1410899
story
graymalkn writes
"My wife has repetitive stress problems and prefers typing on old-fashioned mechanical typewriters. For Christmas, I converted a mechanical typewriter to work as a computer keyboard. My favorite feature: slap the carriage return for Enter."
haiku (Score:4, Funny)
What exactly makes you want
a keyboard that jams?
Because Linux rocks (Score:2)
Re:haiku (Score:2)
Only one thing I could do
Build her a geekboard
That's wierd (Score:2)
What am I missing here?
Re:That's wierd (Score:5, Informative)
From the page:
she finds old-fashioned mechanical typewriters much easier on her fingers because they offer gradual resistance rather than the feeling of moving through air then hitting a wall, like most computer keyboards
Different keyboards work for different people. If you're used to typing on a Smith-Corona, I can definatly see how the "hitting a wall" can hurt your fingers.
Re:That's wierd (Score:2, Informative)
The theory seems sound (pun): If you can rely on the click sound, then your ears serve as the feedback mechanism instead of your fingers. IOW, use audio feedback *instead of* physical (pressure) feedback. Appearently the person at issue has learned to use their ears for feedback. Perhaps most of us got too used to the pressure feedback, which is perhaps a big risk to RMI.
Re:That's wierd (Score:2)
The mechancial keys on an old typewriter would trigger before being fully depressed, therefore you could type without having to hit the endpoint where the resistance becomes a solid wall, you could pull up gradually when you wanted to.
Most "quiet" keyboards offer little to no resistance as the key goes down, but an absolute solid wall once the key is fully down. what's more, the key does not register unless you have gone all of the way down, so you're required to hit that wall.
It's the sudden stop that's bothering the woman in question here, having constant weak resistance is what she wants.
There's different kinds of RSI (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right though that the keys on such a typewriter are harder to press, possibly leading to a different kind of RSI, which can be alleviated by switching from a typewriter to a regular keyboard, as some people working in a typing pool have found in the past.
The typewriter is an interesting solution, but I wonder if this woman might be off just as well with one of those rubber keyboards like the ones that came with those IBM PS/1 systems.
Check this out (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, I think so too, but what do you guys think about this [robotics.com] computer chair?
---
Watch out! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Watch out! (Score:5, Funny)
Where's the Windows key?? (Score:2, Funny)
Seriously, this is very cool. Like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie...
origin of the "windows key" (Score:3, Informative)
As for Linux support, the command keys on my Linux iBook work the same way as the winshit key (whiteouted of course) on my Linux server.
It looks as if he is connecting this typewriter to an older (pre usb switchover) macintosh, but I haven't found a specific quote to that effect.
Seems so simple... (Score:5, Interesting)
We seem to all have standardized now on similar keyboards in tactile function, but that clearly leaves a market to serve those who perfer other styles of keyboard. Could this kind of keyboard-that-feels-like-a-typewriter device have enough appeal to get a mainstream keyboard maker behind it?
I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:5, Funny)
Best of all it was beautiful to use. If only the 's' key hasn't gone.
The funny bit is, I never missed the 'Windows' key.
(If anyone has a WORKING IBM keyboard like this, please, please reply as I would love to get a hold of another...)
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
They are called a "type M" or "model M", depending upon who you ask.
They are actually quite easy to find. I have purchased several from goodwill for $5/each. You can also find them on EBay fairly cheap. [ebay.com]
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
Hate to tell you this, but that sounds like an AT connector.
It should be larger then a PS/2 connector, with five robust pins, in a half-circle. Assuming that the center of the circle is the center of a clock, pins will be at 3, 4:30, 6, 7:30 and 9.
The PS/2 connector has 6 pins, but one of the pins is N/C (not connected). Otherwise, its just a mechanical conversion from the larger AT style to the smaller PS/2 style.
Of course, there is a lot of computer styles out there, and what appears to be a normal AT-style connector could be some weird proprietary or non-pc connection.
Google for a bit, and if you're stumped, take a picture of the keyboards, and the connectors, make a simple webpage with the ability for users to add comments, and link the page to your sig. You should get an answer. :)
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
AT's not really a connector style -- it's a protocol. The XT system (pre AT) used the same 5 pin half-circle connector. It's not terribly uncommon on older keyboards to find a switch to move from XT to AT style.
I'd look on the bottom, under the little flip-up panels to help tilt the keyboard to you. You might find a little switch there.
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
How about at work? I've never even bothered trying to bring in one of these things there just because they cause a fair amount of racket -- especially when I'm flipping away at 80-100wpm
Anybody here ever brought one of these things into a cube farm? Just wondering how much it bothers other employees, if it does at all.
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
At IBM in the early 90's I worked in a cube farm (Austin campus, building 42), where my primary machine was a PS/2 mod 80 with an 8514 display.
