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FingerWorks Offers Replacement PowerBook Keyboard

Posted by pudge on from the now-we-just-need-a-drop-in-multi-button-trackpad dept.

JerryKnight writes "FingerWorks, the inventor of TouchStream keyboards such as the LP, is taking pre-orders for a drop-in replacement for the keyboard in a 15" PowerBook G4 that is pretty much the same thing as the LP. Now the beautiful PowerBook can be completely smooth. Words fail to express the enthusiasm felt by me and hopefully anyone else who has used these keyboards. No word on availability. List price: $259." It's called the MacNTouch. Hm.

1 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting, but perhaps too responsive by Bookwyrm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    After looking at some of the sample gestures for the keyboard, I have to admit I am somewhat impressed. Some very interesting ideas there. After looking at more of the sample gestures for the touch keyboard, I am still impressed, but wary.

    It reminds me of the problems with 'logically designed languages'. (i.e. all words for colors in the language might start with "cro", "crob" is blue, "crog" is green, "cror" is red, etc. The problem being that a single typos in the word might still be a valid word of a similiar type, but not what you meant.) I suspect someone who became a total expert with the keyboard could do just fine, but an intermediate user could get highly frustrated -- forgetting to use/accidently using an extra finger in a gesture might cause some unwanted operation to happen, not merely cause the desired operation to not happen. Maybe the software is smart enough to second guess some of these issues, but...

    Go to the company's page and look at the Enhanced Modifier Chords -- if you tap with six fingers on the home row, you get an Enter -- if you tap six fingers on the row above the home row, you get an Esc key press. (Personally, I would immediately redefine those two gestures to have far more difference between the two -- accidently hitting "Enter" when one meant "Escape" in some dialog boxes would be very bad.) Or the shift/control differences.

    Of course, one could just not use the gestures, but then why bother with the keyboard?

    Nonetheless, very interesting ideas, but it may not be ready for everyone.