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Hardware

The Ultimate Keyboard? 90

Posted by CmdrTaco from the this-is-crazy dept.
Xunker writes "Are so such a geek that your wrists are threatening to leave you for a better job? Well, for all those that are forced to deal with RSI, this could be what you need. The techie throne we all dream of. "
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The Ultimate Keyboard? More

The Ultimate Keyboard?

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  • What worked for me (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have occational wrist problems and what I bought was one of those wrist/forearm gloves made of rubber, plastic and velcro. It prevents your wrist from bending in an akward position. It it hard to type the first few days but then you get used to it. I only got pain in my right wrist but this thing seems to solve that problem. And it costs under $20.
  • ...they need some sort of HUD or wearable to replace the monitor.
  • ..do you have a link (or name) for those? I was looking at getting a pair of the "i-glasses" (http://www.i-glasses.com).

    Wayne
  • what I was thinking of as the ultimate chair/kb/etc combo would be a hacked dentist chair rig. You could stretch out to a comfortable supine angle, have a swing-tray w/ attached kb and trackball, and then use the adjustable arm w/ the light thingy for the monitor - flat panel type. Now that would be relaxing, heh.

  • It's keyboard OR mouse. Not both. That kinda blows some of the usefulness. I use the keyboard more than the mouse, but I would need both close by for a solution like this to work for me. How would I play Quake!? ;)

  • Bah. Give me a recliner with probes to plug my brain directly into the computer Matrix-style and then I'll start paying attention.
  • Ah, now I love 'em. In fact I've just ordered myself a Maltron [maltron.co.uk] keyboard with a couple or three remaps to make it more Unix friendly. Yup, it's costing me 400 pounds, but the way I look at it that's about a day and a half's work and anything's better than being in a position where I can't work at all.

    Sure, it may take a while to getting used to the g/h break that the split beasties use, but I've found that once I got used to that I'm much more comfortable using even this crappy old MS Natural keyboard than I am using a standard flatty.
  • Yeah! Forget RSI, bedsores are the wave of the future...
  • Now if they can combine that keyboard/armrest system with my Aeron chair (the Ultimate Sitting Machine :-), I might buy one. Better yet, sell it as an upgrade to my existing Aeron chair, and I'll definately buy one.


  • I imagine it has a pointing device built in but I've never seen a keyboard pointing device with a
    satisfactory button placement.

    You're right, it has a touchpad built in.

    However, I'm using a keyboard with a pointing device built in which has satisfactory button placement.

    It's a Trackpoint keyboard, and the buttons are right below the spacebar, where I naturally rest my thumbs.

    To move the mouse, I just twitch either index finger over to the little eraser-thingie and push it, and the mouse moves. Twitch my thumb, and the mouse clicks (only two buttons, though; a pity).

    And to make things even more wonderful, if I hold the shift down and move the mouse, the page which the mouse is over scrolls in two dimensions (without changing the focus). I haven't touched a scrollbar in ages.

    I wonder -- is shift-mouse movement scrolling supported in Linux? It would _really_ be nice.

    -Billy

  • It looks pretty nice, and their FAQ is surprisingly good, and it doesn't require weird drivers.

    But notice that all of the pictures are missing the cable. The last thing I need is a wire going to my chair, where I can trip over it, roll over it, or pull it out of the machine if I roll too far away.


  • Worse would be the state of mind of a person who had mastered using it for that. Yikes!


    That sounds like a great idea . . . just like
    real-life martial arts, where you have to be
    calm to fight effectively. Martial arts are
    a great tool for relaxation for just that reason:
    They force you to chill out, or face the consequences. ;) (By the way, I use martial
    arts to deal with the God-awful muscle tension
    I build up at the keyboard. It works!)
    Beer recipe: free! #Source
    Cold pints: $2 #Product

  • I tried one of those at Macworld NY last summer. It wasn't amazing. IIRC it was hooked up to a playstation, with some driving game. To acellerate, you had to be _very_ calm. I don't think it would be healthy to try to play HalfLife or some other shooter with it. Not that it was easy to use in the first place. Worse would be the state of mind of a person who had mastered using it for that. Yikes!

    Now what I'd want in an ultimate geek throne is all of that, plus a john. It's not a throne unless it's got a john attached. ;)

  • Bah. Give me a recliner with probes to plug my brain directly into the computer Matrix-style and then I'll start paying attention.

    Nah, you'd just sprain your brain if you used it that much. ;)

  • Badass! (Score:1)

    by Bwah ( 3970 )
    That has got to be the best design I have seen yet for a non-mobile keyboard. Anyone know what the price tag is?

