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AlphaGrip Starts Mass Production
punchy_boy writes "The AlphaGrip AG-5 is finally starting production. News of pre-orders for this device was reported 6 months ago.
This device is a keyboard and mouse in a 'gamepad' style form factor. It's been a while coming and the guy(s) at AlphaGrip deserve a pat on the back for sticking with it.
I was so enthusiastic about this device I wrote some software to help me learn to use it properly (alt link)."
Sometimes, I hold it with my hands crossed and upside down... I call it The Stranger
I have a plan. Using mainly spoons, we'll tunnel our way out of the city...
Actually, you should watch the video. I don't think it'be that great in an office, but like they say, during a car or plane trip, it is interesting.
And if you think you don't want to learn how to use, it could be that you're growing old and don't want to change your little habits... hehehe
I'm surprised we haven't seen a lot more novel controllers for our gizmos. We've got a lot of different people, coming from different experiences all over the world, playing many different games, musical instruments, working with a vast array of tools. And experimental hardware is very cheap and accessible to design and produce, even in limited quantities. So why are we stuck with basically QWERTY, mouse, D-pad, and a "handful" of variations and combos? Let a thousand controllers bloom! Each with a USB connection and an open-source driver :).
--
make install -not war
AlphaGrip's site is the worst design IMHO.
If they can't design a site how the hell can they design a usable "gamepad"?
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What ever happened to the old fashion mouse and key board?
"We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose." "Perceptions rule the universe." --Bene Gesserit Sayings
the guy(s) at AlphaGrip deserve a pat on the back for sticking with it.
Perhaps. But, they also deserve a smack in the head for a stupid idea. There is no way that a gamepad with funky chords is faster than a standard keyboard. It has also been recently determined that this thumb typing phenomenon, brought on by game pads and cell phone text messaging, is very bad for people.
If you think RSI and carpal tunnel is a problem with a regular keyboard, just wait till you see what happens from typing with only your thumbs for a few years.
LOL Morons!
I think so. One of the inventors says in the video that it is detected as a standard USB keyboard and mouse.
...
I also assume it will work under Mac OS X.
I think I might get one. I think these things are going to be popular for some weird reason
This is gimic advertising.
But i just can't get used to this kind of stuff ...
...
: www.alphagrip.com/+&hl=es
I have thought about getting out of qwerty many times, but, even when there are some input/control devices that are better and faster than the classic ones, so many years using the classic designs lets us type as fast with them as one could do with newer toys. Also, it's pretty hard to get used to that kind of changes.
I have tried DVORAK, and even a crazy experimental layout that i found out there
k , u y p w l m f c
o a e i d r n t h s
q . ' ; z x v g b j
Here is the link to experiment that created this layout: http://www.visi.com/~pmk/evolved.html
In conclussion, this devices might be very comfortable, but an old hacker just won't get used to them.
BTW: The site is slow, here is the google cache link: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:qO6W-dkdz4kJ
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
I watched his diy informertial ...
...
...
...
... like a holographic interface. ... The Dude
It doesn't look like it makes games any more fun to play
It looks stupid when it comes to using a hand held computer
He looks stupid
I'll wait for a real break through in technology
I wasn't really interested, untill I watched his little demo video. I really like the idea of being able to type while sitting in my lay-z-boy and not having to handle a wireless keyboard. I am sure it has a learning curve like anything else, but I am an avid console gamer and I think I could pick it up in a week or so, I might just order one right now.
It would be fun to take notes using this during class; you'll be furiously pressing buttons on a gamepad while the professor, who can't see your screen, sees just that.
Did you watch the gaming demo ? It seems that the "joystick" function of this controller is a on/off switch. That's ok for strafing (that's what we use with our keyboards) but it's totally unusable for proper orientation ! I already find that joysticks are far less precise than mouses when comparing movement acceleration range, this is even worse. Definitely not a gaming device.
