I'd suggest it to anyone.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
It's all text. I don't want to READ about the designs of the keyboard. I want to see what the fuck they look like!
What ever happened to bluetooth in desktop peripherals?
I'm looking for new ones for a new computer I've built, and I want to get rid of as many cables as possible because it's going in a high-traffic part of my house.
The only keyboard/mouse set I've found with bluetooth is a Microsoft set. Looks nice, but I'm not keen on supporting them. Has anyone else done this search and had any luck finding anything?
BTW, I'm aware of other companies' proprietary wireless solutions. But if I'm getting bluetooth for my printer, PDA, etc., I'd like it for my keyboard and mouse as well. And with all the hype bluetooth has received I'd expect to see at least as many bluetooth sets as USB sets.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
I'd pay money to see you use it.
It seems like an entirely different device would be in order for this type of input. As you certainly know, there are workarounds known as "input methods" for the standard keyboards. From what I hear they are terrible to use.
If it's anything like the ALT-#### sequence on windows to generate accented and tilded characters of the Latin-1 set, then I know your pain.
I don't have any ergo or carpal issues. I bought my first GT because it has a small footprint and because they made some intelligent changes in the standard keyboard layout. But even though I didn't have any problems for the keyboard to cure, I could feel its ergonomic superiority.
Another thing Goldtouch did right was to require the user to fiddle with the keyboard until they arrive at a comfortable level of tilt. Makes more sense than more ambitious one-size-fits-all gimmicks, like vertical keys.
I used the Datahand, or something terribly similar, a few years back. Caused more problems than it solved. When you're forced to change your typing habits so radically you have to unlearn many years of kinesthetic patterning. Probably easier to do if you're younger than I am.
Those mirrors on the vertical keyboard should have some small fineprint saying:
"keys in mirror are closer than they appear"
So how many of you out there are actually able to touch type? I don't mean typing by touching the keys (muh) but touch typing as in USING ALL YOUR FINGERS AND THUMBS in a consistent manner... It cracks me up whenever I meet a CIO or IT manager who insists on improving productivity who then turns to his/her keyboard and proceeds to peer at it while trying to find the 'D'.
Solve that problem and a lot of strain/stress issues would fade I believe. Train them up!
I am a leaf on the wind
Sure they look pretty badass, but I think I'll stick with my normal keyboard. Either that or the Half-QWERTY keyboard. http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/keyboards /5e2b/
I am getting carpal tunnel syndrome, and I am seeing a neruologist about it.
I wonder if I could get my work to shell out $1250 for the nifty-looking cyber keyborad thingy? Not likely.
When a cheap keyboard and mouse cost less than $12 each, I think they would rather I just suck it up and let me suffer dimishished capacity in my hands some 5-10 years down the road. Goodness knows if they will be my employers that far in the future.
Even $300 for the vertical keyboard is steep. Most of my attempts to get even basic office supplies at work make me feel like I'm robbing the company.
And darned if I am going to bring in one of those expensive gadgets to work, and risk that my investement in tech trinkets could be pilfered.
One of those wacky gizmos would stand out on someone else's desk. The would-be thief would have to take it home instead of keeping it at their desk.
Cool to look at though.
If you're typing on a standard QWERTY keyboard, and most of us are, then your keyboard design is over 100 years old (135 years old, to be exact). Can you imagine using a hard drive that was designed a decade ago? Or a processor from two centuries past?
Could you imagine speaking a language that's hundreds, if not thousands of years old? Could you imagine running an internal combustion engine that's almost 150 years old?
There's a reason human-computer interface hasn't really changed. The fact that the human hasn't either isn't a big coincidence.
I'm typing this on a 14 year old IBM keyboard, connected to my Athlon 2100+/512 PC2700/180Gb computer running Gentoo (just did emerge -u world today).
[no actual comment]
No, it does matter that the design is over 100 years old. There's rather a lot more reaching, stretching, and awkward motions required by a QWERTY key layout than is strictly necessary to get the job done -- hence the Dvorak key layout. If you're unfortunate enough to develop RSI problems, you'll sing a different tune about using a suboptimal key layout.
spam-magnet@tty1.org
When will I have a grid of 4,000 characters to type from? The technology exists, but bigots keep the products from market and force 1 billion people
Japan designs and produces a large chunk of our computer equipment, as does Taiwan. If the technology was there and feasable, it would get produced. I hardly see how you plan to touch type, though, and you're limited to the 4,000 keys on your keyboard, whereas an IM can be expanded to cover whatever characters get encoded.
If anyone has posted by now, they could not have possible read the link, thus rendering anything they have to have said null and void! That is a long article. I started to read it, and got bored. I guess I will keep using this old qwerty! If someone wants to point to the good stuff, be my guest!!
Keyboard all the way.
Of course, REAL geeks wouldn't use either. Voice, or telekinesis would be the UI of choice.
all "dialects" of chinese use the same writing system. they have for thousands of years. In fact, the 'chinese' writing system was so popular, many different spoken languages have borrowed elements or entire characters/sets of characters for their own language, ie. japanese.
You know, it's much easier to use accents and tildes than that. You just choose the proper language, and Windows will let you use dead keys: press " ' + e " and you get é, press " ~ + a " and you get ã, and so on. It's very easy IMO, and would only bother people who use accents for reasons other than "writing" -- i.e., programmers.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In a way, I already use a "weird" keyboard, I use a Dvorak keyboard.
rm -rf sig
I can't help but think my hands would get tired being vertical all the time. One advantage of the flat keyboard (even if it is unnatural) is that gravity helps me with some of the typing--I'm not holding my hand up all the time.
And you want to convince us that, with such a high user ID, you're not just someone who created an account with an Asian-sounding name just to troll on this story?
Sorry, but you lose, sucker.
Maybe I missed it, but it didn't look like he reviewed several keyboards and mice; it just looked like one keyboard and one mouse.
I used the BAT for a few weeks. It was great for non-programming, but for programming it was very inefficient (having to hit a chord to say "now I'm going to shift, or ctrl, or alt", and then having to hit the chord for the actual key. Some situations even required three chords in series to generate one character.
But for writing, documenting, and emailing, it was really great. Mouse drivers would love it too, since it allows you to keep one hand on the mouse while your other hand does all the typing.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
I thought that device looked pretty interesting. Steep learning curve, but I'm really curious about what kind of speed a user could achieve if they got really proficient with it.
It looks small enought to be tucked into a laptop bag, and I would imagine it's fairly quiet as well. Could be very useful for taking notes at meetings or lectures, where you want to keep distracting noises to a minimum.
