One-handed Keyboards

strider5 writes "HandyKey has come up with a one-handed keyboard/mouse alternative for those sick the same old thing! They claim that it will work on *nix and Palms in addition to Windows systems... pretty neat! A variety of similar devices are summarized on a page at Stanford, but aren't quite as nifty. " I think everyone on earth wants a twiddler. If I had 2, I could type twice as fast, right?

Comments

the twiddler (a summary?)

[seth]

The twiddler is pretty cool. It has been around for a few years at least. I've had one for 6 months now. It does not replace the keyboard for me, yet, but I use it on my laptop (and keep it in the laptop case) when my wrists start bothering me.

It is a chording keyboard, which means that most keystrokes are done via a combination of keys, which is more difficult to learn than the single keystroke -> character mapping we all know and love.

However, the mappings are completely edittable under most drivers. The driver I have (which I keep meaning to hack on to improve) for linux is completely customizable as are the ones for winXX and DOS. There is currently no working mac driver and the palmOS driver leaves a lot to be desired (is not customizable). The palmOS cable also requires a bit of soldering to build.

The twiddler is worth it if you are looking for a decent alternative, but requires a lot of time to get up to speed and a bunch of hacking to get a decent driver under a unix.

Twiddler II?

[seth]

The biggest change I've heard is that it is wireless (using RF, not IR), will have a direct to PS/2, not just serial, connector and have the option of coming with a pilot cable.

The Twiddler has been around for a while

[Bookwyrm]

I have one of these in a box somewhere in storage. I picked one up a few years ago, four or five, actually. The picture they have on the site appears unchanged since then. A few comments on the Twiddler, at least the one I had:

• The shape of it is a bit awkward. By making it useable by either hand, it doesn't quite fit in either. Depending on the size and shape of your hand, it may be very uncomfortable.
  
• The buttons took a very noticeable amount of force to press. This made the awkward shape of it worse, as if it did not fit well within your hand it was hard to hold it steady enough when pressing the buttons. If they have reduced the required force some, it will have been an improvement.
  
• Someone should work out a better chording scheme for it. The default one is not that optimized. Yes, you can spend hours trying to work out a new one that you like, but I'd rather have a standard one that makes sense.
  

Overall, I thought it very neat, and would like to see it further developed, but it does not look like they have made any improvements in the hardware over the years. A better shape, softer touch buttons, and a built in spot for a battery (as opposed to siphoning power off the keyboard port) would make it potentially very nice.

Free Twiddler in progress

[jtokash]

Check out http://www.mbhs.edu/~ojenkins/wearable/fiddler.htm l

--
John Tokash
Homestead Technologies
http://www.homestead.com/hackfurby/

this was NOT meant to be taken as NEW stuff

[strider5]

I posted this article NOT to break any ground...these things have certainly been around for awhile now.

I do think that there are likely quite a few people that haven't heard of them yet, and seeing as how they (the Twiddler, at least) can be used with palm pilots, i thought some people might find it interesting as an alternative to a stylus :) also pretty groovy for a workstation or laptop :)

they are quite pricey too, though. But after all, those who can afford $500 for a Palm can almost certainly spare a bill or two for a nice input device ;)