A One-Handed Keyboard For $25

Bruce Perens writes "Slashdot has often featured attempts at improvement upon the QWERTY keyboard. Here's a one-handed USB keyboard that you can buy for $25 online, or a bit more at the CompUSA. There's one catch: someone will have to design a keying pattern and hack up software for it. It's a task just crying out for an Open Source project." Bruce has also included on the linked page code with which to read the output from the device.

Comments

Then you can't buy a one-handed keyboard for $25..

[Brento]

Saying that you can buy a one-handed keyboard for $25, but you have to roll your own software, means you're not buying a one-handed keyboard for $25. That's like saying you can buy your own crystal meth for $25 - sure, the ingredients are only $25, but you have to know the recipe and risk life and limb cooking the stuff.

Not that I'd know about those things. (And that applies to both coding my own keyboard drivers as well as cooking meth.)

DVORAK keyboard

[w.p.richardson]

Some would argue that a Dvorak keyboard is an improvement over QWERTY. Why hasn't it taken over? Simple - there is no real cry for an improvement.

This idea is akin to changing the steering wheel in a car to a joystick; possible, but why change something that is a functional standard?

Re:DVORAK keyboard

[gilesjuk]

There's a proper reason for having a steering wheel in a car and that is accuracy and usability. You have to turn the wheel quite a large distance to go from full lock left to full lock right. With a joystick it would be a foot at the most.

Other reasons include feedback, you simply wouldn't get the right feedback from a joystick. A stick is ideal for a plane as you are banking the plane towards the left and to the right, in a car you are rotating the wheel and so a rotating control method works best.

Also, to use a stick you would need control systems, fully powered hydraulic steering, this would be prone to faults and in the event of a system failure you would lose steering. Currently cars have power assisted steering but standard steering still functions in the event of a fluid leak etc.

Other problems with a stick system? how about requiring the engine to be running for the system to work? this would make getting your car onto a recovery truck rather difficult if the engine won't run. What about getting towed? impossible without the engine running.

So while it might be possible to change cars to use a joystick it is simply a bad idea.

Re:DVORAK keyboard

[Cska Sofia]

Some would argue Mac OS X is an improvement over Windows. Why hasn't it taken over?

Just because a technology is established across the vast majority of users doesn't mean that alternatives wouldn't be a great improvement. QWERTY is so firmly established that despite the common knowledge that it was designed to put common letter combinations as far apart as possible, most users do not even consider looking for an alternative. There are many reasons - lack of knowledge, lack of learning resources, cost - but don't think that, all else being equal, users wouldn't pick the alternative that is designed for the greatest speed, comfort and accuracy.

Re:DVORAK keyboard

[the pickle]

Let me preface this with "I think a joystick is a horrible way to drive a car" and "Change for the sake of change is almost always bad." So in principle, I agree with the spirit of your comment.

A stick is ideal for a plane as you are banking the plane towards the left and to the right, in a car you are rotating the wheel and so a rotating control method works best.

Uh, what? This reasoning sounds awfully circular (honestly, no pun intended) to me. There are plenty of planes that use a wheel instead of a stick. The main reason for using a stick with an aircraft is that a wheel doesn't easily (or as conveniently, anyway) lend itself to motion in a third axis. Using a stick removes a lot of that awkwardness.

Also, to use a stick you would need control systems, fully powered hydraulic steering...

There are plenty of planes that don't have hydraulic systems associated with a control stick, and there are a lot more that have systems no more complicated than what's in a car. There's no reason a hydraulic-assist stick, much like today's power steering, couldn't be developed for use in a car.

I can almost guarantee you that helicopter (and maybe fighter) pilots would be the only people who would be able to drive such a system with any sort of precision, though. Your point about having to turn a steering wheel a very large distance to effect a fairly small change is a good one. Without some sort of serious speed sensitivity, the smaller range of control input inherent in a stick would make for VERY lively steering (read: easily overcontrolled).

Of course, if cars had *always* had a joystick-type steering mechanism (some early ones did, in fact), we'd be sitting here having this discussion from the opposite perspective. There's really nothing inherent in a steering wheel that makes it the perfect solution to steering a car. It's more a matter of "what's always been done."