Of course, at $1295, I'll never get a chance to find out.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
Open your mind a little. You are a bigot in fact. I only want to type with something respectful of my style, and if a large enough keyboard was available then you would be reading this in a whole new way.
I suggest you read Slashdot
Just because you watch Anime and Hentai doesn't make you a linguistic specialist in Asian dialects.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
Unfortunately, I have a Palm-type Palm, but if I had PocketPC-type palm, I'd jump at this app.
-T
Wow. Now we can keep our hands in the same position between going between the keyboard, mouse and ... um...
Never mind.
I don't trust anyone who claims to make an ergo keyboard if I have to reach for the control key or the return key.
the verticle keyboards have been around for a while, they came out when carpel tunnel syndrom became big, but no one used them even then
moo.
I have a Datahand -- it's a device that is built to fit your hand. Each Finger rests in a well, there is a button you can push down, one forward, backwards, left and right.
. jpg
No need to peck keys, just move fingers.
The best thing is that the control, shift, alt etc keys are controlled with your thumb. I've had it for 3 years now, and I love it.
Here's a picture
http://www.datahand.com/images/proiitest
get 7 free Japanese lessons.
I just got a cool looking micro (or mini) keyboard at Fry's for 15 bucks. It's like a laptop. I remember on my old Apple II GS the keyboard didn't have all those extra number pad keys. I thought I was missing out. Now I got my PC and I've come full circle replacing my big keyboard. See the thing is the reaching for the mouse. With a bigger keyboard you gotta reach farther. Since most of those keys are redundant I don't really miss them.
I also feel a lot more symetrical now.
I really like my new setup. Only thing is I'm not really sure where the backspace is because there's no "whitespace" to differenciate. (I touch type. Dvorak.) I've learned to feel for the enter and go up two.
Too many newbies have bad ergonomics in the furniture. Right now I'm at my schools computer lab. They have the drawer that hangs underneath the desk. The drawer is not wide enough to accomodate the big keyboard and the mouse, so the mouse is on the desk. It's on different elevations. Bad idea. With my micro board it all fits. I did it yesterday, but today they saw me and they objected to me switching keyboards.
There are foot mice. That would elimate reaching completly. I think I gotta try that. What about a tongue operated mouse?
I hate how computing is so qwerty biased. Most programmers don't consider how their bindings don't work for dvoark. One big beef is the Control C X V. Those are really inconvinient for dvorakers. Is there a macro type program that will cut and paste will wheel double clicks? My whell click, double wheel, and double right click are unused. Can I bind them to something somehow?
Dvorak rules.
Check out the typematrix . The keys aren't raked.
boring!!! old news, old ideas, tried almost a century ago about the time of qwerty... :(
these guys aren't just losers, they're antique dealers waiting for you to think they thought of it themselves...
read some history people... don't get fooled.
Why did I score a troll! I hate Slashdot! If you write anything other than geek this and that then you get ignored. If you say something about a sensitive issue, then you are a "troll". No wonder you are all racists and I will probably never type with a good keyboard.
I suggest you read Slashdot
So, what do you measure? Personally, I use my keyboard for typing (and gaming, but that doesn't really count so much since I use the mouse much more). I find sustained typing speed to be the real measure of a keyboard... If you can keep up 100 wpm for 10 minutes or more, that's a kick-ass keyboard... If you can do 120 wpm, but only for a minute and then have to stop, that sucks. I don't see why this should be a difficult measure.
-T
You know you're a nerd when you can remember what brand your keyboard is fast enough to get in the first ten posts on slashdot.
No, it's NOT a pr0n reference.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I plan on getting one of these babies, once they come out with more interfaces for it. especially since I tend to toss my keyboard as soon as it gets a little dirty.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Oh that's so easy. Noone liked my idea so it's obviously racism.
People have been finding alternate solutions for Asian inputs for a long time, I'm sure if a 4,000 character keyboard was a good idea someone would have tried to sell it. I have to type in Pinyin and pick my characters from a list, but it really isn't that slow. Most of the Taiwanese computers I have seen use Zhuyin Fuhao (another phonetic system). 4000 keys would be impossible to look through and work for.
Other than one or two people, noone was mean to you. Just because people disagree with you doesn't make them racists.
... it's not a Unicomp Buckling Spring keyboard! Damn things take, like, 3-million pounds of pressure to push a key and sounded like an elephant throwing a tanrum when you really got going. Now the Macintosh keyboards, silent, easy, responsive, THOSE are keyboards.
I have no tag line
... when he wrote how horrifying it is to use a 135 year old design ...
... Can you imagine using a hard drive that was designed a decade ago? Or a processor from two centuries past?
your keyboard design is over 100 years old
Well, pardon me, but the circular form of a disk drive is a lot older than that! Electricity has been around longer. One could argue that telegraphs pioneered on/off electronic signals.
I am really tired of seeing these idiotic leadins. If the writer can't come up with something better than subtracting years to show how obsolete something is, then maybe it isn't quite so obsolete after all.
Hey, did ya ever think how old the alphabet is? Why are we stuck using such old fashioned characters when we have the graphical ability to invent our own? Why not rationalize spelling in English? Why not invent a new language? Geez, think of just about every programming language out there, they use keywords like for, while, exit. Old as dirt words in the computer age? What is wrong here?
Criminy.
Infuriate left and right
Right now we have reached the beginning of the transition away from button inputs to gesture inputs. There are of course many projects working on gesture inputs. The first that are really viable are the 2D ones from fingerworks.com. The next will be refined versions of the P5 Glove or the sensible phantom. I think eventually gesture based input will be the type used in Minority Report, (see the 1st and 10th images in the gallery).
Finally, I think we will move on to direct input. It's been shown that people can control very simple objects, (move a ball to the top or bottom of the screen), with electrodes connected to their head. Unfortunately so far it has not been responsive enough to see application. Input may also be of the form in Ghost in the Shell where people have wireless connections through implants in their body and also physical jacks in the back of their neck. (Another thing shown in the movie are fingers that come apart on wires to type. Rather than that I'd expect a low-power data transmission in the fingers so set the fingers in appropriately shaped cavities and have the data transmitted across the skin.)
Keyboards are nice. They have worked for a long time, but it is time to replace them. Slowly we can transition from keyboards, through the 2D gesture inputs of fingerworks to 3D inputs along the lines of minority report at which time, hopefully, direct input methods will be viable.
I do security
Hey, just for experiment's sake, relax your arms/wrists... Which way do your thumbs point? My guess is about 45 degrees... A vertical keyboard is a 45 degree deflection from the true 'neutral' position, just as a horizontal keyboard is a 45 degree deflection in the other direction. I claim shenanigans on this keyboard!