For my wearable computing, I need an input device that supports all the functionality of a keyboard and mouse/trackball, in a stylish, small form factor, that fits in a pocket (and is preferably usable while _in_ said pocket at least once one learns where the keys are) This ain't it. I can't walk down the street using that big lump, I'd look as absurd as I'd look with a VR helmet instead of a glasses-clip-on micro-HUD.
the marketing pics look like bad low budget n-gauge stuff, the ones that show attractive people in hot night clubs using the n-gauge. Here is a hot girl holding oour gadget!!
i'm pretty sure, this will be best for use with gaming consoles.... new ideas, that threaten trends of MANY years usually fail (even if they are better that the current standard.)
I can't even imagine how much my wrists and fingers would hurt after doing something like talking on aim or posting alot of comments!
how much does it weigh?
and wont you get that thumb disease or w/e that is from extended use of them?
Your skill in reading has increased by one point!
Seems to me that there have been a lot of attempts made to come up with better keyboard designs - Dvorak; that alphabetical keyboards; chordic keyboards; split keyboards; weird keyboards; other weird keyboards; and so on.
Call me when one of them has broad market acceptance.
Michael
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
... I had problems with washing machine because it has too few buttons (actually only 2 buttons and one knob). I am used to my 104 keyboard. They won't see this "thingy" on my buying list.
This concept is nothing new. A one-handed system called the "Microwriter" was using the same idea over 25 years ago. It never caught on either:
p ?s t=1&c=558
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.as
Is there anybody who (having used both) can tell us if the alphagrip can challenge the supremecy of the handykey twiddler chording keyboard as the device for typing while running?
do you think US special forces are going to be punching in artillery corrections on a ruggedized alphagrip instead of the L3 wrist keyboard that I'm told they used in the 1990s?
Absolutely. Also, this is a two handed device.
I think the Twiddler is a more apt keyboard for wearable computing, but it would be better to have something less complex, and much cheaper.
Also, what do those of us do with the HUD when we don't wear glasses? I figure, LEDs at the end of the mic, for notification -- I don't think we need screens for everything anymore.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Seems to me that there have been a lot of attempts made to come up with better keyboard designs
Chordic and split keyboards were not invented for that reason, they were attempts to come up with better keyboard designs for computing while standing or walking.
Call me when one of them has broad market acceptance.
No thanks, you seem like an asshole. It's a shame you need others to like something before you can like it, too. You're a natural-born follower.
This is guy is genuine like my ass. From his website:
I also have a bad back which prompted my desire to buy an AlphaGrip, so I could sit in the most comfortable position with my laptop and hack away. Anytime, anywhere.
Thanks for sharing, but can the editors please RTF website before posting. thanks.
Ironclad Security only exists when you have Chuck Norris on the shift. Do we really have to discuss this? (Plutonite)
Back in the 1970's we had Kung-Fu grip! [TM]
Click here if you dare
It says right on one of their webpages that it works on Windows, OS X, and *nix that's set up to use USB keyboards and mice.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
I totally agree. The mouse function must be done differently somehow. I was thinking that the best idea would be to have an accelerometer to measure the movement of the thing itself. You can rotate it along the three spacial axes, and you can also move it (unrotated) along three axes. Wouldn't it be cool if the thing could detect all those motions and translate them into input? Shooter games would start to feel a lot more like shooting. Best of all, this wouldn't require the use of any fingers at all, so you really could type and mouse with perfect simultenaity.
I see these being more useful as we move more and more towards media PCs etc.
I've just built a media PC (VIA Nehemiah based, fanless, Fedora Core 2) for playing DVDs, AVIs and Ogg/MP3s. I have yet to write some kind of OSD-type control software for it to select a file I might want to play. It's a real pain having to walk up to the PC just to play the next episode of 24, for example.
This is kind of a stealth keyboard which wouldn't look so much out of place on the coffee table. Particularly if it were wireless. Being able to type superfast on it wouldn't be a requirement... I want one!
I notice AlphaGrip is based in Virginia, just like VA Linux (which owns Slashdot). Are comments being rigged so that this incredibly blatant attempt at astroturfing will still hold up as a decent advertisement to those with high comment viewing thresholds?
How about a standard keyboard and mouse interface for gaming consoles? That's about the only thing that keeps Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo from having me as a customer. I play computer games, and I like the idea of spending a couple hundred bucks on a console instead of several times that on a computer, but I hate game controllers.