    /dev
  • I agree, I once saw a keyboard with a trackstick right between the g and h keys. with the buttons right under the space bar. it was awesome, you could use the mouse while keeping your fingers on their home rows.
    I'm trying to find where to buy one now, but haven't had much luck, if anyone finds one can they mail me at finale@macroshaft.org?
  • thanks dude, your awesome


  • ...a better cure seems to be variation. i can type longer on my wacked keyboard than a normal one, but for very long periods nothing works better than switching keyboards occasionally. changing the repetative motions is your best bet. i'm skeptical of any single keyboard as _the_ solution.
  • Unforutnately, we can't change em all. I guess it's going to end up like the metric system.

    You mean like the way every civilized nation uses metric?
  • Actually, not as expensive as it could be.
    We had a client who was a big ergonomic furniture
    maker -- and the whole office got their chairs.
    Even though the chairs were supposed to be very
    good for you, I have never experienced more discomfort and shoulder pain than while using
    that chair. When we got different chairs, I
    gladly traded for something more normal (probably
    100-200 dollar office chair), and have had no
    problem since then.

    I might not be wise to say the name of the company
    that made the chairs, but I do have a legitimate
    gripe - I was somewhat harmed by their product -
    so perhaps I should.

    Okay, I will.

  • It looks to me like a reincarnation of that
    winblows keyboard. We had someone at work
    who was brain dead enough to buy a winblows
    keyboard . He sure hell didn't buy one for himself
    for home use.

    After he left I inherited his computer which
    I use in the lab for my tests. I had a hard time
    finding a sucker for the keyboard, no matter how
    nicely I tried to describe its good sides.

    At last someone was gullible enough to accept a
    trade. Now I have a real keyboard ...

  • I've known about this for almost a year.
  • All right, first of all - get over it. I've been hearing the same anti-mouse sentiments for ten years now. How long do mice have to be around before you give it up?

    Second - Windows is not that hard to navigate without a mouse. In fact, handicaped accessibility rules mean that every major Windows app has to be navigable from the keyboard. I use the mouse as and where appropriate, but I do a lot from the keyboard and could happily use a Windows machine with no mouse--as long as I wasn't trying to use Visio or suchlike where the mouse is an obvious requirement.

    The real offender in this regard is X. You can't even start an XFree86 server if your mouse is wonky. And both KDE and Gnome are horrifically mouse-dependent. Hell, if you don't have at least one xterm already running, you can't even launch another one without going to the mouse.

    One of my biggest current annoyances in KDE (which is what I'm using at the moment, not through any strong preference, but just because it crashes less than Gnome at the moment) is that you can't get to the "K" ("Start" equivalent) without using the mouse. In Win95/NT, I constantly hit Ctrl-Esc, P,N,N to start Netscape, or Ctrl-Esc,P,A,N to start Notepad, or what have you. Having to constantly go to the mouse for this stuff in KDE is a total P.I.T.A.

    -Graham
  • Take a $100 chair.
    And a $25 keyboard.
    What's that? It's split? Okay - let's be generous and double the keyboard cost for splitting it in half. $50.
    Add 0.3 seconds of thinking time for "Duh, how about a keyboard integrated into the chair", say at $100/hour (excessive) = c0.83, call it c1.
    Oh yes, we'll need an adapter, to mount the halves of the keyboard on the chair - adjustable in 3D (mount it on a height adjustable ball joint), say $25 each, that's $50.

    That's $225.01. Now let's flog it for $1000!
    Bollocks to that. RSI here I come.

    The other devices aren't much better. Datahand looks good but for a box with 8 buttons and a bit of clever electronics (one EPROM?) $1000 is a bit much. I reckon if I could be bothered I could undercut them by 75% with a better product and still make a mint.

    I dunno who buys these things. They must have more money than sense. As well as keyboarding, I play the sax (exercises the right arm) and bagpipes (exercises the left arm) and only get wrist pains when I give up music.

    Although thinking about the economics of my situation that probably doesn't make much sense anyway. Sax=$3000. Pipes=$1500. Piper's No1 outfit=$2000. Oh well... :-) Still, it's more fun than a chair-mounted mouse.
  • I'll second the Trackpoint comment. I was getting shoulder strain in my mouse-arm until I got this beastie. It's brilliant. Fingers never leave the home row. The IBM keys feel nice too, but the clicking took a little while to get used to. I use this keyboard around fourteen hours a day, with no problems or fatigue.

