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Ask Slashdot: Teaching Typing With Limited Electricity, Computers?
An anonymous reader writes "I am tasked with developing a service project to teach students in a Bangladeshi village how to type. The school has about 500 students, 12 computers donated to them in 2006, and a limited electricity supply. The students will be given job placement opportunities at a local firm in the city once they reach a certain proficiency. Therefore, we are trying to teach as many of them typing skills as possible. The problem: limited electricity, limited computers, many kids. I have some additional funding collected through donations. Instead of buying more computers, I am looking for a cost effective way that does not need a steady flow of electricity. I realize that to teach typing, I do not need a computer. I could achieve the same using a keyboard connected to a display. A solar powered calculator is a perfect example of a cheap device which has a numpad for input and an LCD for display. But so far I have not come across a device that has a qwerty keyboard and an LCD to display what's typed. I know there are some gaming keyboards that have LCDs built in but they are quite expensive. I am aiming to build a device that cost below USD 50. I considered using typewriters but they are in limited supply on the market. I also considered OLPC but it is double my anticipated budget. Do you have other suggestions?" Considering that (at least in China) sub-$50 Android tablets with capacitive screens are already here, I wish the Alphasmart line was cheaper, but apparently it currently starts at $169.
What about an old fashioned typewriter?
If you just want to learn to type, you could possibly provision some purely-mechanical keyboards.
The displays would not need to be particularly high-tech; you could go with a hemp or wood pulp WOD (write only display) that works by mechanically striking the pulp with an embossed pigment delivery die.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
They don't want them, even in India. The last mechanical typewriter factory in the world (in india) shut down last year...
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-04-26/news/30072856_1_typewriters-manufacturers-machines
You could probably look around for enough of them, eventually, but the effort probably isn't worth it.
"I considered using typewriters but they are in limited supply on the market"
" I also considered OLPC but it is double my anticipated budget."
"Do you have other suggestions?"
It would be fairly trivial to combine a low end Arduino platform, old PS2 keyboards, and an HD44780 based 40x2 LCD into a system that would cost under $30 each, and run on 4 AA NIMH batteries. You could recharge the batteries when the power was available.
Old AlphaSmart devices can be had VERY cheaply on e-bay. You already know what they are, since you did mention them, and other than mechanical typewriters, they may be your best bet. Just need a pile of AA batteries.
Indeed. It is "a device that has a qwerty keyboard and [a method to immediately display] what's typed".
The old Remington worked just fine for teaching me touch typing.
Go to the district in Dhaka in that sells used stuff. Buy some manual typewriters. They, obviously, do not need electricity.
Question: "... I considered using typewriters but they are in limited supply on the market. ..."
Slashdot: "Typewriters"
about 500 students
The students will be given job placement opportunities at a local firm in the city once they reach a certain proficiency
OK huge call center moving in
The problem: limited electricity, limited computers,
The solution seems obvious, ask the call center how they're dealing with having limited electricity and limited computers. If the problems seem insurmountable to them, then your problem doesn't matter because the call center will not be opening. If they have a solution, presumably you can copy their solution.
Also some simple math here... you've got 500 students and 12 computers. Hmm. You can't really "practice" for too long at a time, even under ideal conditions. So 500 / 12 computers = 41 students per computer. Probably the best way to do this is 48 half hour practice sessions per day. So some kids session will be from 2:30 am to 3 am local, so what, welcome to transcontinental call center operations, he's gonna have to get used to it sooner or later.
Frankly, the biggest call center problem isn't slow typing. As long as the kids know the alphabet and numbers before learning to type, you'll be OK.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Well, I don't know much about what an average Bangladeshi village has on hand but I'm going to wager that it's a very wide spectrum. So my personal advice is no matter what you find to be your solution, you should provide the DIY equivalent any DIY-able components of the pieces. In this way you can treat yourself as a one man thinktank and you can publish this stuff under CCBY3.0 and your project may enjoy self sufficiency without requiring your constant attention.
So to start at the core of it, I would personally select a $25 non-ethernet (Type A?) Raspberry Pi, an $8 USB keyboard and $5 flash card. From there those little devices have the RCA Video (analog) out and also an HDMI out. So if one of your computers goes bad, you can always rig it up to one of these little guys. However, I also understand that you need more displays. Now this is where you have the option to become a rockstar superman. If you are not afraid of code and working GPIO pins I would suggest purchasing some of these little guys first getting it to simply display and read across what they are typing and secondly maybe use one row to take in a file that progresses in typing difficult and displays that on the first line while it waits for input and validates on the second line (might even have room to use LEDs or something else on the RPi for score keeper/carrot/stick. If you document all this, it might turn out that the villagers get wise on how to ripe a seven segment display out of anything and hook it up to these GPIO pins?