-T
Could you imagine speaking a language that's hundreds, if not thousands of years old? Could you imagine running an internal combustion engine that's almost 150 years old?
There's a reason human-computer interface hasn't really changed. The fact that the human hasn't either isn't a big coincidence.
The English language has slowly evolved over time, as has the combustion engine. The human-computer interface has stagnated more through fear of change, than because of a good initial design.
The cost of re-training people to use a new interface is also a real reason for the human-computer interface's failure to evolve.
Unless someone can come up with a truly revolutionary interface (whose improvements to productivity are immense and can be measured) the QWERTY keyboard will remain as top dog.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
I use a Datahand every day at work. I got it due to some serious tendinitis I had about a year ago. My tendinitis was induced by a bad reaction to the antibiotic Cipro, if you're curious.
The Datahand is not too bad to learn for the letters. But the numbers and symbols which are often used in programming take more time. It took me about 1 month to get used to it. I can type at a reasonable speed on it for English text. I use the built-in mousing feature, which is a drag. Cursoring around is not the way a mouse was designed to be used. But I learned a lot more keyboard shortcuts and it's not a huge hindrance. You can use a normal mouse with the datahand if you wish.
The big claim of the datahand is that they've minimized both the force and distance required to press a key, and I feel this was a good choice for people with tendinitis. Also, the placement of the control, shift, return, and backspace keys on the thumbs is a big win and has definitely helped out my pinkie fingers.
The datahand is about as noisy as any other keyboard.
However, the datahand is expensive, and there is a new keyboard on the market now which claims to have zero force. www.fingerworks.com. It is a traditional keyboard layout, and looks pretty cool. I have considered trying one of these, and I think it would be portable enough for laptop use, they even market one specifically for that.
If anyone is curious, my tendinitis has largely healed now due to physical therapy, stopping almost all keyboard activity for about 2 months, using the datahand after that and limiting my keyboard activities as much as possible for about 4 months, and taking frequent breaks from keyboarding even when using the datahand. I will probably always have to be careful about RSIs due to what happened, but I believe the datahand and a caring boss allowed me to get through a horrible time in my career.
Now that my hands are pretty well healed, I use the datahand at work and my normal laptop keyboard at home. I feel that the diversity of using two different keyboards is also helpful in keeping RSI away.
that is the first thing I thought as well, it's comparing apples to oranges, right? But there is some merit, the wheel (as is your reference) is still a constantly evolving peice of hardware (after how many eons?). Every year, the tire companies roll out with some new advancements (pun left in on purpose) and the evolution of the wheel continues. Now, I am quite used to my QWERTY board, and am not apt to change it soon. But have you tried the vertical board, its actually quite comfortable.
Now, that mouse they showed, though more erogronomical, doesn't work out all that well in practice. The mouse currently relies on very precise side-to-side movement of your wrists, something that is much more difficult to do with the sideways mouse.
YOU SUCK BALLS!
At work I use a Happy Hacking Keyboard. At home, I use an IBM Model M (part# 1391472, birthday July 23, 1987). I love the compact layout of the Happy Hackin Keyboard and I love the positive click and rock solid (no make that titanium billet solid) feel of the M. Would somebody please, please make a USB, HHKb Lite layout, buckling spring keyboard? I'd be willing to pay up to US$400 for a keyboard like this. Provided, of course, it's as tough as my M. (I intend to pass my M down to my children.)
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Why, exactly, is having QWERTY keyboards a bad thing?
Sure, there are variations. Split key keyboards, the funky vertical keyboards, and the Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard, the best keyboard of all time (I have four).
But, all of these keyboards have QWERTY, despite the objections of many who think that there's a better way.
This is really a lesson in interface design. An interface becomes embedded in the subconscious quickly, and it's hard to change once it's in place.
This is why steering wheels, and brake and accelerator pedals haven't changed much in 100 years.
The keyboard and the mouse are the true interface to modern computers. It's not really Windows, Linux, and OSX, it's the damn things that you put hand to in order to make your computer work.
The UI has gone through about 15 years of evolution, but will eventually stop evolving. Keyboard design has been mostly stagnent, and the changes that are made after the first couple of years are usually the result of new technology (examples: Function keys, mouse wheels, fixed macro buttons (e-mail, calculator, etc.).
The UI (the on the screen) should be the same way too. Making radical changes to the UI - changes that seem to take place with every iteration of Windows or Apple's OS, confuse users and make things more difficult. In theory, these UI's should evolve into something more or less constant. The problem with this, of course, is economics and the needs of marketing. Hopefully, people will eventually come to recognize that they don't need a new version of Word this year, or most any other year.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
how about you expand your small racist worldview of yours?
Since we all know that all significant technological advances since 1993 revolve around the porn business (i.e., the web, audio streaming, video streaming, broadband, etc.) ... it would only make sense that the next tech. innovation surrounding input devices would be driven by the porn biz as well.
...)? Now that we're no longer waiting in between clicks for Usenet a.b.p.e to decode over our dialup connections since we're on broadband, why should we stop to grab the mouse to click the next link? We should use what we're already holding!
...
So, okay then. When are we going to see the first 'sheathmouse' -- you know, the kind you can slip over a finger (or, another digit-like member)? Wave it in a direction and the mouse cursor will follow. Pinch it and your mouse clicks (and so much more
Of course, no computer with a sheathmouse would be complete without a breastboard -- similar to the split-keyboard ergo nonsense we see today, except the two banks of keys are laid out with keys of graduated height, yielding breast-shaped mounds with the guidance "nipples" (you know, the little bumps commonly found on the 'f' and 'j' or 'd' and 'k' keys on most keyboards) would be at the center of the mound and just large enough to tweak. Possibly double in function as a pointing stick seen on laptops today
If this ever makes it to market, I claim prior art! You heard it here first.
-- Dossy
Dossy's Blog
The keyboard was not designed to interface with a computer.
WHY do people think that rolling scroll mice are the best? i can only find one pressure scroll mouse, and its not available in optical models as far as i cant tell. with pressure scroll you dont have to lift a finger to keep scrolling the stupid thing. all you have to do is hold the little nob down with a varying amount of pressure to get where you want on the page. its a brilliant design, and one that hasnt cought on at all. i hate rolling scroll mice, and everyone who has used my ibm scroll point mouse loves it.. look and see.. i have a newer more advanced one of these.. but i cant find an optical version. ive een thought of transplanting the optical portion into the scroll point body cause i hate rolling scroll mice. anyways.. off my soapbox.