    About the only serious problem is that I'm momentarily stumped whenever I have to use a regular mouse.
  • Really, I've {smoked/handled poisonous snakes/played tag on the freeway} for 20+ years, now...heavily. [I've never had a problem.]

    If you ever had carpal tunnel or other RSI, or known some who has, you'd know just how un-funny your post is. Ask RMS if he think his condition is funny...

  • to make one yourself.

    Get one of those split keyboards, find a suitable chair, rig something up to let you adjust the position, and superglue.

    *shrug* Too rich for my blood.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • A cooler for the pitcher of rum punch.....

  • Ow!!! (Score:1)

    by Zerbey ( 15536 )
    That keyboard looks *painful*, I would be in agony if I had to use it all day...it looks worse than the M$ natural keyboard.
  • I'm one geek whose career almost ended a few years ago due to arm pains. I guess I wasted one year without being able to work. I visited many doctors, tried medication and especially resting a lot. It was really frustrating while work piled up.

    The first tip I got was to not rest my hands on the support in front of the keyboard. I used to just plant my hands there and type on. The problem with this is that your arms don't move enough.

    Second advice was more radical. My arms were hurting but when a doctor diagnosed me, he didn't find any problems in me that would cause it. So he told me to use my arms. Do heavy work, type on, excercise and so on. Needless to say that I was scared of the advice but I tried it and it really helped. I haven't had any problems since then.

    My advice for everybody is to work out. Do some sports with your arms as it really keeps them in great shape. Typing doesn't give you muscles or keep you in shape. That's why we get problems from the repetitive movements. But constructions workers don't get RSI or tennis elbow even when their work is also repetitive because their work is more versatile.

    I still use a normal keyboard and won't change to an ergonomic one. I have put the half inch thick hand support under the front of the keyboard to lift it up. I work out regularly a few times a week. That's what works for me.

    You may find some of my advice useful but if you have arm or wrist pains, don't just run blindly to try my advice. Consult your doctor first. (Standard disclaimer to avoid being sued) ;-)

  • I'd like to ask you some questions about your experiences with the DataHand, since it costs $50 to give it a try. I don't know if you have experienced all the topics, but...
    - How is it with:
    Emacs
    Quake (games in general)

    - Are you satisfied with the weight?
    - How's the durability? Does it get dirty
    and gummy easily? How easy it to clean?
    - Did you have any compatibility problems?
    - How good is the integrated mouse?

    Feel free to mail me..

  • I find that for pure neato value, the datahand [datahand.com] is the coolest keyboard (although the twiddler [handykey.com] is also nifty). Since I'm a poor typist, it looks better, since you can't really miss a key (nor, for that matter, can you type improperly, since you have no choice which finger hits which key). Of course, it's also expensive as hell (which is why they don't list the price). It's around $900 for the personal (the Pro II is over $1000).
    I think this could be a really neato slashdot topic: badass input devices.
  • Bloody hard to do graphic editing -- as in CAD or GIS, as well stuff like the GIMP -- without using a pointing device.

    Some people actually *use* apps, even if its only to test their code.

    As for using your brain rather than your muscles, what's with all the keyboarding? Get (or make) yourself a good CASE tool. :-)
  • I imagine it has a pointing device built in but I've never seen a keyboard pointing device with a satisfactory button placement.

    And I agree. Sometimes when you're eating or holding a book open or whatever you need the whole keyboard accessible with one hand.

    I already have the complete solution, old fashioned keyboard, old fashioned ball mouse.
  • :) it's back up, but a lil' slow.
  • ...unless you actually like typical office furnature. As someone who's 6'4", I can imagine my back and neck cramping up after sitting on that chair for about 5 minutes. At least it'll take years before my hands wear out, if ever.

  • Look again!
    The keyboard is split into two parts. One for the left hand and one for the right. And a nice little touchpad on the right part.
    Seems really nice!
  • Best ergonomic keyboard I've found is the Kinesis [kinesis-ergo.com]. It has two concave keypads, one for each hand and you hardly need to move your wrists at all. Only problem is, you need to be able to use both hands to type - reaching to (e.g.) the right side pad with your left hand is awkward

  • Agreed (Score:1)

    by seanb ( 27295 )
    I do about 90% of my typing left-handed. About all that my right hand uses is the mouse and the number pad. And I'm right handed!
    This would be good for typists or data entry people, but I find that I spend much more time revising than actually just typing in stuff.
  • ...the under-the-ass keyboard [thecraftstudio.com].