When George Bush's great-grandfather first invented hypertext, it didn't catch on either.
One of the advantages of a chord keyboard is that it allows one-handed typing, which is essential for wearable computing: you shouldn't need to put down your "keyboard" to open a door or pick up a glass or whatever else you need to do in the "real world".
Riiiiight...
The same group that struggles with a 2-button mouse is gonna love this!
The "Why?" link on the site says that in the 1930s, we were able to type at 50WPM and now in 2004 the Alphagrip allows us to type at ... up to 50WPM.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
I'm quite open to novel mechanisms to data entry and have experimented with a few in the past. However, these keyboards are often optimized for typing English text while unwittingly complicating the entry of shell and vi commands, which are just as important to me.
I'd like to see a keyboard designed around the key usage of a sysadmin who uses vi and tcsh (and other obscure programs such a emacs).
Michael.
Linux : Mac
So why not just wireless? I'll wait......
Unfortunately this addresses only half the problem.
...One half of the problem is that there have been very-few hand-held game controllers that really allowed controlling mouse and movement well. IMO, the one that came closest to being the best was none other than the Microsoft Dual Strike, which was (not too surprisingly) the worst-selling member of the MS Sidewinder game controller line, and the first one they killed off. Apparently they considered it such an embarassment that they took the drivers down when new units stopped shipping. Most people who claimed to be PC-game freaks never touched one, and couldn't imagine why you would want such a thing, but I swear: it took a week or so of getting used to, but from then on it was a beautiful thing. I've still got a few unused, NIB.
...The other half of the problem is the proliferation of controls "necessary" for regular PC games. It's common for FPS games to feature 10 or more weapons, even though there's not a big difference in how some of these actually work in the game. You basically need to use a keyboard+mouse, and it sucks (quite frankly) to be required to play while sitting at a desk--and anyone who would question why sitting at a desk to play is so bad has clearly forgotten their youth. Most sports games sell for consoles (not PC's) and the suspected reason is that the simple console controllers FORCES game designers to stick with simple control interfaces. They can't require gameplay to use 15 different buttons, because there aren't 15 buttons available.
...By the by, the reason I still have a few Dual Strike controllers NIB is because the last game I tried to play with them was Half-Life-1; after that, most action PC games simply required too many controls for it to be useful. ~~~~~~
I guess that's too paranoid.
But you look at this "thing", and your main thought is WTF?
Is this the biggest story of the hour?
Chordic and split keyboards were not invented for that reason, they were attempts to come up with better keyboard designs for computing while standing or walking.
Chording keyboards were invented by Doug Engelbart, inventor of the mouse. It was designed so one hand could type and the other could point. His BAT chording keyboard sits on a desk and cannot be used while being carried.
Links:
The Sound of One Hand Typing
Site selling the BAT keyboard
And since we just recently had a story about typing recently, I'll suggest these folks update their web site and scrape away the BS. To wit:
>>And even those who do touch type do
>>so with a letter layout that was
>>specifically designed to slow down typing
>>so the first mechanical typewriter keys wouldn't
>>jam.
*sigh* No, no it wasn't.
>>The Dvorak lets you type faster
*sigh* No, no it doesn't.
come on...
this is definitely for people that pretty much only play video games and need to game chat.
On the front page they have an animated gif with people. There is this one blonde chick hold a pink controller, almost looks like a vibrator. I'd like to push some of her buttons (with my tongue).
Props to them for honesty: ...we are only offering the AG-5 in a small-to-medium size. If you have large hands, you may not achieve optimum comfort or speed using the AG-5.
They didn't even get rid of the !@#$% caps lock. It's a cording keyboard any you can't expect the user to hold the shift key for caps? How about they add a shift lock for every shift key that they have on there? Jef Raskin has some good things to say about mode buttons like the caps lock.
...play Doom 3 with something designed like the AG-3 :)
From what I understand, many repetitive stress injuries arise from the specific positioning of the fingers while typing. So, for example, some people's hands might hurt while typing on a regular keyboard, but not when using a game controller. This may alleviate some RSI cases by allowing a new fingering position.
PimpMyMazda.com - Crazy mods to a 2002 Mazda Protege DX.
