I have been typing on one of these for a few months and have a few reflections to share.
It was pain that drove me to get a Touchstream. Scary right-hand wrist and shoulder pain from repetitive mousing/trackballing. Possibly-career-ending RSI type pain. I was anxious enough to try anything and the price tag was not an obstacle under the circs:-)
I've had the TS for 5 months at the office. The first month was hell. The second month was hell. My output fell through the floor. I felt like I was trying to type upside down and underwater in handcuffs. My brain hurt.
The third month I started to feel less like my brain was being tied in a decorative knot, and sequences of more than 10 characters at a time came out correctly -- sometimes at nearly normal speeds! The fourth month it started feeling almost "ordinary," and mechanical keyboards started to feel kinda clunky and odd.
It's a very different ballgame from a mechanical keyboard, and it's not just the zero force thing. You can't do those light, tentative, phantom keytouches that constantly tell you where the keycaps are. No resting on the keys except with all five fingers down, and definitely no shadow-tapping ruminatively while considering the next line:-)
The mousing OTOH was intuitive and delightful from the first moment I tried it. It was like finally experiencing what point/click/wheel was supposed to be like all along, but no one ever got it quite right before. I curse that stupid little touchpad on the laptop now that I've got the real thing in the office:-)
However, I do type a lot on the laptop and I don't feel any serious cognitive dissonance when switching kbrds... well maybe on a Monday morning for a few minutes:-) I can't tell whether the pain relief is due to the TS lower-stress mousing or to using two radically different keyboard/pointer devices and hence switching motion patterns a lot. Whatever -- it works.
The mousing features and gesture editing are imho infinitely worth the retraining period. I am still typing too hard on the zero-impact surface, when the lightest touch will do -- but it gets faster w/each passing week. Still mis-hit a few keys 'cos the board is not well proportioned for shorter fingers, but there are rumours that the latest greatest configware might let me relocate individual keycaps (!!) The customisable Programmer's Pad on the right hand is nifty for the short-fingered, as you can put your favourite punctuation (long-reach shifted) keys there for your favourite programming language. The programmable gestures can be used as simple aliases for very-frequently used comands. None of these features mattered much to me when I first got the board, but I have become fond of them over time.
Today, I think you'd have to be motivated by more than "kewlness" to retrain yourself to one of these. It's not a device you adapt to casually. A little less weird than the Twiddler or half-boards, but it's definitely an effort to regain fluency. Early RSI warnings were very motivating:-) But I think this may be the keyboard/input technology of the future. Spill proof, light, portable, programmable. What more can we ask, except "cheaper"?
No driver is needed except generic USB so you can carry it around to machines with USB input device support...
Touchstream tech support was very good to deal with. Poor Carl suffered along with me, I'm sure, as my gripes and whines clogged up his inbox during the learning curve. But he was always responsive and it was fun being a beta user for the gesture editor. My only criticism is that they didn't seem to be testing the configware sufficiently with Linux -- sometimes the download shars had MS-inflicted pollution, etc.
Damn! and I thought I was the only compulsive serial hobbyist:-) this is pretty amazing.
so why don't we get tired of programming? because it pays the rent? because it's addictive? because they're always changing the OS and languages so it is "made fresh" constantly to tickle our novelty-bone?
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It was pain that drove me to get a Touchstream. Scary right-hand wrist and shoulder pain from repetitive mousing/trackballing. Possibly-career-ending RSI type pain. I was anxious enough to try anything and the price tag was not an obstacle under the circs
I've had the TS for 5 months at the office. The first month was hell. The second month was hell.
My output fell through the floor. I felt like I was trying to type upside down and underwater in handcuffs. My brain hurt.
The third month I started to feel less like my brain was being tied in a decorative knot, and sequences of more than 10 characters at a time came out correctly -- sometimes at nearly normal speeds! The fourth month it started feeling almost "ordinary," and mechanical keyboards started to feel kinda clunky and odd.
It's a very different ballgame from a mechanical keyboard, and it's not just the zero force thing. You can't do those light, tentative, phantom keytouches that constantly tell you where the keycaps are. No resting on the keys except with all five fingers down, and definitely no shadow-tapping ruminatively while considering the next line
The mousing OTOH was intuitive and delightful from the first moment I tried it. It was like finally experiencing what point/click/wheel was supposed to be like all along, but no one ever got it quite right before. I curse that stupid little touchpad on the laptop now that I've got the real thing in the office
However, I do type a lot on the laptop and I don't feel any serious cognitive dissonance when switching kbrds... well maybe on a Monday morning for a few minutes
The mousing features and gesture editing are imho infinitely worth the retraining period. I am still typing too hard on the zero-impact surface, when the lightest touch will do -- but it gets faster w/each passing week. Still mis-hit a few keys 'cos the board is not well proportioned for shorter fingers, but there are rumours that the latest greatest configware might let me relocate individual keycaps (!!) The customisable Programmer's Pad on the right hand is nifty for the short-fingered, as you can put your favourite punctuation (long-reach shifted) keys there for your favourite programming language. The programmable gestures can be used as simple aliases for very-frequently used comands. None of these features mattered much to me when I first got the board, but I have become fond of them over time.
Today, I think you'd have to be motivated by more than "kewlness" to retrain yourself to one of these. It's not a device you adapt to casually. A little less weird than the Twiddler or half-boards, but it's definitely an effort to regain fluency. Early RSI warnings were very motivating
No driver is needed except generic USB so you can carry it around to machines with USB input device support...
Touchstream tech support was very good to deal with. Poor Carl suffered along with me, I'm sure, as my gripes and whines clogged up his inbox during the learning curve. But he was always responsive and it was fun being a beta user for the gesture editor. My only criticism is that they didn't seem to be testing the configware sufficiently with Linux -- sometimes the download shars had MS-inflicted pollution, etc.
"And that's all I have to say about that."
so why don't we get tired of programming? because it pays the rent? because it's addictive? because they're always changing the OS and languages so it is "made fresh" constantly to tickle our novelty-bone?