Ars Technica Reviews Controller Keyboard

phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica has reviewed the AlphaGrip AG-5 handheld keyboard and mouse. From the article: 'After lots of research and five revisions, the perfectionists at AlphaGrip finally decided that they had a product worthy of marketing, and they released the long awaited AG-5. Although the AG-5 looks strange and intimidating, it is a unique and highly innovative product that deserves consideration, particularly by mobile computing enthusiasts. The AG-5 interfaces with computers via a single removable USB cable. It uses a simple chord-like keyboarding model and an integrated trackball to provide complete keyboard and mouse functionality in a unique form factor that looks a bit like a console gaming controller.'"

Comments

I'm not sure this is the answer

[RunFatBoy.net]

While most mobile users would like to have something more compact, is it really necessary to sacrafice teh productivity of a standard keyboard in order to gain a convenient, compact form factor?

I like the promise that the virtual keyboards have (e.g. http://www.virtualdevices.net/ ). While functionly they have some limitations right now (e.g. having to hold your fingers about the infrared keys), over time they are going to get better. At least this solution you could have a full range keyboard without having to lug it around.

-- Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/

Re:I'm not sure this is the answer

[harrkev]

Try doing that while riding on a train, or as a passenger in a car. That invention that you pointed to ONLY works if you have a table or other flat surface in fron of you. And if you type too long on a table, your hands would likely start hurting.

-- Now, on to other things --
I am the proud owner of an Alphagrip. I have only spend a couple of hours with it so far, but I have an important comment that was not mentioned on TFA...

I am a large guy. I am over six feet tall -- and I have large hands.

I find the Alphagrip to be uncomfortable because it was designed for use by smaller hands. When I am holding it to comfortably reach the back keys, my fingers are in the wrong position to easily use the front keys. Similarly, if I can use the front keys, I have difficulty with the back keys.

I am also not entirely sure how to hold this thing either. If it was bigger, I could press my palms against the side. However, as it is, I have to use my fingertips to hold it, which is awkward because those same fingertips are always over one button or another. If you press to hard then you get extra characters that you don't want.

The Alphagrip seems like it has the posibility to be rather nice if it can fit you. But if you have large hands, you might want to reconsider until they make the AG-6.

Re:I'm not sure this is the answer

[jonaskoelker]

is it really necessary to sacrafice teh productivity of a standard keyboard in order to gain a convenient, compact form factor?

Uhmm.... yeah, right. Like the standard keyboard is worth more than a dime-a-dozen.

I'm serious: I treated myself with a Kinesis Ergo Elan (http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/elan.htm), and I'm really glad I did--it's a really pleasant keyboard to work with. I only noticed when I first used a standard keyboard after adapting to using the Ergo Elan--not only did it feel uncomfortable, it felt painful. I'm serious--and it wasn't just because I had adjusted to something different (if it were, I should have felt pain when switching to Ergo Elan, something I did not). Also, one thing that completely confounds me is why modern keyboards still have stagger--it's just being mindlessly carried along from the 1890's up until today (sure, it was reasonable due to mechanical constraints on typewriters; newsflash: computer keyboards isn't a new invention).

(End of rant about the sad state keyboard design is in these days)

Actually, I think the AlphaGrip might be better than a (physical) keyboard layout designed for typewriters. I'm open to the possibility that I might be wrong (in general I dislike small keyboards, but this one might have been done well).

I hope you don't argue that the usefulness of the standard keyboard layout is high just because it's a standard; if that was true, Windows 95 was once a good OS, and Bush was a good president (at election time, he was the "standard" choice).

Also, the keyboard permutation matters. I'll replay this anecdote (I'm not playing any role, and I can't remember who participates in it, and I'm not even sure I got the phrases exactly right, or that I've go the gender information right, but... oh well, someone once said something to the effect of...):

Alice: "Excuse me. If you don't mind me asking, are you using that alternative keyboard layout?"

Bob:: "Yes--it's called Dvorak. How could you tell?"

Alice: "Your fingers aren't moving."

I like the promise that the virtual keyboards have
It's not a bad idea (at all), but it's amazing that they haven't shuffled the keys around (okay, so I was almost done ranting about keyboard design): it must be almost trivial to do--all there is to it is basically detect surface contact in a different polygon.

stop propogating myths

[demon411]

In 1874 a company called Sholes and Glidden developed the QWERTY keyboard layout for their typewriters in order to decrease the frequency of mechanical failure.

Stop Propogating Myths

Re:stop propogating myths

[tyme]

demon411 wrote:

"In 1874 a company called Sholes and Glidden developed the QWERTY keyboard layout for their typewriters in order to decrease the frequency of mechanical failure."