But now you've got simplified Chinese used on the mainland, and traditional Chinese used in Taiwan and in all historical documents, and the Japanese alphabets, and the Korean ones... what if I want to write in all 3 languages? Surely my keyboard doesn't need 50,000 keys to cover all Chinese symbols that have ever been used. There's already at least 20 keys on my keyboard I never use. I last pressed the Break key in the summer of 1992 while running DOS 2.11. Let's not add thousands more useless keys.
Forget it. I've watched Japanese users enter kanji on a cell phone keypad and it's amazingly fast there. It's even faster and easier on a Qwerty keyboard which has the Hiragana symbols printed on the keys, assuming you know Japanese.
hiollo guys iim usuing aa vdevorak keyborad to typ this ann itts gereaat!
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
BUT: it's not because of the strange design. It's nice, but after the adaption phase, I'm at about the same speed as before (albeit it feels better then before).
The real feature of the keyboard is its reprogrammability. I can remap all the keys, define macro commands, everything directly on the keyboard, without any drivers (it's a regular USB keyboard for the computer). It works fine for all OSes that support USB keyboards. You can plug it into another computer, and all your macros are still there.
It's really a great thing, especially if you want to scare visitors :) (that smilie is mapped to F1 btw, no need for shifting around)
When voice recognition works so wheel.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
Programming would not be done by entering code line-by-line as is common today, but by instantiating entire design patterns that the computer would produce, customized to the programmer-supplied specification, on command. And, of course, it would be possible to create new design patterns for later use. In a pinch, manual keyboard entry could be used to fine tune some details, but would be about as common in regular programming as assembly programming is today in end-user applications.
The display would be projected onto any more-or-less neutrally colored flat surface that was conveniently located, for use anywhere and anytime.
-5 offtopic
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
that 90% of /. readers will get this year.
And even sadder that only 80% of the same readers even know what 'strange' is.
And still even sadder that you don't.
So flame away!
If there IS such a keyboard, would someone please point me in that direction?
take off every sig for great justice
> and your member number is higher than mine. ;)
:)
Hmm. I've been lurking for more than 2 years, but I've only been trolling for about 6 months. Maybe Victor is also a long-time lurker?
p.s. Woot! I resisted making the obvious manhood joke.
Where can I get one?
I rotated my screen in every direction but couldn't find the map description.
Stagnated?
My current keyboard is very different from the one on my first computer. My current one has a bunch of extra buttons above the function keys. It has a numeric keypad. It has a few extra keys around the space bar. The relative sizes of the keys are different. And the shape of some has changed.
My mouse is different from my first mouse as well. My first computer didn't even have a mouse, and there wasn't one available for it either. It doesn't require a mouse pad to work, it has a bunch of extra button, conveniantly placed where my fingers and thumbs rest. It even has a little wheel thing on top.
Sure the basic idea of a thing with buttons which your press hasn't changed. Then again I still turn a steering wheel to point my car in the direction I wish to travel. And press pedal things with my feet to make it go faster or slower.
I'll go as far to say that there are only two interface changes I recall in my lifetime that have been beneficial i without the change having a technical cause (so not having to tell the car which gear to be in with a stick doesn't count because it was caused by the introduction of automatic transmissions, for example). The first being light switches instead of pull cords - so you can actually tell if the light is off or on when you need to change a burnt out bulb without trying to remember if you pulled the cord and even or odd number of times when the light didn't come on. And the remote control for controlling everything from the comfort of the couch.
Of course there will be others, that I just don't remember because the new interface is now so obvious that the previous stupid one is a repressed memory.
QWERTY appeared when people were typing so fast on a typewriter that the "arms" would stick together. The letters were placed so that there was a maximum of movement (=time) possible (thus eliminating two "hammers" from hitting at the same time).
:)
So basically, we are stuck with the most inneficient technique available. I think that keyboards should use the same interface but letters should be moved to different places. A few common letters like A and E should be available on "both sides" in order to speed up typing.
Why is the current input method perfect? Well everyone is already familliar with it. Most products can easily use it (try a vertical KBD on a PDA ou ATM??)
Maybe instead of having 3 longs lows, we should have 4 narrower lines of characters (not including #'s and control keys). While typing this article, I found out that my fingers were mostly moving horizontaly, not vertically. Having a "cube" of characters instead of a triangle would probably improve typing.
I say: why re-invent the wheel? Just align it
-- Leeeter than leet
I went to the keyboard and tried some typing without looking. Then I tried the numeric keys. Hey, the placement of the 6 key actually did match how I typed, unlike how I was supposedly taught. I proudly shouted:
I use my left hand for six!
Needless to say, some people misunderstood what I'd said...
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
Whoever wrote the article on Extreme Tech should quit that job and so should the designers of that mouse, too;
- "Go and do something more suitable to yor IQ level of 80 or below" -
Only a fscking moron would invent a mouse ONLY for right handed people. What a hell is wrong with all these people?!?!?!
Same goes to idiots at Microsoft, Logitech and other companies that invent "ergonomic" mice made only for righthanders that are totally, utterly useless to anyone lefthanded, like myself.
YES I AM PISSED OFF, that's why I use a Wacom tablet instead of a mouse because it's not HAND oriented or shaped to fit a specific palm.
It was designed to interface with a human.
Infuriate left and right
Not too long ago, I made a right-handed dvorak keyboard for my Dad, who had a stroke 3 years ago.
;)
If you're in the US, just drop in on a Goodwill store and pick up a keyboard with interchangeable keys. Find your nearest flat-head screwdriver, and commence to modding.
If you need to get up to speed using it, check out KP Typing Tutor. It's free.
And I'm sure you can find a mod'able keyboard with a matching key cover as well
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
I notice that I've never had problems in both hands at the same time.
So, what I want is a keyboard/pointer that can be reasonably operated with one hand. I expect to lose about half my typing speed, or more...that's OK. It needs to be good for both email/browsing type stuff AND coding!
Is there anything reasonable like that?
Here at the CIA, we use the mind to control our main computers using telepathy. In the future you will see this on the playstation. Check out www.matrix4.net for more information.
--
-Amy
---- Matrix 4 http://www.matrix4.net
written launguage - 8,000 years old.
spoken word - as old as mankind.
gestures - part of the animal kingdom.
There you have it, computers by recognizing speach and gestures are bucking the communications trend. Who would have thunk that the silicone gods could not come up with a better way of interacting with our computers than a bunch of grunts and shifts?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
When did /. get into the business of sex toy reviews?
If you're typing on a standard QWERTY keyboard, and most of us are, then your keyboard design is over 100 years old (135 years old, to be exact). Can you imagine using a hard drive that was designed a decade ago? Or a processor from two centuries past?
Can't argue with logic like that.
The atoms that make up the air you're breathing were created billions of years ago. Can you imagine eating a burger that has been sitting in your car since last week?
