[comp.edu] One-handed keyboards

soh@shiva.trl.oz (kam hung soh) (10/17/90)

This thread reminded me of an alternative keyboard for one-hand use.
The keyboard had seven keys (I think) laid out in a semi-circle
corresponding to the position of the fingertips of a splayed right
hand.  The thumb would be used to press one of two or three keys.
Characters were entered by pressing keys that roughly corresponded to
the shape of English letters.  The keyboard was sold in Australia for
about A$700.00, and included some memory.  I guess because of the
price, it didn't sell well.  I wonder if it is the same as the Dutch
invention Marcel mentioned.  I also wonder if this is the same as some
British invention in the late 70's which could also connect to a
television for simple wordprocessing.

Could anyone refer me to any article which has this keyboard and a bit
of technical information about it?  I've fiddled around with the idea
for a while, but I couldn't deduce the mapping just from my finger
positions.  I tried to do a literary search, but I couldn't explain
the idea to my librarian.  What would "computer keyboards" be
classified under?

------
Soh, Kam Hung      email: h.soh@trl.oz.au     tel: +61 03 541 6403 
Telecom Research Laboratories, P.O. Box 249, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia 

cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Andrew M. Cohill) (10/17/90)

What everyone is talking about are called, in ergonomic circles, *chord*
keyboards. The term is used because the keys are played like one plays
chords on a piano;  that is, you depress several keys at once.  Although
someone in the Netherlands may have marketed one, they certainly did not
invent it.  I do not have any references handy, but it would not be too
hard to dig up a fair amount of human factors literature on them.  Karl
Kroemer, a human factors professor here, has been trying to develop an
optimum design for several years, and has published some papers.  There
has never been any question that chord keyboards are much faster than
QWERTY keyboards:  I vaguely recall that a trained "chorder" can 
easily hit 200 wpm.  The main obstacle to their use is that no one wants
to buy a new input device and put in the training time needed to use it
well--an economic roadblock, not an ergonomic one.
-- 
|          ...we have to look for routes of power our teachers never       
|              imagined, or were encouraged to avoid.   T. Pynchon          
|Andy Cohill                    
|703/231-7855        cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu            VPI&SU                                                  

carl@doctor.Tymnet.COM (Carl Baltrunas) (10/18/90)

I have one of the chord keyboards (if you want to call it a keyboard) that was
used on the augment system that Doug Engelbart worked on for Tymshare.  I got
it as it was being thrown out along with a lot of other equipment when the
company was bought and then moved by McDonnell Douglas... anyway, it did
generate a single character based on what keys were pressed simultaneously.
My cube neighbor for 5 years used it and a mouse for programming and other
documentation work.  He said it was SOOOOOO much better than QWERTY and it
was an integrated system.  Nothing but praise for it... too I don't have the
terminal/interface it used, otherwise I could put it to use myself... maybe
I'll do that and make an ADB chord keyboard for the macintosh some day? :)
-Carl
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russ@prism.gatech.EDU (Russell Shackelford) (10/18/90)

I believe that the 6-button keyboard designed for character input
via "chording" was a co-development with the mouse, i.e., the mouse
was originally designed as part of this 2-part system: a mouse in
one hand to point, with the other hand handling all the text entry.
It dates (I think) from the 60's, developed by somebody who gets
credit for neither.  As I recall, next entry is *not* all that quick
this way, but the learning curve is faster.  I don't have present
access to the specifics, but I think learning was aided by mneumonics,
i.e., certain features of the shape of the character remind one which
combinations of fingers to use.

russ
-- 
Russell Shackelford
The College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332
russ@prism.gatech.edu         (404) 834-4759