A One-Handed Keyboard For $25 349
Bruce Perens writes "Slashdot has often featured attempts at improvement upon the QWERTY keyboard. Here's a one-handed USB keyboard that you can buy for $25 online, or a bit more at the CompUSA. There's one catch: someone will have to design a keying pattern and hack up software for it. It's a task just crying out for an Open Source project." Bruce has also included on the linked page code with which to read the output from the device.
Then you can't buy a one-handed keyboard for $25.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I'd know about those things. (And that applies to both coding my own keyboard drivers as well as cooking meth.)
DVORAK keyboard (Score:5, Insightful)
This idea is akin to changing the steering wheel in a car to a joystick; possible, but why change something that is a functional standard?
QWERTY is imperfect so? (Score:2, Insightful)
with no RSI or anything else. Why squander brain power on yet another weird device? If you really are sitting there pounding away at 100wpm all day then what kind of coding bot are you anyway?
(and are you thinking about what you're coding?)
It's far too late to educate anyone about the merits of a new device that replaces an old device wot works. Try convincing the Brits or US that metric is a good idea? 3/8" bolts on the ISS (yuk). (and I'm old enough to remember (ouch) don't want to comment...).
Perhaps the open source world needs to discuss what we ought to play with (gee: i have this neat
idea for photographing emperor penguins...) rather
than the old well worn stuff. Try a sci fi style
workshop maybe?
sidenote: Wagtails wag their tails in order to create turbulence. Prove me wrong.
There is a point (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Left Handed??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:DVORAK keyboard (Score:4, Insightful)
Other reasons include feedback, you simply wouldn't get the right feedback from a joystick. A stick is ideal for a plane as you are banking the plane towards the left and to the right, in a car you are rotating the wheel and so a rotating control method works best.
Also, to use a stick you would need control systems, fully powered hydraulic steering, this would be prone to faults and in the event of a system failure you would lose steering. Currently cars have power assisted steering but standard steering still functions in the event of a fluid leak etc.
Other problems with a stick system? how about requiring the engine to be running for the system to work? this would make getting your car onto a recovery truck rather difficult if the engine won't run. What about getting towed? impossible without the engine running.
So while it might be possible to change cars to use a joystick it is simply a bad idea.
It is a game device, so the right is on the mouse (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:DVORAK keyboard (Score:3, Insightful)
Some would argue Mac OS X is an improvement over Windows. Why hasn't it taken over?
Just because a technology is established across the vast majority of users doesn't mean that alternatives wouldn't be a great improvement. QWERTY is so firmly established that despite the common knowledge that it was designed to put common letter combinations as far apart as possible, most users do not even consider looking for an alternative. There are many reasons - lack of knowledge, lack of learning resources, cost - but don't think that, all else being equal, users wouldn't pick the alternative that is designed for the greatest speed, comfort and accuracy.
Chording support? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:DVORAK keyboard (Score:5, Insightful)
A stick is ideal for a plane as you are banking the plane towards the left and to the right, in a car you are rotating the wheel and so a rotating control method works best.
Uh, what? This reasoning sounds awfully circular (honestly, no pun intended) to me. There are plenty of planes that use a wheel instead of a stick. The main reason for using a stick with an aircraft is that a wheel doesn't easily (or as conveniently, anyway) lend itself to motion in a third axis. Using a stick removes a lot of that awkwardness.
Also, to use a stick you would need control systems, fully powered hydraulic steering...
There are plenty of planes that don't have hydraulic systems associated with a control stick, and there are a lot more that have systems no more complicated than what's in a car. There's no reason a hydraulic-assist stick, much like today's power steering, couldn't be developed for use in a car.
I can almost guarantee you that helicopter (and maybe fighter) pilots would be the only people who would be able to drive such a system with any sort of precision, though. Your point about having to turn a steering wheel a very large distance to effect a fairly small change is a good one. Without some sort of serious speed sensitivity, the smaller range of control input inherent in a stick would make for VERY lively steering (read: easily overcontrolled).
Of course, if cars had *always* had a joystick-type steering mechanism (some early ones did, in fact), we'd be sitting here having this discussion from the opposite perspective. There's really nothing inherent in a steering wheel that makes it the perfect solution to steering a car. It's more a matter of "what's always been done."
To get this back on topic, there's really nothing inherently superior about a QWERTY keyboard, and many arguments can be made that there are inherently inferior aspects of it. The problem is, QWERTY layouts have been in use for so long that they're the de facto standard, no matter what other great technology comes along. QWERTY keyboards will rule the world until either voice recognition or direct brain control is perfected.
p
Re:DVORAK keyboard (Score:3, Insightful)
However, using a joystick as a control is a BAD idea, above any beyond the problems you mentioned. Most cars have steering ratios of 12:1 to 14:1. Meaning if the front wheels could turn 360 degrees you would have to turn the steering wheel 12-14 times. This gives you very good control for when you want to turn just a little bit, like on a highway that goes around a bend. Now imagine that with a joystick, and how easy it would be to push the stick a little too far and end up swerving out of control. At most you would only have to tilt the stick 35-40 degrees to go full turn in either direction.
=Smidge=
I have one (Score:3, Insightful)
no (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Bruce missed a couple of trains here (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I have one of these things. I use it for Warcraft 3, Counterstrike, and Doom 3. The software that powers it rules (to the point where, I could see some people consider it cheating.)
Guys, there's no need for writing custom drivers. What the author is suggesting could be accompished in like 20 minutes with the included software. To be honest, the original author didn't know what he was talking about.
-Grym
Re:Then you can't buy a one-handed keyboard for $2 (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks
Bruce