Can you imagine using a hard drive that was designed a decade ago? Or a processor from two centuries past?
I do use a processor that is more than two centuries old. It's called my brain.
PS: QWERTY still works for me. Should I switch it because that would increase new keyboard sales?
But he got everything right...
Slashdot is full of hateful bigots.. try out my slashdot alternative.. its pretty popular and you will be welcomed there. click here to check it out
The gestures as a method of text input are doomed because the gesture devices don't provide the tactile feedback. I mean: They don't click. Without this feature, the gestures must rely on the sophisticated methods of gesture-to-dictionary mapping that narrow their use to natural-language text input.
BTW the same argument fully relates to different virtual keyboards projected by laser rays and, somehow, to the most modern non-clicking rubber-contact keyboards where you cannot be sure that the key was really pressed until either you see the letter on the screen or the keyboard bends under the force you apply.
The second problem is that the gestures need much more physical force to use than, say, Datahand, BAT and similar devices. It is a BIG difference for the people with physical disabilities.
So, they're trying new keyboard designs. How about removing the f*cking WORTHLESS M$ keys and Internet Ready keys! And get rid of Scroll Lock while you're at it.
Tell me you're a person who uses those keys. And I'll tell you that you're a Liar. Oh, and a moron.
Yes. Flame Bait. Keyboards piss me off. The f*cking thing should NEVER have been modified for ONE f*cking OS.
I'm gonna go start my own Keyboard company just to prove you don't need the useless keys.
And so the keyboards keep evolving, even if the layout stays the same. The comparison to processor speed is very odd. I use keyboard layout which is 130 years old, and my computer is based on things that some gay suicider came up with 70 years ago.
Especially when we're still using a PC Architecture that's over two decades old.
A friend and former roommate of mine was involved in research of gesture based interfaces. The group had a working model (they got it to work with Quake just for kicks). I never got to see it in action, but I'd love to have an interface like the one in Minority Report.
$ make work
make: *** No rule to make target `work'. Stop.
Not quite what you're after, but it's close...
As mentioned in earlier posts, this thing, or that thing.
kmem russian roulette: Aquillar> dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/kmem bs=1 count=1 seek=$RANDOM
Ok hear me out here... Keyboard: Firstly the vertical keyboard really does cut down on arm tension while typing, you can tell by just feeling the way your hands would be positioned. However, as some of you pointed out, a flat keyboard may be more appropriate for certain applications which do not involve straight typing... now it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that the best way to combine both of these benefits is to allow your keyboard to rotate: ie the two vertical halves rotate to flat. (the rocket scientists were too busy fiddling with that wierd glove thing) This design improvement wouldnt be too hard and makes you wonder whether such a keyboard is really worth the amount they charge, because you seriously could saw a $10 keyboard in half, use alot of duct tape, and get to essentially the same thing. All this aside, I cannot deny the ergonomics that the verticality brings. The MOUSE, on the other hand, is just rediculous. I dont believe I can speak for all computer users when i say this, but I believe i represent at least 10%: although major movement of the mouse cursor may be due to moving your arm(barely), any fine mouse motions i make (and by fine i mean within 100 pixels) are done by keeping my palm stationary and moving the mouse with my fingers. If you'll notice, this is IMPOSSIBLE on the mouse that they have designed, because the base that you rest your palm on is attatched to the mouse. This is sort of like glueing your mouse to your mousepad and cutting a little hole in the bottom for the ball or the optic or whathaveyou. And while Microsoft would probly replace your mouse since there was no warning about the misuse of heavy duty glue on mice, I am rather attatched to my nifty x-files mousepad. Back to the point though, by making your palm no longer rest on the surface, but on the mouse itself, usability suffers greatly... ok im done ranting i just had to point out that apparent design flaw... do you guys agree?
Darwin is BSD based and it is the most used Unix in the world right now...(yay Apple)
Dunno if these are exactly what you're looking for, but...
e yboards.html
http://www.ergostar.com/split.shtml
http://www.comfortkeyboard.com/ergomagic_tm.htm
This one is adjustable, but doesn't come apart:
http://www.keyalt.com/keyboards/goldtouch.htm
There are links to several (including some of the above) here:
http://www.tifaq.com/keyboards/adjustable-split-k
DennyK
I was reading about this kind of keyboard in 6th grade Computer Class (some 3 years ago). Is it just that such newfangled technology has gotten more publicity, or is this something even newer?
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
The early typewriters -- the kind with a ribbon of ink over a piece of paper, and each keypress would swing a thin metal bar down to smack the ribbon -- would jam easily if multiple keys were hit within a brief time. (The bars would cross.)
So the keys were somewhat scattered, in order to slow typing speed down to where the bars couldn't possibly interfere with one another, because the human couldn't hit them that quickly. E.g., major vowels on the outside of the board. (There's also an old joke about all the letters needed to spell "typewriter" being placed on the top row so that the traveling typewriter salesmen could find them, and type "typewriter" during a demo. See? Even early 20th century geeks made stupid-marketer jokes.)
Anyhow, the point: QWERTY is not the end-all be-all of interface design. Look at Dvorak. The /reason/ for the QWERTY design is long gone, there's nothing holding us back except reluctence to change.
(That said, I'll stick with my QWERTY split keyboard, thanks.)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I recently found the Orbitouch keyboard which looks like a giant leap forward - basically a pair of paddles that can move to one of 8 'compass points', giving you 256 key combinations, plus a mouse built into the right paddle. I haven't got to try one out yet but I think it looks like the right step away from the finger-wiggling which we're really not designed for...
Has anyone tried the Orbitouch? I'd be interested in hearing some feedback.
Nick Donaldson mailto:psyclops@psyclops.com Bit Wrangler Extraordinaire! http://www.psyclops.com/
Interestingly pull-cord light switches are still employed in the UK in bathrooms. At least, they were in virtually all houses I was in while living there for 4 years.
;)
Probably something to do with the fact that they use 240 volts on the mains, and that and water would kill you pretty darn quick.
SafeType keyboard
Quill mouse
DataHand System keyboard:
pic2
IN RUSSIA, The keyboard breaks you up in two and put the pieces vertically!
the USB George Foreman Grill? Seems just as wacky to me.
*looks at his hard drive* 1993. go figure.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Could you imagine running an internal combustion engine that's almost 150 years old?
Nope, I prefer reliability over that kind of newfangled bunk. I walk.
No, Beowulf clusters can't imagine in Soviet Russia.
A search of the archives turns up this Bluetooth cordless presenter from Logitech that was a mouse-like object reviewed on Slashdot late last year.