It had a model M keyboard attached to it, and I used to regularly get people stopping by my desk to see what the hell was going on (I was typing around 130wpm at the time, I'm down to 110 or so now). Nobody ever complained about the noise so much as treated me as some sort of curiosity (I guess I was the fastest on the first floor at the time or something, I know there were people upstairs that were faster).
I've tried to keep a model M on my home machine since, and have usually managed to do so... though once I had to settle for a "compact" model. Same buckling-spring design, but with more of a laptop-style layout.
-l
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
If you want one of your very own, go to eBay and type "ibm keyboard m" in the search field. Plenty of results.
Where to buy old Style IBM Keyboards (Score:5, Informative)
They made the original IBM keyboards and they still make them.
Re:Where to buy old Style IBM Keyboards (Score:2)
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:3, Informative)
The good ones are called the `IBM Model M', and they have real springs under the keys. More info at http://modelm.org
I personally own about 50 or 60 of these, but you can't have any of them (they're my lifetime supply of keyboards. Yes, you can use a PS/2 => USB adaptor with them, so they should work on new hardware for many years to come). I've managed to break only one Model M in my life... well actually my old boss did, he dumped a 16oz. Starbuck's coffee with extra cream & sugar directly into it, and I didn't find out about it until it had had time to congeal.. probably I could have salvaged it by running it through the dishwasher, but it was starting to draw flies, so I decided it was dead...
Just hit the thrift shops, you'll find them...
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
And I don't miss the windows keys either.
(OT) SMSU (Score:2)
Re:(OT) SMSU (Score:2)
Re:(OT) SMSU (Score:2)
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
http://www.cvtinc.com/products/keyboards/menu.h
If you want a particular kind of quality, be prepared to pay for it, the base 104 key model is $150, the 116 key model is $200. I've paid as much for the computer I am using right now.
Apparently these are reprogrammable and you can rearrange and macro program the keys any way you like.
I really don't know if I like this kind of keyboard anyway. Back when these were standard I always felt they were too stiff and clunky. With membrane keyboards I don't have to press as hard, or so it seems to me.
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2, Insightful)
Just so you know, CTRL+ESC + L doesn't work the same as Window Key + L in Windows XP Professional.
Re:I had a wonderful old IBM like that... (Score:2)
Well, almost. I hated the Windows key at first, and made mine into "Any" keys (with a sharpie) on one keyboard.
But holding the Windows key and pressing 'D', for example, clears your desktop (minimizes all windows). Win+R gives you the Start --> Run box; Win+E pops up Windows Explorer, and there are others.
CTRL+ESC only gives you that stupid "Pop up the start menu" feature (and has since long before the Win-keys). I honestly hate that function being on the Windows keys, and wish I could have Win-keys that DIDN'T do that (but still provided the shortcut functions). Too many times I've hit the Win-key by accident, meaning to hit CTRL or ALT... and so I lose focus where I was typing and see the start menu. When I actually want to pop up the start menu, I'm still in the habit of hitting CTRL+ESC anyway.
On Linux they're handy. On my RedHat systems the Windows keys switch consoles (similar to ALT+left and right arrows), while the "right-click" key toggles between the current and previous consoles.
Ah yes, the revered IBM keyboard (Score:3, Interesting)
And I don't have to mess up a perfectly good typewriter to do it. I still love my old Underwood. Leave it alone.
But for God's sake, don't make me have to *type* on it.
KFG
Re:Seems so simple... (Score:2)
Works great for Counter Strike though...
Re:Seems so simple... (Score:2)
Well, I've already seen this used as an example of "market failure". After all, this isn't exactly a new story. The problems (for some people) of computer keyboards and the "mechanical typewriter" solution has been pretty much common media knowledge for several years, and there seems to be a fair amount of medical support for it.
If you believe the market theories, we obvious must have had typewriter-like keyboards for sale for several years now. No rational manufacturer would ever ignore such obvious demand. So where are they?
--
the typewriter-keyboard conversion (Score:2, Informative)
My wife suffers from repetive stress problems in her fingers and wrists. Sometime in October we were talking about different keyboards on the market for people such as herself. In the course of the conversation she mentioned that she finds old-fashioned mechanical typewriters much easier on her fingers because they offer gradual resistance rather than the feeling of moving through air then hitting a wall, like most computer keyboards. Ah-hah, I think to myself! At last I know what I will give her for Christmas. The first weekend after Halloween I went out and found an old Smith-Corona and got to work.
The short how-to is thus: in a regular keyboard, each keypress completes a circuit. There's a little circuit board in there and I mapped all the connections from one terminal to another. This was then replicated inside the typewriter by wires going from the circuit board to strips of adhesive lamé, which contact their counterparts when a key is pressed. Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that...
The first thing to do was take apart a regular keyboard and figure out how it worked.