So how to power this? Well the easy way would be to use what you have already available for power but get some of these guys and daisy chain these guys from one of your existing computers until they don't produce enough power. I would suggest researching that screen and the Pi and figuring out what their power draw is. Maybe get some cheap fuses to protect your hardware. A lot of broken appliances still have good electric motors in them and electric motors often produce energy as turbines if you spin them. Now, the big problem is how do you clean the power if people are cranking these turbines with their hands or connected to a bike's gear set? That's something I'm not much of an expert in. I do know the Pis run off of two rechargeable AA batteries just great but you also have to take care if they're planning to try to charge those batteries with a hand cranked appliance motor. From my understanding it's pretty tough to not screw stuff up if you're dealing with human generated power. Had to keep that steady and to find existing ways to clean it down to what tiny sensitive devices need.
The upswing of all this would be that the RPis are versatile, any of those students could really do a whole bunch of things with these. And if you make this a part of the Raspberry Pi wiki, you might get people helping you with those screens -- might. At least others will be able to use your work.
My work here is dung.
Everyone knows that the typewriters aren't worth anything, because they make such a huge profit from the ink ribbons.
I'm in Argentina and the police here, in some jurisdictions (especially in small towns) still use typewriters for paperwork.
Sure, they have computers, with internet and all. But if a typewriter does the job just fine, why even bother? They use the computer for the tasks that require, for example, reporting to a remote location. But if it's for forms and paperwork, a typewriter is cheaper and much more reliable.
In OP's case a typewriter is just fine. And paper, you can get for really cheap (doesn't have to be brand new reams).
The only problem I can think of is how to deliver the machines. But I'm sure they can manage that. There's another really reliable machine avaliable everywhere: the truck.
You have effectively eliminated all of the commercial solutions with your boundary conditions. You indicate that you don't have reliable power - that means you need a power generation device - or a power storage device - as part of your kit, or a device which does not require external power, but you have ruled out typewriters.
You have $50, total, per piece, into which you would like to provide a monitor of some type. Given that you need a display device, a power supply, and a usable input interface, you have nearly priced yourself out of the market with this parameter alone. To that you need to add a keyboard and an interface (a raspberry pi would work) to the display. But even at the rock bottom price of a Pi, you've in for $30-35 between these two devices.
I suppose if you can come up with a display with a DVI or HDMI input, plus a power supply, for under $20, you can get close. With the world market these days, if you need it to be cheaper than a COTS solution (commercial off the shelf) - you need a different budget or enough units to justify hardware production runs.
Have you considered seeing if Dell will ship you a crate of 6 year old laptops for $40 a piece, and you can throw away or keep for salvage the ones which don't work?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
New alphasmarts are hilariously overpriced; but used ones can easily be a factor of ten cheaper, so that isn't a bad route to go down. You'll need to fleabay or otherwise scrounge; but you can get them at pleasingly low prices.
Another option, if the locals have some TVs, might be 'famiclones' or their slightly more modern ilk. The ones that just have controllers are no good; but there is a genre of 'c64' styled keyboard-based ones. RF and/or composite out to a TV, keyboard, usually some sort of BASIC or other typing environment of some degree of not-entirely-useless. Nasty; but cheap, cheap, cheap at the right dodgy flea market.
Read to the end of the summary: he has considered typewriters but does not think he can find them in adequate supply.
caritj.org
VTech makes cheap battery operated laptop like learning computers, with full Qwerty keyboard. - http://www.amazon.com/VTech-80-60580-80-60583-Learning-Laptop/dp/B00078ZJ10/ref=sr_1_14?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1347991838&sr=1-14&keywords=vtech+laptop
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
That is a myth that the last typewriter factory in the world shut down. They are still very much in use (and demand) in the Third World.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/26/worlds-last-typewriter-factory-closes_n_853670.html
The very fact that this question is being asked just reeks of stupidity. You just DON'T go straight from stone age to 21st century, especially without electricity. Buy some manual typewriters. C'mon man....
Necron69
From the summary -- "I considered using typewriters but they are in limited supply on the market."
Seriously, what is wrong with Slashdot people that you can't even read an 8-line summary, and mod something like the above to maximum value? Geez.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
That was my first thought too.
Even though the summary says " I considered using typewriters but they are in limited supply on the market."?
No sig today...
Seems like that would be the most straightforward answer to learning typing.