A little pricey for the casual user but built-in laser pointers are fun if you have a cat. Then you can play Cat and Mouse!
Okay, with this story and the OS X Panther story, apparently the new thing is to promote your own articles on Slashdot to get traffic instead of waiting for someone else to maybe do it. How's that for influence? Slashdot is now considered an important promotional tool by established tech sites.
I'm not complaining, mind you. They still need to get through the editors, so it's not degrading the quality (cough) of Slashdot at all, it's just an interesting turnabout. Yes, I do realize it's not the first time either, but the big boys usually don't do it.
Does anyone know of an ergo keyboard with the 6 key on the right hand side (or dual 6 keys, one on each side)???? My wrists need an ergo keyboard, but my fingers don't want to re-learn where 6 is! Thanks. --jwc
Any finns here? Have you ever wondered why eg. perl has so many strange characters that are hard to type.
;:{}/ keys added one key to right of left shift and grabbed right alt for extra mode key. *sigh*
:)
Well ques what. This is only problem with finnish key layout (and I guess with many other national layouts). It's not good for coding. The common syntactic characters in eg. C are just those that are easy to access on US type keyboard.
(In finnish layout (and in other european layouts?) the designers wanted badly to put the native (öäå etc.) characters close to more common alphanumerics. (Even while those characters are not the most common in finnish anyway.)
Hence they reorganized away
They must've thunk: "Why are there so many dedicated keys for special symbols? They are barely used while writing prose. We can just hide them and nobody will notice."
Typing paths in unix is sooo much easier when you can just quickly hit the '/' key with your little finger instead of scrambling for shift-7. And just try to imagine pressing right-alt-7 to get '{'.
)
If you are doing a lot of coding, consider getting an US layout keyboard. I personally use Happy Hacking keyboard and I'm indeed very happy with it.
Getting used to different layout (for non-alphanumerics) is surprisingly easy. Now I don't have to switch back and forth from touch typist position while coding. I finally learned to use emacs movement keys (control is in right place and no redundant page-up etc. keys to scramble for). Simply, I hack Perl faster now
Now, my question about the article is "Or a processor from two centuries past?" What kind of processor was available in 1803? Do we have another time traveler or Jules Verne (yes I know-ok X Files) deal here?
And the verticle keyboard has been around for some time now, and IMO, keyboards are little above toggle switches. I'm holding out for a direct neural link, a bioport, or even something we haven't even considered.
Wife-Subduing Air Raid Siren Confiscated
Oh god, not another uid war.
I can hardly beleive, that the vertical mouse is more comfortable and ergonomical than my trackball:) But I guess vertical trackball will be nice. I always wanted the mouse to have an arms for my elbows!
May Peace Prevail On Earth
" If you're typing on a standard QWERTY keyboard, and most of us are, then your keyboard design is over 100 years old (135 years old, to be exact). Can you imagine using a hard drive that was designed a decade ago? Or a processor from two centuries past? "
... you insensitive clods.
But its not the same fucking thing. Hard drives and processors from x decades ago couldn't keep up with application/file sizes and didnt deliver the sort of speed that people were looking for.
THERES NOTHING FUCKING WRONG WITH KEYBOARD DESIGN. WE'VE USED IT THIS LONG AND NOT MANY PEOLE HAVE COMPLAINED.
ffs.
leave the poor fucking keyboard alone
Small Black Dog
IIRC, the Datahand was used on Seaquest as well as in Contact.
that that is is that that is not is not
When it comes to far-out input devices, nobody can beat the Braille keyboards blind people use.
Check out http://www.aagi.com/
I have seen blind peopleuse organizers like that - tiny little things with eight keys and a Braille display. I marveled at the little thing and this blind guy asks me what the heck we eye-people think we're doing with those silly huge QWERTY things...
It has been my experience that 3D programs have pioneered quite a bit in interface. Just putting all the buttons in a three button mouse to use is a huge start (like XSI). Looking at Maya is a good example of gestures used very very effectivly, but as a lone source of input it doesn't work. A combinations of customizable buttons, using all the inputs available, and prioritizing (assume a certain hand position on the keyboard and put the most inportant keys under it, and work your way out). Using contex creates a very tightly accesible interface. Not everything needs to be available all the time.
I think that using a keyboard is not that far from gestures. How much different is pressing a key than making a gesture, which one has less room for error? How different is holding shift then pressing a key with the same hand?
I think that basically gestures are already how we use computers, and a different input device based on that principal wouldn't be very different, so I don't think that it would be very efficient, because there would be such a switch. I think that mouse gestures are a great tool, it just needs to be implemented thoughtfully and be an accpeted interface tool so that people will stop thinking it is something experimental, and eventually it will get more standardized and consitent, which is half the battle in interface design anyway. So I don't think that for the current state of computers (ie not 3D) the interface really can't, won't, and shouldn't change very much. I think it is more of a software problem than a hardware problem. I also think that truly 3D interfaces are a very bad idea, and should be reserved for the very few obvious applicaitons of them (moving a character around in 3D, etc.). We try to put every interface we have into a 2D space (look at something physical like a reciever, microwave, sound mixing board, oven, combination locks). Only special situations, most of them because of a direct elegant physical connection, have something not deliberatly two dimensional (toilet handle, ice machine from a refrigerator, door handles, faucets).
How does this relate to the article? I think that vastly improved ergonomics is one of last big things we can do to polish off the current state of computer interfaces for some time. The hardware and software have evolved pretty well together.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Even voice recognition as we know it today is basically just keyboard emulation. It doesn't change the idea of insertion of text at the cursor. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
There's a lot of potential in VR, still, which as yet is going unexploited. Unfortunately the thing which responds best to that kind of manipulation (As in, it becomes worth it) is data visualization, and it's not really necessary there. In fact, it's not necessary anywhere, so it won't be used on a large scale until it's just stupidly cheap. It really would be nice, though, to be able to work with 3D objects as you would in a machine shop kind of, except every cut you made would be perfect and you would have access to tools which do not exist in the real world. It's just too expensive for anyone to bother doing on a broadly commercial scale right now -- Consider what a pair of really good goggles cost, and a good video card with dual outputs so you can get something like good three dimensional views. You really need 30fps or better at all times so you don't make yourself ill if you're using goggles...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Quoth MvdB:
"It doesn't matter at all if the design of the keyboard is over 100 years old."
I agree. But the problem is that the QWERTY keyboard was designed to solve a technical problem of over a century ago that no longer exists. That is, there is no good technical reason to have maintained the QWERTY arrangement...