Stop Propogating Myths

What are you talking about? According an article referenced from your first link:

The first typewriter had its letters on the end of rods called "typebars." The typebars hung in a circle. The roller which held the paper sat over this circle, and when a key was pressed, a typebar would swing up to hit the paper from underneath. If two typebars were near each other in the circle, they would tend to clash into each other when typed in succession. So, Sholes figured he had to take the most common letter pairs such as "TH" and make sure their typebars hung at safe distances.

He did this using a study of letter-pair frequency prepared by educator Amos Densmore, brother of James Densmore, who was Sholes' chief financial backer. The QWERTY keyboard itself was determined by the existing mechanical linkages of the typebars inside the machine to the keys on the outside. Sholes' solution did not eliminate the problem completely, but it was greatly reduced.

The keyboard arrangement was considered important enough to be included on Sholes' patent granted in 1878 (see drawing), some years after the machine was into production. QWERTY's effect, by reducing those annoying clashes, was to speed up typing rather than slow it down.

This indicates that the QWERTY layout is a direct result of the inventor attempting to prevent mechanical jams in the device. The submitter of the article wrote:

In 1874 a company called Sholes and Glidden developed the QWERTY keyboard layout for their typewriters in order to decrease the frequency of mechanical failure.

The myth to which you are alluding, however, is that Sholes developed the QWERTY layout to decrease the speed of typists (admittedly, to prevent the same jamming of typebars), when, in fact, the QWERTY layout acheived exactly the opposite effect (it allowed typists to type faster because jamming was less likely). The submitter is not claiming that Sholes was trying to slow down the typists (a myth) but that he was trying to reduce typebar jams (the truth).

Re:Engelbart Chord Keyset

[burris]

BAT Keyboard I used these for a while but gave them up in favor of a dvorak kinesis contour. They are great if you do a lot of CAD, diagramming, or anything else that requires lots of mousing and typing since you can keep one hand on the keyboard and one on the mouse. I suppose they would be awesome for games but I'm not much of a gamer.

Downsides: The idiots STILL have not figured out how to generate the Mac command key and that is a large reason why I gave them up. The travel of the keys is too far so you hands bounce too much, causing undue stress. Less importantly, I couldn't really get over 50wpm, though that means I could type at 25wpm with one hand. The firmware is also somewhat buggy.

Learning the letters is easy. Symbols are harder. Getting a smooth alternating left/right technique was very hard for me.

Re:Well....

[TubeSteak]

Except it doesn't really look like a keyboard... more like a gamepad with a zillion buttons + trackball.

I only point this out because the /. summary doesn't come right out and say it.

I bought One...My thoughts...

[haplo21112]

I got one of these controllers. I have played with it a little its definately only for those that can seriously learn to touch type. Since many of the buttons are not at all in sight you really have to learn the keyboard. Over all its comfortable, but I feel that more than one size would have been better. The shipping model is more suitable for the average hand. A smaller hand could problay learn to work with it. My medium-large hands are pretty much at the limit of comfortable use. If you have large hands the buttons are not going to be anyplace near your finger tips.

The keyboard makes extensive use of shift buttons to accomplish things. Get used to some finger acrobatics. I still have not quite got the hang of Control-Alt-Delete on this thing.

The Built in Mouse....

Personally this is the one true downfall in my opinion. The roller ball is WAY to small, and its far far far to slow it takes me far far to many rolls over the ball to get the mouse around even a 1024/768 acreen, never mind the 1280/1024 I typically run at. The performance in games (The reason I originally thought this might be a useful product) is basically worthless at this point. I went so far as to hack the registry to increase the mouse responsiveness to the maximum allowable, a setting you can't even do in the crontrol panel applet. The mouse still isn't acceptably responsive. In fact it seemed barley changed on the AG-5 despite the fact that another mouse on the same machine now zips the cursor accross the machine so fast you have to take a second after the movement to find it again.

May not be ergonomic

[Tihstae]

From the website http://www.alphagrips.com/store/shopping.html

"The AlphaGrip may not be ergonomic. The company has not conducted the requisite studies to make that determination."

Re:A snowball's chance.

[MindStalker]

If you had read the article you would see this isn't a chording keyboard, infact the button placements are almost identical to that of qwerty except its wrapped around a control pad. The fingers you use to type qwerty are the same fingers you use to type with this.

Re:Cool.. So..

[eclarkso]

It requires two hands like a normal keyboard. So, um, where's the advance? Show me an affordable one that I can use with one hand, and I'll buy it.

The Twiddler is a one-handed chording keyboard that's ~$200.

Re:Engelbart Chord Keyset

[Yojimbo-San]

Cykey http://www.bellaire.demon.co.uk/newcykey.htm

I have one here, it's a bit of a pain with IR connection, but once you have the receiver set up it works fine.

The chording style they use here took me literally an hour to learn ~22 letters of the alphabet on, which matched the claim on the manual :-)

I still have their Excellent 1990 PDA, the AgendA http://www.bellaire.demon.co.uk/cykey.htm