Hell, I learned mostly on the old IBM Selectric type writers...granted that was electric, but only really a couple of steps above full mechanical.
I assumed they still made mechanical typewriters....?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Fiddly, but on the right track for getting the most out of the 12 PCs. *NIX is your friend here - what you want is what X.org refers to as a "multiseat" system - your only limit is how many discrete graphics cards you can cram into your PC(s). Here's a walkthough of setting one up with six seats. If you can get them, you could also hook up some VT102 or similar dumb terminals to the same box and maybe rig up some UPSs so you can have power available when it's needed as opposed to when it's available.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I just checked eBay, and there are still plenty of Handspring Visors left for sale cheap. Those things go a very long time on a pair of AAA cells. You don't want the color model, you want the black-and-white that takes AAA cells.
Then for a keyboard:
http://www.amazon.com/LandWare-GoType-Keyboard-Handspring-Visor/dp/B00004TF4V
Finally, buy a stack of NiMH AAA cells and some chargers.
These should suffice for learning. The keyboard is a little bit small, but I was able to type on it, and my hands are not small.
I don't know if there are any actual typing tutorial programs, but you might be able to get a college student to write one for you as a project.
I do remember that there is at least one "typing speed" program for PalmOS. It was intended for users to test their writing speed using the stylus, but it should work for typing.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Err...do they not make mechanical typewriters any longer??
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I learned with a mechanical typewriter when I lived south of the border. It is still far cheaper to get mechanical typewriters than to provide computers for each student (if the goal is to teach typing.)
I assume you're joking, but in case you're not, typewriter ribbons are still easy to get (and are reinkable) and quite inexpensive. They also have a pretty lengthy lifespan.
If you can find enough of them, a TRS-80 model 100 is perfect. Just big enough of an LCD screen. You could load custom typing programs written in BASIC via cassette or serial interface (3K of RAM/storage by default, so each lesson might need to be a different program that has to be loaded/unloaded). They have a 4-line LCD, which is just enough to give feedback on your typing or even show them what text to type and show their typing below.
Four AA batteries last about 20 hours, so it wouldn't be too hard to wire them all up together to a small solar setup.
So much misinformation...
Royal/Olevetti still make manual typewriters. They suck. They are also damn expensive compared to a tablet, $150
Manual typewriters use a lever system with one lever per uppercase/lowercase character, IBM Selectrics are a ball typewriter.
Power requirements are significant, based on the heat they gave off, at least 60w, probably more.
They are still in demand, so a working one is around $350 and up. Way more than a tablet.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
I concur: Raspberry Pi + Small Display + cheap usb keyboard gives you what you're looking for, and within your budget (give or take a couple bucks).
Since the Pi + LCD listed above pull a total of less than 7 watts a piece, you should have no trouble powering several with a low-cost portable power solution, such as solar/wind generators, or hell, even a dynamo; I mean, why not?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Ok..where are you finding a tablet for $150 and less??
Also...you don't really 'learn' to type on a tablet...it isn't like real typing at all. You need a full sized keyboard to learn that on....and a manual typewriter still sounds like the cheapest solution to use to approximate a real typing experience (touch typing, not hunt and peck).
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Seriously people, stop suggesting typewriters - they're a bitch to repair assuming you can get parts, which you probably can't, are way overbuilt for what he requires of them and, at this point, probably cost more than his $50 budget anyway; all he needs is a qwerty layout with error-checking to make sure the kids are on the right track.
Just because something is mechanical or non-powered doesn't mean it's simpler, easier, or cheaper. Try to answer his actual question without getting all condescending about it.
--Triv
> Err...do they not make mechanical typewriters any longer?
Not in my lifetime (or, at any rate, not in the part of my lifetime that I can remember), and I'm pushing forty. I suppose there's probably some geek out there somewhere who _rebuilds_ old mechanical typewriters, but new ones, to the best of my knowledge, have not been manufactured for several decades.
Used ones might be possible to obtain, but I would not recommend using them as a tool for teaching typing. You'll end up with people who thunk the keys down so deliberately, they'll be doing well to hit ten words a minute, and eevverrrryyythhiiingg wwwill ccommme ouuut lllikkke thhhiss. You might about as well get them a Linotype machine. Yes, yes, they could learn the QWERTY layout. They could also learn the QWERTY layout, and finger positioning for that matter, from a printout on a piece of paper, which would be somewhat cheaper to ship to Bangladesh, as compared with fifty-pound typewriters. Any actual typing skill they learn from the mechanical typewriters will do them more harm than good.