The little circuit board there has two sets of thirteen terminals. A keypress is registered when a circuit is completed between one terminal from the left set and one terminal from the right set. All the rest in a keyboard is just a matter of getting the circuit to the right place.
So I started out by mapping all the connections from each terminal to each other terminal. I did this by plugging the circuit board into my laptop, clipping one end of the aligator clip to a terminal and touching the other end to every other terminal. Most of the conections produced nothing at all or perhaps a beep, but sometimes a letter would pop up and I would record which two terminals were connected. This allowed me to make a chart of the entire keyboard for later use
The first trick with the actual typewriter was to get all the regular keys to produce letters. Shift, Space, and Enter I would worry about later.
A quick look at the underside of the typewriter provided the answer.
Every time a key is pressed, the "lever" is pushed down and connects with the "crossbar" (the other end of the lever raises the hammer to strike the paper). The crossbar seems to both keep the levers from moving too far and provide the force to advance the carriage for the next letter.
So I figured I could use the contact there to complete a circuit. Obviously, each lever and each part of the crossbar that it would contact would have to be electrically insulated. Then I would need something to act as the actual contact. For insulation I used gaffer's tape, which worked admirably. For the contact patches I initially tried aluminum foil but was having a bit of trouble soldering the wire to it. I spoke to my fencing coach, who has plenty of electrical soldering experience. He told me that you simply can't solder to aluminum but offered me a rather interesting bit of material: copper lamé with an electrically conductive adhesive on the back, which I did not even know existed. The stuff is perfect for repairing fencing lamés and seemed to be just what I needed. He got it from a former student who said it was manufactured my a rival electronics comapny and he had never seen it in stores. This leant a certain mystique to the project- working with rare and somewhat mysterious material and so forth.
My first thought was to simply put the wire under the lamé and let the adhesive conduct and hold it in place, but the adhesive wasn't strong enough to keep the wires from moving around. It would have held for a while, but I needed something I could really move around, so I decided it would have to be soldered in place.
After removing the crossbar and covering it with gaffer's tape, I replaced it in the typewriter and used a silver glitter pen (you can tell this was a labour of love) to mark exactly where each hammer touched it. Then I cut triangular strips of lamé and stuck them on over the contact areas. I used alternating triangles so that each one could have some spot large enough to solder the wire in place- the even ones on one side, odd on the other.
Next up were the levers themselves. Oy, what a job. Each lever was wrapped first in gaffer's tape then in lamé. Soldering onto this lamé material works, but the problem is that the stuff is so thin that is burns/melts really easily, so any more than a minute touch of the soldering iron would put a hole in it and I would have to start again.
From here I returned to the crossbar, soldering on wires (this illustration shows only one side done).
Once this was done, it was just a matter of putting it all together. But first: the special keys.
Enter
I knew from the start that I wanted my wife to be able to hit Enter by slapping the carriage return, so as to reproduce as closely as possible the feeling of actually typing on a typewriter (which you can still do on this thing, by the way- it is still fully functional as a typewriter). Took me forever to figure out how to do it, and even then I kind of cheated.
What I finally settled on is a mechanism on the carriage itself that is responsible for dinging a bell when the typist reaches the end of a line. There is a small "hammer" that is pulled right (in this illustration) across the "anvil" when the end of a line is reached (I don't know what the hell these things are really called, so I'm just making these terms up). The anvil strikes the bell, shown through the hole in the lower left. After this is done and the end of the line is reached, the carriage comes to rest as shown in the illustration. When the carriage return is slapped, the hammer moves gently across the anvil, going in the other direction (the hammer is on a spring, so it can pivot counterclockwise around the screw shown).
I wrapped the anvil in gaffer's tape and lamè and soldered a wire to it. The trouble was the hammer. I finally gave up on attaching a wire to it, as it would be almost impossible to keep it from getting jammed in the carriage, which would be moving back and forth all the time. So I cheated- the circuit for Enter is dependant not on two pieces of lamè touching, but on one bit of lamè touching the metal frame itself, in ths case the bare hammer. I figured it would be OK: since every other wire had to be insulated from the frame anyway, it would be no more likely to cause an error than any two regular key circuits accidentally touching the frame.
After wraping the backside of the hammer in gaffer's tape so it wouldn't close the circuit when it rang the bell (which still works), all I had to do was solder a bit of wire to the frame and I was set. In case there was ever any trouble with this perhaps precarious mechanism, I also wired the key on the typewriter to act as a backup Enter.
Space
The spacebar was pretty simple, as there was a spot underneath where it struck a rubber pad. All I had to do was make the usual gaffer's tape-lamè-wire contacts and it was ready.