    RSI as I understand it is caused by the repetitive action, and only exacerbated by the poor ergonomics of most keyboards. The only cure is for motion detectors on the fingernails and to type on air.
  • Some *broken* apps depend on arrow key usage. Sorry for being ambigious.

  • Jedi coders don't touch rodents (Score:3)

    by Josh Turpen ( 28240 ) on Wednesday April 28, 1999 @02:38PM (#1911769) Homepage
    I don't see how people can use unix and depend on a mouse at the same time. Unix is based on efficiency. You seriously want me to lift my hand off of the keyboard, put it on the mouse, click a button, then move my hand back to the keyboard a thousand times a day? I can barely stand to take my hand of my vi keys to move it over to the arrow keys, let alone the mouse. It's extremely productive to know all of those keyboard shortcuts. It's the one true way. Use your brain, not your muscles.
  • Windows NT error number 2 occurred.

    I'm sure that if you look up in the manual, you will find that NT error number 2 is "URL is hotlinked by www.slashdot.org".

  • so i'm a college freshman with tendonitis in my hands and varying degrees of other RSI. from my experience, the most damaging thing you can do to your hands is to spend long sessions without breaks. this keyboard is a _bad_ thing as i see it (as are most "ergo" keyboards), because it makes it easier to do so. the reason it's called a "repetitive stress injury" has very much to do with the fact that the muscles in your hands are not intended to be stressed the way they are while typing for extended periods.
    the one thing that has made a real difference for me is setting a timer that beeps every 20 minutes so that i know to let go of the keyboard for a couple minutes to relax and stretch my hands. it takes getting used to, but it's well worth it. the pain and tightness in my hands and forearms is now drastically reduced. I haven't felt the sharp burning pain in my back for a while now (letting go of the keyboard also gets me to look up and adjust my posture). I once again feel confident that i will be able to continue my education in CS over the next 3 years and eventually pursue a career in the field.
    the breaks also allow me to collect my thoughts, and i believe actually increase my productivity rather than decrease it.
    i've already seen a friend of mine (also a freshman, although not here) have severe damage to the nerves in his arms, so i'm paranoid about this kind of stuff.
  • Yeah, it looks good. Half of the hardcore geeks out there won't have it because you can't type with one hand.
  • I can concur with that. Mice piss me off. Windows has made us dependent on it. Its pretty damn hard getting around in windows with just the keyboard.

  • All I can say is "Warp 3 Mr. Sulu!"

    --/\/\ark
  • I agree with Leperjuice.

    The Datahand is the coolest keyboard. And it solved my RSI problem. Each finger hits one of five keys, and your finger doesn't have to move far, reducing aggravation to the carpal tunnel.

    I find having multiple input devices is the way to beat RSI.

    www.datahand.com

  • Heh (Score:1)

    by Lifewolf ( 41986 )
    When was Workplace Designs bought by Cramer? It looks like I'm not reading the Typing Injury FAQ often enough.

    Ripping the chair mounting hardware off the old Floating Arms keyboard is a reasonable enough idea, and making the trackpad available on the left or right is nice, but I still want the numeric keypad on the left.
  • Try Alt-F1

    You can configure all sorts of weird combos with the control panel keyboard module. Does anyone know how to get the Win95 keys going easily for KDE?

    Anyway, I have never liked the split keyboard design. Whenever I am forced to use one, I am always left searching for the 'g' or 'h' on the wrong side.

    Jim
  • Hallelujah. Six surgeries in ten years(both hands) for RSI. I got this keyboard, and had no recurrences for over two years.
    I put a glidepoint in the center of the keyboard(velcro, the 5th element), never have to take my hands off the stick.

  • How about cysts the size of golfballs on your tendon sheaths. Oh I'm sorry, I'm being whiny again.
  • I have one of these(the Cramer split keyboard-chairs), had it for about a year now. It is really killer to say the least. As for the touchpad, I have never liked one I've used anywhere. But this one was pretty friggin nice, I got used to it in about a day and I've never used a mouse since then. If I only had a good chair to go with the damned thing, it'd be perfect. But oh well... it's well worth the bucks...
  • Get out yer wallet. These keyboards retrofit on to Aeron chairs.
    http://www.officeorganix.com/wpdarms.htm

    spud
  • a motor that makes this thing roll a joystick that makes this thing steer so I won't use any of my energy rolling around my lab. Hmm maybe i can even ride home in this thing...

  • This looks like something that Jerry Seinfeld's crazy neighbour might design and sell.

    Maybe he did.

    The first screen I get to says "Ergonomics, by Cramer".

    Hmm...

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