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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."
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!
Not exactly new. There are more, I'm just too lazy to paste them all.
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!
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.
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.
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
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
Those mirrors on the vertical keyboard should have some small fineprint saying:
"keys in mirror are closer than they appear"
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.
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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!
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
Hunt 'n peck typers are much less likely to suffer repetitive stress or CTS, since they dont hold their hands in the same position moving only their fingertips. All that hovering over the keyboard gives the wrists time to relax.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Unfortunately, I have a Palm-type Palm, but if I had PocketPC-type palm, I'd jump at this app.
-T
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.
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.
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.
... 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
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!
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'
I rotated my screen in every direction but couldn't find the map description.
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)
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?
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.
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.
Very true, and not all us two-finger folks are slow, either. I type two-finger without looking at the keyboard most of the time (once I get "lined up" properly), and can do 50WPM or better if I'm typing stuff out of my own head. Sure, it's not as good as a decent touch typist, but it's not half bad, and since I don't write thousands of lines of code or take dictation for a living, it's plenty for me. Two-finger typing lets me keep my hands in a much more natural position: above the keyboard, fingers curled, wrists almost straight instead of bent outwards and upwards relative to the forearm like a touch typist's. My arm also does much of the work, rather than putting it all on my fingers and tendons in the hand. It does make my arms a little tired if I type for an extended period, but it's much better than chronic wrist pain. ;) The only time I get quasi-CTS-like symptoms is when I've been making excessive use of the mouse (damn 8-hour Quake marathons... ;-D ). I can type for hours with no similar problems.
;)
Of course, this method of typing means that any funky keyboard is useless to me. Even the curvy egro keyboards are impossible for me to use. As such, I think I'll be sticking to a flat keyboard for some time to come...
DennyK
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?
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 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/
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.
Switching back and forth between US-qwerty and Dvorak is reasonably easy, although I don't do that very often nowadays. All computers that I use regularly have Dvorak installed. It takes a few phrases to readjust. I'm still not used to Swedish qwerty, which has all the punctuation marks elsewhere as well as an extra physical key, but that's partly because I never use it.
Strangely, I have much bigger problems with small differences, such as the position of CapsLock and Ctrl, or the location of the "\". On my Dvorak version, ctrl is left of the "A" and caps is moved to one of the Windows keys that I never use. I'd rather type with standard qwerty than a standard Dvorak with a Caps where I expect a Ctrl. Who uses a caps lock anyway?
So in your situation I'd choose one layout (Dvorak with extensions for accented letters) for latin alphabet and one for cyrillic and carry a floppy with me with drivers/keytables to convert every computer that I work with.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
Dvorak user here, too. I switched to it mostly because I couldn't break myself from the habit of looking at the keys with the QWERTY layout. I susupect I make a few more typos, but I'm looking at what I'm typing (mostly, I can stare off into space while typing a little nowadays) and can quickly correct.
Plus, it's a good security measure to keep coworkers from messing with my machine!
And, using Dvorak layout seems to earn a pretty high geek factor amongst the masses.
- Jasen.