New typewriters were electric when I was a kid. Notice I said electric, not electronic. These old beasts didn't have any logic circuitry (transistors or the like), but they did have an electric motor, which was responsible for causing the little letter thingies to swing up and whack the paper (through the ribbon) significantly harder than would have been the case with just the force of your fingers hitting the keys. Depressing a key just _released_ the relevant lever: it was the electric motor that smacked it up onto the carriage. There were also the ones that used a ball instead of levers, which was particularly useful in academia, because you could substitute in e.g. a Greek ball and type letters and symbols that were not available on the standard ball. Those had somewhat more complicated circuitry than the kind with levers, to control the rotation of the ball to select the right character, but they still were not electronic in the modern sense. Either way, no electrical power meant no typing.
People who learned to type on electric typewriters often have problems typing on a modern cheap membrane keyboard, because they press the keys down too hard. It's like switching from buckling springs to a touchscreen interface, only worse. It's not nearly as bad as having learned on one of the ancient purely-mechanical monstrosities, though. With *those* things you practically had to *hammer* the keys down to get the lever to hit the ribbon hard enough to fully strike the letter onto the paper.
Electronic typewriters (the kind with actual logic circuitry and, usually, little LCD built in) came along in the mid-to-late eighties I think, and by the wall came down practically all _new_ typewriters were electronic. The early ones had keyboards with some tactile feedback (maybe about comparable to a Model M keyboard I guess), but they were much more like a computer keyboard than their older electronic and manual counterparts. Later ones may have actually adopted computer-keyboard technology, because by the mid nineties computers were overwhelmingly more common than typewriters. At some point typewriters switched over to dot matrix technology (which was also very popular in computer printers at the time), so then the ability to type exotic characters was purely a matter of software (or, err, firmware). If there are typewriters still made these days, they probably use inkjet printing technology and have spellcheck. I wouldn't be surprised if they use OpenType fonts.
Dedicated "word processor" electronic devices came along around the same time (as the electronic typewriters) and might've really caught on if they'd had a few more years in the market, but microcomputers all started getting WYSIWYG interfaces just about then, and that was much better, and simultaneously microcomputers were getting to be rather a lot more affordable than previously and the notion of every household having one no longer seemed entirely ridiculous (in the developed world), and the rest is history.
Of course, kids these days do word processing on their phones. Try explaining *that* to somebody back in the era of mechanical typewriters.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I still have my old Smith-Corona I went through College with. 100% mechanical. This was the one that looked like a small suitcase. Works perfect, but I would have no idea of where to get another ribbon for the thing. It uses the old cloth ribbons saturated with ink and it would shuttle back and forth as keys were pressed. Red and black ink too. Not many mechanical things nearly 100 years old still work ( this was the machine my mom went through school on ). They sure made things to last in those days.
No erase key. You had to use those old style abrasive eraser pens or a white paint-like fluid for that. If you made a significant screw up, might as well put in a new piece of paper and retype the whole page.
Would I go back to advocating this? No. I'd rather see them resurrect the old Radio Shack Tandy 100 with its low power processor and reflective LCD screen. With today's technology, these could probably be made with solar cells just like a calculator. I'd love to have one of those that could use a USB stick for program and data storage.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
You're talking an order of magnitude more power consumption than Raspberry Pis talking to LCD TVs and connected to bargain-priced keyboards. For myself living in the USA I am able to source LCD monitors with DVI connectors for $15 and less, I have three such here. And keyboards for $5. I hear the Raspi shipping price doesn't change much if you get more than one so I you can get say three of those for around $120, so call it $200 for three machines with displays and keyboards and throw the mice in really because you can get those for a buck or two. But that doesn't help someone who isn't here... Unless they're able to motivate someone here to send them anything that is very small and not easily sourced where they are.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Toys R Us has a $20 CDN toy laptop with QWERTY keyboard:
http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index.jsp?productId=11495909
add 2 sets of rechargeable batteries: $2*6 = $12
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__25023__Turnigy_AA_LSD_2400mAh_Low_Self_Discharge_ready_to_use_.html
and a charger: $6
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__27991__NiZN_AA_1_5A_Battery_Charger.html
You can charge the batteries when you have power.
Alternatively reduce the number of batteries and chargers to less than 1 set per computer and pool the leftover $$$ to get a solar panel to power a charging station
----- "Profanity is the one language that all programmers understand."
Posted this elsewhere deep in a thread... wanted to make sure you saw it:
I suggest:
50% of your students get OLPC @ 100$; 50% get a 5$ disconnected keyboard. They rotate between exercises.
Or 1/3rd get OLPC and 2/3rds with disconnected keyboards, and rotate. Every third exercise they're on the real keyboard.