The QWERTY keyboard was designed in the days of those mechanical typewriters where each key was attached to a lever that would strike the page through an ink ribbon, leaving the appropriate character on the page. If you've ever typed on one of those, you know it's not hard to hit one key and then hit another one too soon after hitting the first one and have the two levers jam together. If you weren't using a QWERTY keyboard, this would be even worse. The QWERTY keyboard was designed to minimize jams of this type.
References:
QWERTY Ref 1
and
QWERTY Ref 2
By the 1970s, there were already good electric typewriters (they may have come sooner, but that's when I remember seeing them) using a single ball with all the characters, avoiding the jamming lever problem completely by reducing the number of parts that have to strike the page to one. There was no longer any technical reason to maintain the QWERTY layout. The introduction of word processors and personal computers also represented chances to use more efficient keyboard layouts.
That said, there are many millions of people who have learned to type, whether through formal training (like my mom) or through natural evolution of "hunt and peck" (like me), using the QWERTY keyboard. I personally have typed this entire message without looking once at the keyboard. I use most of my fingers and I don't need to look at the keyboard. I can even continue typing--to finish a sentence, for example-- while I turn and talk to a coworker. This horrifies some of my coworkers.
My guess (and yes, I admit it's just a guess) is that increases in efficiency (Words per Minute, for example) would for most users be offset by the need to learn a new keyboard and the fact that a QWERTY-trained user would be completely lost trying to use a new keyboard layout, which could create a lot of problems.
On the other hand, there may be significant ergonomic benefits available from more efficient designs. I haven't enough knowledge of the field to even express an opinion one way or the other on that, much less weigh any possible ergonomic benefits against the time required to train a user on a new layout (no problem for new users) and against the problems the existence of multiple layouts would cause.
Maybe the new technologies that allow a computer case to change color can eventually lead to a way out of this-- imagine keys that change depending on which keyboard layout you've selected. You'd be restricted to a keyboard in the same shape, with the same key positions (unless you used a flat "keypad" with no keys... yuck!), but the identities of the keys would be different depending on the selection of a layout.
With such a keyboard, it would be possible to introduce more efficient layouts for new users and interested QWERTY-trained users, while still permitting QWERTY users to use their training and/or experience using that layout.
--Mark
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Sucker
The keyboard you're using today is boring. And, we guarantee you'll agree by the time you finish our week-long series of keyboard and mouse reviews -- or your money back (oh wait, this is free).
;)
Surrre...who cares about the keyboard getting done what it's supposed to? It's not "amazing" enough, I want that other one with the steel nails as buttons and the funky lights all over!
*argl*
It's the future and I highly recommend you start practicing now by making the sound of an injured giraffe.
Mooaw. Mooaw.
check it out for yourself!
According to and old poll (posted in which year actually?), 25% of Slashdot thinks Dvorak is better than querty. But who actually uses it? I've not met any fellow Dvorak enthousiasts in my work environment (but neither that many /. readers).
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
We're 240 volts down here too, and we have switches in the bathroom. Does the power point for the electric shaver/hairdryer uses a switch anyway in the UK?
:)
Anyway amperage is what kills you, voltage just provides the pleasant jolting feeling
And given Watts = Voltage * Current, a lower voltage requires more current for a given watt light bulb (of course in practice a light bulb wattage is determined by the resistance - so halving the voltage will half the current and hence quarter the wattage, though I assume you 120V people have 60W light bulbs which pull 120V and 0.5 amps, compared with ours which pull 240V and 0.25 amps.)
Of course I haven't looked at my electric circuit equations since I lived in that bedroom in high school, so I probably got something wrong...
Talking about strange keyboards, I was flying with SAS yesterday, and in their in-flight magazine (I was dead bored) they had an article about senseboard :)
Kinda cool actully... and as ergonomical as you make it
Typing in thin air while wearing silver clothes is what will do in the future anyways, so why fight it?
http://www.vkb.co.il/ A projecting keyboard
There is seriously nothing as solid feeling as my model M. Mine is from an old IBM RS/6000 workstation (250 for anyone keeping count). Who else puts dates on, because you knwo it will last forever. 03-15-90, P/N 1394540.
The key action on this is perfect, even after more then a decade of heavy use. Rock solid, good key action, what more could you want?
I'm a really heavy typer - learned on old Commodore (Pet, Vic20, C64) prducts and you really had to stomp on those keys. The model M is the only thing that survives me. Though my entire department can hear while I'm pounding on it. *grin*
=Blue(23)
LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? C. MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
you can now relax and surf all the porn you want without worrying about the wife/gf sneaking up on you. Just keep an eye on those mirrors. ;)
Try google search for "chording keyboard" and you'll come up with some really wild designs. Some of them home-made, some in mass trade. Personally, if I had some spare bucks, I'd give a try to CyKey, a neat wireless keyboard that whole fits in your palm (No desk required!)
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I think that it's remarkably difficult to switch keyboard layouts if you've grown up being used to a particular one (QWERTY), both actually learning the new layout and having the motivation to go through with it. I know I wouldn't. I'm perfectly happy with QWERTY, and have learnt to (almost) touch type with it over many years. I wouldn't like to have to put that kind of effort in retraining myself with a new keyboard layout, and I'm not sure I could ever become as good with it as I am with this one.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I'm typing this on a Kinesis Contour keyboard and it's a wonderful thing. It abandons the traditional 'staggered grid' layout (which is fine, because none of my keyboards relies on swinging a thin metal arm that has to be kept clear of all the other thin metal arms) and puts the keys in a bowl shape around the fingers. It feels so much more comfortable and natural to type on -- and it also fixed the tendons in my right hand, which were freaking out from having to reach over to the backspace and 'programming' keys so much.
It also has total programmability -- which means that finally I can do something with the scroll lock key (I use it to toggle Japanese/English input).
Mine is from the mid 90's and is still working perfectly.
N.B. I do not work for Kinesis. I merely plug their keyboard all the damn time because I like it.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Check out this link for more alternative input devices: Ergosci
I love the keyboards on laptop computers, but I haven't been able to find a similar style keyboard for a desktop. Not that I've looked particularly hard...but any suggestions?
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
The QWERTY keyboard is like Microsoft Windows. Sure prolonged use might be harmful to your health, but it's good enough for most people and it's got near-complete market penetration. It's not going to go away without a radical user interface paradigm shift.
a world in progress...
How about a keyboard without a Satan blessing MS key on it?
Well, I actually did make the switch. My experience and that of other Dvorak users (as reported on the net) is that
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
I have not tried one of these, but I'd like to. This guy has an intriguing setup using a two-piece keyboard mounted to the arm rests of an office chair.
I have not used it yet, but I still want one of these http://www.fingerworks.com/
There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling! -- CBG, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes"
I tried Dvorak for a while. It was novel, and I go through phases with things like that. Didn't change my life or anything.
