It’s nice to see folks trying new ideas in this area. I’d be curious to hear more about who this is really designed for. All the chords requiring the pinky finger make my emacs-crippled hands flare up in pain just looking at them. But that’s just me.
I looked online and was glad to see the Twiddler was still a product you could buy. That was the one handed keyboard of choice among the wearables crowd at the MIT Media Lab in the late 90s. 12 core buttons for typing with the 4 fingers (with chords) plus extra buttons for shift, etc on the thumbs. A few friends of mine used them regularly and could type reasonably (20-30 wpm?) although I think they all preferred a full keyboard when they had the option.
having just watch the demo video my immediate thought was why is the thumb ignored - although I appreciate that the design would need to be a different shape if you were using thumb, index, middle and ring fingers. The reliance of the pinkies on a standard QWERTY keyboard for me is a design failure…
I missed it on my first read through, but they mention it’s to allow the thumb to help hold the device when you want portability:
Since only four fingers are used, the thumb is free to stabilize and hold the board. This simplifies the hardware design for portable hand-held keyboards made for ARTSEY.
Stuff like plover[1] adapts steno to more general computer input. I saw one of their devs with a very customized vim + steno setup and was impressive, at least, if not quite enough to convince me to give up a normal keyboard.
It’s nice to see folks trying new ideas in this area. I’d be curious to hear more about who this is really designed for. All the chords requiring the pinky finger make my emacs-crippled hands flare up in pain just looking at them. But that’s just me.
I looked online and was glad to see the Twiddler was still a product you could buy. That was the one handed keyboard of choice among the wearables crowd at the MIT Media Lab in the late 90s. 12 core buttons for typing with the 4 fingers (with chords) plus extra buttons for shift, etc on the thumbs. A few friends of mine used them regularly and could type reasonably (20-30 wpm?) although I think they all preferred a full keyboard when they had the option.
People who sometimes need to hold a child and type at the same time.
People who need to hold a device (technician role) while typing what they read or observe into the computer.
People in hostage situations where you need the plot to advance.
having just watch the demo video my immediate thought was why is the thumb ignored - although I appreciate that the design would need to be a different shape if you were using thumb, index, middle and ring fingers. The reliance of the pinkies on a standard QWERTY keyboard for me is a design failure…
I missed it on my first read through, but they mention it’s to allow the thumb to help hold the device when you want portability:
Yeah, I think the site could benefit a lot from a comparison with similar alternatives like the Microwriter.
I’d seen Twiddler before but forgot it’s name, and I’ve been trying to find it again for ages. Thank you for helping me find it again :D
No comments since I saw this 10 hours ago, so I’ll start a conversation:
This is borderline half of a stenotype. Why not just go all the way?
I think a stenotype is about typing words instead of letters. Unrelated to size of the keyboard or chording. Am I wrong?
Stuff like plover[1] adapts steno to more general computer input. I saw one of their devs with a very customized vim + steno setup and was impressive, at least, if not quite enough to convince me to give up a normal keyboard.
[1] https://www.openstenoproject.org/plover/
I would be interested in a one handed keyboard but I would want quite a bit more buttons. Probably not this though: http://www.maltron.com/single-left-hand.html
This looks great! Now I just need a version which works on the go :D
Seems like the chords could inherit their shapes from Braille.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille_Patterns