To get this back on topic, there's really nothing inherently superior about a QWERTY keyboard, and many arguments can be made that there are inherently inferior aspects of it. The problem is, QWERTY layouts have been in use for so long that they're the de facto standard, no matter what other great technology comes along. QWERTY keyboards will rule the world until either voice recognition or direct brain control is perfected.

p

Re:DVORAK keyboard

[Smidge204]

You might save on cost, and it might be marginally lighter, but you won't save on power. The reason being that if you replace the steering wheel with a joystick, that's the ONLY thing you'll be changing. You will still need the steeling linkage, power assist cylinder (moreso than ever, because the driver now provides 0% of the mechanical force required to turn the wheels - so it would probably use more power), and all of the bits that go along with it.

However, using a joystick as a control is a BAD idea, above any beyond the problems you mentioned. Most cars have steering ratios of 12:1 to 14:1. Meaning if the front wheels could turn 360 degrees you would have to turn the steering wheel 12-14 times. This gives you very good control for when you want to turn just a little bit, like on a highway that goes around a bend. Now imagine that with a joystick, and how easy it would be to push the stick a little too far and end up swerving out of control. At most you would only have to tilt the stick 35-40 degrees to go full turn in either direction.
=Smidge=

QWERTY is imperfect so?

[Fallen Andy]

...what isn't imperfect. I live with it comfortably,
with no RSI or anything else. Why squander brain power on yet another weird device? If you really are sitting there pounding away at 100wpm all day then what kind of coding bot are you anyway?
(and are you thinking about what you're coding?)

It's far too late to educate anyone about the merits of a new device that replaces an old device wot works. Try convincing the Brits or US that metric is a good idea? 3/8" bolts on the ISS (yuk). (and I'm old enough to remember (ouch) don't want to comment...).

Perhaps the open source world needs to discuss what we ought to play with (gee: i have this neat
idea for photographing emperor penguins...) rather
than the old well worn stuff. Try a sci fi style
workshop maybe?

sidenote: Wagtails wag their tails in order to create turbulence. Prove me wrong.

There is a point

[Anonymous Coward]

There IS software for the product. It's a gaming "keypad/keyboard". The idea of the poster is to use it for other stuff too. Like normal typewriting for handicapped or to leave one hand free. for using the mouse i guess... :?

Re:Left Handed???

[wed128]

i am right handed, but i use a mouse for my right hand. Therefore, with a device like this, i wouldn't have to take my hand off the mouse. It's more efficient that way.

It is a game device, so the right is on the mouse

[SmallFurryCreature]

so yes this is left handed and I doubt the manufacturer has the kind of production run that makes a left handed device worthwhile.

Chording support?

[SeanDuggan]

Correct me if I'm wrong, as I've only seen a few peripheral numpads (generally for laptops), but my impression is that they tend to be built the same way as the average computer keyboard. You know, where you can't press two keys at the same time if they're in the same row? If this device allows you to detect which keys are pressed as individual signals, then chording is much more feasible. And I would not be surprised if they indeed allow for multiple keys being pressed as this is one of the major problems with playing FPS games using a keyboard.

I have one

[g0bshiTe]

I bought one of those for gaming. I was surprised at the amount of filangy strength needed to depress keys. Not to mention that on occasion keypresses repeat and sometimes arent read at all, though that could be a driver issue.

no

[Anonymous Coward]

One-handed Dvorak are mappings for a full-sized keyboard. The one-handed keyboard mentioned does not fit the bill.

Re:Bruce missed a couple of trains here

[Grym]

Actually, I have one of these things. I use it for Warcraft 3, Counterstrike, and Doom 3. The software that powers it rules (to the point where, I could see some people consider it cheating.)

Guys, there's no need for writing custom drivers. What the author is suggesting could be accompished in like 20 minutes with the included software. To be honest, the original author didn't know what he was talking about.

-Grym

Re:Then you can't buy a one-handed keyboard for $2

[Bruce Perens]

Probably yes. The Linux event interface part could be. It might be that someone would have to define a C-to-Python link for XTest.

Thanks

Bruce