My parents urged me to take typing as an elevctive in high school - best advicee they ever gave me as I can type close to 100 wpm on a reugular desktop keyboar d. While other gafdgets may be more efficient, I can;t see the marginale value of moving away from somethihng that works so well for me .
auwww, I thought it was Al Gore who invented Hypertext.
Some games, such as Starcraft, rely on mouse "click and drag" input more than keyboard output. It looks as if this outfit spent comparatively less time on the mouse ergonomics versus the keyboard ergonomics.
The best mouse input that I have used was on an old TI laptop, with a detachable small thumb trackball at a ~60% angle off the side. After getting used to this trackball, it was an incredibly accurate input as well. I have used a flat thumb trackball, as does the controller in the article, but this isn't nearly as comfortable for repetitive game use.
The pointer used in some laptop keyboards nowadays isn't any good for gaming and the touchpads are attrocious. The mini-thumb joysticks seem to hurt my thumb when used repetitively and aren't very accurate.
nice dude! pitty i have no mod point
This is a novelty...not really revolutionary...it's a controller overloaded with buttons. To be truly a generation ahead will require something that cuts down on the number of buttons (one way to do this is have combinations of buttons) and uses tilting (like a set of gyroscope sensors) for a mouse. The big key is that it's going to have to cater to those who want to learn something new...not somebody who'd "just rather stick with what they're used to" (a.k.a keyboard and mouse).
Think about some of the characters most often needed for programming in common languages: ( ) { } & * $ % @
They're all shift characters on qwerty keyboards, while characters I use relatively less frequently (like digits and most letters) are immediately available without any special combinations.
I guess the obvious problem would be the need for new layouts when using C or Lisp or Python or whatever, but it's still nice to dream about a keyboard designed for programmers in 2005 instead of secretaries in 1873.
Dang that's a big ball o' plastic. It reminds me of the old Super Controller from my ColecoVision childhood.
Certain cowardly anonymous moderators seem to have trouble with people expressing opinions they don't agree with. Perhaps they're even Astroturfing, since this article concerns a commercial product.
I'm not sure I'd want people like that moderating on my website. I think the site owners are going to get a snail mail letter next week concerning this thread. Considering my status in the Linux world, it's quite possible they'll ferret out the IP of the trolling moderator and siteban him.
Have a nice day, moderator. The letter's going out in tomorrow's post.
I've noticed that nearly every comment with something negative to say about this product has been modded to 0 or below. Meta-posts about the nature of the article and the ethical dilemma of product advertisements posing as novel discussion on a community forum have also been modded down.
I don't think AlphaGrip could accomplish this by themselves given slashdot's moderation system. Is something more sinister, then, going on here? Many users have commented on the abundance of advertisement-like articles that have infiltrated slashdot in the past 2-3 years. Is it actually not an infiltration at all, but a parent company-supported attempt to exploit the community for money?
Remember, AlphaGrip and VA Linux (Slashdot's owner) are both based in Virginia.
Nobody mentioned the frogpad?
http://www.frogpad.com/
Its a small footprint (1/4th a keyboard with the same size keys) cording keyboard.
I started using the "ifrog" (bluetooth version) a few months ago. The layout has some quirks I disagree with but there are reasons behind the design, it is very well thought out.
The best part is they actually listen to you, the bluetooth version came out with some improvements based on user feedback. There's a pretty good forum http://frogpad.zeroforum.com/. They are asking about and looking into in other possibilities such as a built in mouse, custom layouts, and a gamers version. I still haven't given up the keyboard due to gaming issues, but once they come out with a gamers version I'll be ready to toss that old qwerty keyboard out for good.
my associative arrays can kick your hash - TCL
Nice troll.
I use a mac, and a two button mouse. Have done for years. So do most people.
There has been at least one story the last couple of weeks that analyses why the one button mouse was a good idea, and still is. Go read them.
1. Makes software developers not overload the context menu
2. Simpler for beginners.
I can't count how many times in my distant past I had to say "No, the RIGHT mouse button. The RIGHT ONE."
So this is the fabled left brain input device?
Down with analog!
It's plainly obvious you enjoy correcting people. Disguising the enjoyment you partake of hints at your lack of integrity.