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Keyboards for One Hand?

Posted by Cliff on from the hunt-and-peck-for-cap'n-hook dept.

visibleman asks: "Having recently damaged my right hand to the point where it is unusable for a month and only for light tasks after that I was wondering whether anyone in the community knows of any devices which replace the keyboard but require the use of only one hand. I remember a long time ago seeing in magazines something that had a single button per finger and relied on the user learning key combinations to make up letters but I have not seen this for ages, does anyone know what I am talking about?" Ask Slashdot covered this topic, twice: in this article from 1999 and a followup from 2001. For those readers who find themselves in this same situation, what solutions have you found and what were your experiences, good or bad? Are there any new devices in this vein that deserve mention or are the older solutions still the best?

3 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. One-handed keyboard typing by Sabbath.sCm · · Score: 4, Informative

    About One Hand Typing I found it interesting even for those who can use both hands (it would be useful for typing and using the mouse at the same time).

  2. google by illuvata · · Score: 4, Informative

    lets ask google, shall we?

    first, we get this site, about typing on a normal keyboard with one hand.

    then this one, which shows a few one hand keyboards

    also theres this kind of academic looking paper about half-QWERTY.

  3. a software partial solution by n9hmg · · Score: 4, Informative

    Dasher lets you soft of "steer a course" through what you want to say, which is pretty handy when you need to create a long stream of text. In the current incarnation, it seems to be lc alphas and the space, only, but to blow out the bulk of your text, and insert punctuation and formatting later, it could be very handy. With use, it learns the statistical distribution of letter order, so that the easiest things to write are things you write a lot... when you pass through a "J", vowels are big and easy to hit, while consonants are tiny little slits. You'll see what I mean when you play with it. I don't use it myself, aside from seeing what it can do so I can help others use it if needed, but it's definitely what I would use if I needed to write a book and had only limited use of my hands.