Well, on my twiddler which is 4 months old, the buttons are not difficult to press, and I've got it to the point that it is comfortable to hold and use for a while without having to readjust constantly (which was an initial problem. Your hand does require training to find the right spot).
As for a chording scheme, the one given is logical for writing email or typing letters but is *AWFUL* for anything more geek oriented, like coding, using emacs or negotiating a terminal. I've worked off and on on a better one, but haven't settled on one yet.
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.
So what about using daily update content handlers for box content? While RDF and public backends are definitely best, methinks that daily update does what you want to do for non-public backend sites (i.e., snarf the content and just the content)
LegoMindstorms are perfect. The language is a visual and reimisent of Logo. The software and product was designed by the same people (Papuert (sp?)) who designed the original logo teaching language.
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Well, on my twiddler which is 4 months old, the buttons are not difficult to press, and I've got it to the point that it is comfortable to hold and use for a while without having to readjust constantly (which was an initial problem. Your hand does require training to find the right spot).
As for a chording scheme, the one given is logical for writing email or typing letters but is *AWFUL* for anything more geek oriented, like coding, using emacs or negotiating a terminal. I've worked off and on on a better one, but haven't settled on one yet.
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.
So what about using daily update content handlers for box content? While RDF and public backends are definitely best, methinks that daily update does what you want to do for non-public backend sites (i.e., snarf the content and just the content)
LegoMindstorms are perfect. The language is a visual and reimisent of Logo. The software and product was designed by the same people (Papuert (sp?)) who designed the original logo teaching language.