Chorded Keyboards (was Re: Insanely Great)

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Fri May 29 22:28:21 1998

On Sat, 30 May 1998, Hotze wrote:

> >Doug Engelbart designed a five-key keyboard that would do most of seven-bit
> >ASCII by accepting chording combinations. His idea was that you'd always
> >run the keyboard with one hand and the mouse with the other.
>
> I recently saw a one-handed keyboard, which looked kinda like a MS
> Natural Keyboard, with the right hand sawed off, and the numeric keypad next
> to the left. It looked like there were a few extra keys, but you had a key
> that you held down, kinda like shift, and it would make the oposite
> character (like A for H, S for J, etc.)

Check out the Twiddler:
        http://www.handykey.com/

I don't like the idea of a handheld keyboard as much as I like the idea of
a chorded keyboard. I often chord my keys by mistake, so it seems natural
to both increase the speed of input and reduce the size of a keyboard by
using chorded key combinations. You, Tim, are one of the few on the list
with neurons still flexible enough to rewire your brain for a new kind of
keyboard, so this would be a good invention for you to foist upon the next
generation of geeks.

-- Doug
Received on Fri May 29 1998 - 22:28:21 BST

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