My work wouldn't pick up a for-real Dovrak keyboard for me, so I'd just switch the OS's keyboard layout on the fly -- it was an OS 8 Mac office -- and learned to use the new layout blind, on keys that showed the QWERTY letters. (Kind of a fun little security measure, too, when someone sitting down to your machine gets all the wrong letters...)
Despite the convincing-sounding rationale behind it, there's real debate over whether Dvorak's an improvement over QWERTY. It makes intuitive sense when you hear the arguments, but there's research -- like this article comparing speed on both versions either way.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
To some extent using the mouse gives me much more trouble than typing (so I use a trackball/trackpad when I can), but what's really been giving my right wrist a lot of trouble lately is the freaking N64 controller! Can anyone make one of those that's ergonomic? Please, so I can continue my PSO/Zelda addiction!
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Unless someone can come up with a truly revolutionary interface (whose improvements to productivity are immense and can be measured) the QWERTY keyboard will remain as top dog.
There's this new thing called a MOUSE? Maybe you've heard of it?
The computer/human interface IS evolving, you just haven't noticed it.
Well, it isn't exactly controversial with me. Hey, I tried it, right? But the usual points would be:
Your measurements of the distances between keys might fit point #3, more or less. You basically described the reasons for the design, but that's not proof that it'll make people faster or reduce RSIs in real life, would be the argument.
As far as the car thing goes, 5 miles vs. 50 isn't quite fair, especially when the actual speed difference has been measured at around 4%. 5 vs. 5.25 miles, is that? (Might be more like a debate about what kind of road system to build? Highway with limited access at higher speed vs. dispersed road system to spread the traffic load?)
Personally I'll try another new system when I can teach the technology rather than the other way around. One more funky keyboard doesn't turn my crank that much, though they're cool to look at.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
The QWERTY layout is the *original* layout designed by Christopher Sholes in 1872 for the Remington Type Writer. It has zero years of user interface experience behind it. Using it is like still running Windows 1.0. It works, but it's suboptimal.
Me, I'm using Linux with a Dvorak Bluetooth keyboard. I've tried to evolve a better layout, but I haven't been able to beat Dvorak yet.
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
Actually, there is some recent literature that purports to show that typing on a keyboard is NOT a cause of RSI.
Working with a jackhammer, certainly... but one of my orthopedic surgeon colleagues disabused me of this notion when I brought up typing in coversation (I am a physician, BTW)
I called another orthopedic surgeon when I read this article this morning, and asked her specifically about typing NOT causing RSI and she confirmed the research quoted by the other surgeon... I'll see if I can find some references and post them.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I really recommend the TouchStream keyboards. They are like two big mouse pads, one for each hand. There are no keys, per se, just regions of the pads that are labelled as keys. Very easy typiing and integrated mousing. Plus it has a host of gestures that you can use for common tasks like cut and paste or scrolling. It includes native linux support with special emacs mode built right in. Check it out at:
http://www.fingerworks.com/
or have a look at lots of alternative keyboards at:
http://www.keyalt.com
It took me 10 freakin' years to learn to touch-type on a QWERTY keyboard, and now you're opining that everyone should change their kbd layout just to appease any possible RSI problems?! For me that would be like starting all over again from scratch!
I think not.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll take my suboptimal key layout and my suboptimal fine motor control and be off.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
hey, i personally have found the datadesk smartboard to be the best of the current split, "ergonomic" keyboards.
m l
it has great, clicky feel (like an old ibm m series), and has a layout with matches the way the fingers naturally fan-out.
http://www.datadesktech.com/desktop_sb_start.ht
One thing that can help, while retaining the QWERTY layout, is removing the "tilt" from the keys that was to originally accomodate the mechanical linkages to the type-bars.
Unfortunately, I've only seen this from one maker, DataDesk SmartBoard. (All the other boards I've seen that drop the "slant" are the "contoured" boards, such as the Kinesis Ergo ones.)
I find the most important thing in a keyboard is the switch mechanism. If you put a bad switch in any layout, you'll still have wrist problems. I just can't type on those "rubber dome" keyboards everyone makes today; after an hour or so, my wrists are on fire. But I can go all day on a buckling-spring switch; or any other switch that "fires" before the bottom of the keystroke. (That's what I'm used to, from the ferrite-bead-through-circuit board on the ICON, the wedge-and-fingers on the Amiga, to the buckling spring on the IBM RS/6000 (and all their other systems up to the mid-late 90s).)
The next big thing in Keyboard design will be one handed keyboards optimized for the internet.
No, the "Next Big Thing"(TM) is mouse gestures. After the simple Optimoz installation you'll never touch your keyboard again. It was that way for me at least. (Not using a Mozilla based broswer? Heathen!)
I find mouse gestures are much more comfortable to use than both the keyboard and browser UI.
Malloc___________________ I want to be free()!
I never had a speck of wrist/arm trouble (it ain't carpal tunnel with me, it's tendonitis -- part of the problem is standardized ergonomics and being off on the far left of the normal distribution) with my Amiga kbd, come to think on it, and I hammered on that sucker for hours a day for years at a stretch. I also like my old kbd at home far more than I like my new one here at work -- the action on my old one is so much softer. Analogy time: My old keyboard is like playing a narrow-necked steel string guitar with a low bridge, and my work keyboard is like playing a wide-neck nylon string guitar with a wicked high bridge.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Just to save its users the bother.
Rich
The QWERTY keyboard you're using is very different from the mechanical typewriter keyboard that first used that layout, in much the same way the wheels have changed over time. All of the new tires share the feature that the center is the same distance from the point that supports the edge in all orientations, which corresponds to your keybaord being QWERTY.
I bought a touchstream some time ago and love it. I am using it right now to type this and have found that after you stop trying to drive your fingers through the panel and just touch the keys you can type faster than you used to be able to with a standard keyboard. I also use Emacs all the time and love the macros. The mouse integration is great. I am totally pleased. The only slight gripe is that doing programming the auto correct causes problems. I simply turned it off and it works fine.
The mouse has been around since 1964, and was patented in 1970. HARDLY a new invention.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
Lets face it, we all need a plug on the back of our head to connect.
The Dvorak key layout isn't exactly "new", though. I use it and love it, but it's from the 1920s if I recall correctly.
It took me a day or so to learn to write with effort, slightly less than a month to learn to write comfortably. I learned "blind" and used it that way for a year and a half until I finally got a keyboard that I could label properly. I had problems relearning qwerty, though, but now (after a few years of dvorak use) I can use either qwerty and dvorak easily. I use dvorak on my own computers.