gnu@sun.uucp (John Gilmore) (02/16/84)
I've recently acquired a chord keyboard called a "Microwriter". It's
not as pleasant as an IBM Chord Keyboard, but you can exchange
money ($450) for one and it talks ascii RS232. It has six keys on a
hand-shaped keyboard about the size of a paperback book. Five are for
letters and an extra thumb key is for case shifting, commands, etc.
The interesting part is the key layout. The five "usual" keys are
diagrammed like this: * middle
index * * ring
Thumb * * pinky
and many of the letters are just "drawn" on this grid for mnemonic
value. Thus "I" is the leftmost two (a vertical stroke), "L" is those
plus the pinky (ell-shaped), "r" is the leftmost plus the ring finger
(vertical plus bar at the top), etc. I learned all the letters in about
an hour, and learned the useful commands over the weekend. It's a lot
more mnemonic than the binary encoding of ASCII.
It is actually a portable word processor, with 8KB of text memory, a
CMOS procesor, nicads & charger, and a 16-char LCD display. You can
carry it around in its little leatherette case and type whenever the
fancy strikes you, uploading or printing later. It could be used as a
portable terminal except for the garbagey way they implemented
receiving from the RS232 port (for power-saving considerations). I'm
currently working on interfacing it as the keyboard of my Sun Workstation.
I hear they have a cheaper version, just a keyboard, in the works.
I first found it in the Whole Earth Software Review.
Reply with a USPS address and I'll send you some of their literature.
John Gilmore, {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!sun!gnumsc@qubix.UUCP (Mark Callow) (02/20/84)
This is an interesting device. I didn't know they were finally
selling them. I first came across the Microwriter in 1978 when
I was working at Logica in London. It was a fairly crude device
using an RCA CMOS micro and an LED display. The keyboard arrangement
was the same as described by John Gilmore. I too found it easy to
learn. My biggest complaint was that it could only be used in the
right hand and I'm left-handed. C'est la vie. I got used to using it
with my wrong hand and had fun.
For the trivia fans amoung you, the founder of the company making it
was the producer of the film Zulu.
--
From the Tardis of Mark Callow
msc@qubix.UUCP, decwrl!qubix!msc@Berkeley.ARPA
...{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!qubix!msc, ...{ittvax,amd70}!qubix!mscSASW%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (02/24/84)
From: Steven A. Swernofsky <SASW @ MIT-MC>
Date: 15 Feb 84 19:08:55-PST (Wed)
From: sun!gnu at Ucb-Vax
Reply with a USPS address and I'll send you some of their literature.
Please do!
-- Steve
Steven A. Swernofsky
920 1/4 S. Curson Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036preece@uicsl.UUCP (02/25/84)
#R:sun:-44800:uicsl:13300003:000:180 uicsl!preece Feb 24 22:04:00 1984 Didn't the Microwriter (at least the keyboard part of it) get a big play in one of the micro magazines four or five years ago? I seem to remember a cover picture of one somewhere.