I would agree that it was an interesting article/speech, so I am also puzzled at the relative lack of comments.
The tone of the speech was a bit depressing, from a developer's perspective, but I think that the unvarnished truth has that tendency. He seems to be saying that embedded software development is going to be both harder (more challenging) and less fun (in the sense that survival will be more about the non-technical stuff). On the more positive side, if people take his advice and stop reinventing the embedded wheels, they will have more time/money to invest in interesting applications of those reusable parts, so perhaps the glass really is half full here.
I have also heard this explanation for the layout of typewriter keys. In the story that I heard, the additional rationale is even more ridiculous: the top row of letters (Q,W,E,..) is designed so that it has all of the letters to spell "typewriter". This was so that the salesmen providing demos of the first typewriters wouldn't have to hunt for the keys but could just find everything they needed in the top row (there was no such thing as touch-typing yet, of course).
I have seen something similar to what you describe in my own search for a more comfortable keyboard. I found an interesting set of keyboards by a company called the Comfort Keyboard Company. I haven't tried one myself, so I can only go by what information they provide, but they certainly do look adjustable -- the individual sections of the keyboard can be up to 6 feet apart. They are a little pricey ($160 to $200 US), but they might be what you are looking for. They are also quite programmable, along the lines of some of the wishes expressed in other posts in this thread, and there is some kind of foot pedal that can be involved, too.
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I would agree that it was an interesting article/speech, so I am also puzzled at the relative lack of comments. The tone of the speech was a bit depressing, from a developer's perspective, but I think that the unvarnished truth has that tendency. He seems to be saying that embedded software development is going to be both harder (more challenging) and less fun (in the sense that survival will be more about the non-technical stuff). On the more positive side, if people take his advice and stop reinventing the embedded wheels, they will have more time/money to invest in interesting applications of those reusable parts, so perhaps the glass really is half full here.
I have also heard this explanation for the layout of typewriter keys. In the story that I heard, the additional rationale is even more ridiculous: the top row of letters (Q,W,E,..) is designed so that it has all of the letters to spell "typewriter". This was so that the salesmen providing demos of the first typewriters wouldn't have to hunt for the keys but could just find everything they needed in the top row (there was no such thing as touch-typing yet, of course).
I have seen something similar to what you describe in my own search for a more comfortable keyboard. I found an interesting set of keyboards by a company called the Comfort Keyboard Company. I haven't tried one myself, so I can only go by what information they provide, but they certainly do look adjustable -- the individual sections of the keyboard can be up to 6 feet apart. They are a little pricey ($160 to $200 US), but they might be what you are looking for. They are also quite programmable, along the lines of some of the wishes expressed in other posts in this thread, and there is some kind of foot pedal that can be involved, too.