Shift
Shift was a bit tricky. That is, it was easy to plan but because of the tight space and awkward angles it took a bit of doing to execute. Basically it was the same sort of contact, but this time wrapped around the bar that the "Shift Lock" mechanism locks on to. Unfortunately, I had to wrap the locking mechanism in gaffer's tape to prevent a circuit from forming with the frame, and this made it unable to actually lock the shift mechanism around the bar (wrapped in gaf tape and lamé).
My only real regret on this project is that I never found a way to make the Backspace key work, since the mechanism that controls it is deep inside the typewriter, far to deep to get to without risking disaster.
The next task was to solder wires onto the terminals of the circuit board left over from the keyboard. This was a nightmare- each one was maybe two milimeters from the next so getting the solder to stay on just one was a task in itself. Then I found that a few of the wires had lifted the conductor right off the board so I had to scrape off the green insulation a little further up the circuit to redo it (the diagonal one in the illustration), like a junkie looking for a new vein. And half the time fixing one solder job would heat the one next to it enough for it to come loose. Ah, memories...
A few words of advice for anyone trying this themselves: use electronics solder- it doesn't stick to breadboard. I later got curious and tested regular solder on an old NIC and it stuck everywhere. Watch what you buy.
At this point there were wires coming from the crossbar, wires coming from the levers, and wires coming from the circuit board. Time to connect them.
Like I said earlier, each key is a connection between two terminals. Some terminals have lots of keys connected to them. For example, connecting terminal 4 and terminal 19 might produce "A" but connecting terminal 9 and terminal 19 might produce "F". Since 1-13 always connected to 14-26 and vice versa (i.e. no terminal from 1 to 13 connects to any other terminal from 1 to 13), I arbitrarily decided that the levers would all connect to 1-13 and the crossbar would connect to 14-26. Next I physically grouped all the wires by terminal, so that everything going to terminal 1 would be bundled together, everything to 2 would be together, etc. and labeled the bundles with masking tape and a marker.
By the way, should you ever do this yourself, it would be handy to start off by marking on the underside of the typewriter which lever coresponds to which key. I thought of this rather late. Duh.
With all the wires bundled, it was time to connect them to their corresponding wires from the circuit board. These were crudely soldered and covered with shrink-tubing or, when I forgot to put on the tubing first, more gaffer's tape.
Fortuitously, the circuitboard fit nicely in a little space at the back of the typewriter. I made a little insulated nest of gaffer's tape and slid it in, where it fit perfectly- nice and snug. One more round of gaf tape to hold it in place...
and it was DONE. We don't talk about the several hours I spent troubleshooting it after it was declared done, including the stuck C key on Christmas morning. Ahem.
how to save money & work less (Score:5, Funny)
This also reminds me of my dad. He had old tools he preferred. No matter what fancy new modern tool we might buy for him, he prefers to use his old tools. And he never gets anything done. I thought only guys used that trick to get out of work.
This is quite a bit of work (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is quite a bit of work (Score:4, Interesting)
I bet what you've actually got there is an XT keyboard, not AT at all... physically, you can plug an AT keyboard into an XT, or vice versa, but the XT uses (used) a totally different wire protocol (8 bit serial, IIRC, whereas the AT uses 10 bits per byte). Also, the scancodes are totally different. I'm not even sure XT is the correct name for it (what did the original IBM PC use?).. anyway, most modern x86 machines freak out and start beeping like mad when you plug an old PC/XT keyboard in (either that or they just act like there's no keyboard)
If your keyboard has only 10 function keys, arranged in a double vertical row on the left, it's probably an XT/PC keyboard (I'm *pretty* sure IBM/lexmark never made an AT keyboard without all 12 function keys).
Supposedly, there's a way to use an XT keyboard in Linux 2.5 kernels, but you have to solder up some kind of adaptor, so you can plug it into a serial port. If you ever manage to get this working, let me know, as I couldn't find any docs on exactly what the adaptor does, or how to build it.
Dvoraks Anyone (Score:2)
Re:Dvoraks Anyone (Score:2)
Finally! ICQ Makes Sense! (Score:5, Funny)
OLED Based Paper (Score:2)
Oh wait...
You forgot the escape key! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You forgot the escape key! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You forgot the escape key! (Score:5, Funny)
Come to think of it, this would be an awesome torture chamber for vi users.
What about the 1 key? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about the 1 key? (Score:3, Funny)
Typists would simply use a lowercase "l" (ell) key in lieu of 1 - you can probably still see this on very old documents if you look hard enough.
Or, of course, in any Jon Katz article.
Re:What about the 1 key? (Score:3, Informative)
Yup. looking at that picture, there's definately no '1' key.
Re:You forgot the escape key! (Score:3, Informative)
Can he replace my mouse? (Score:2)
I tend to have a lot more trouble with my mouse in terms of repetetive stress.
I wonder if this guy can replace it with my old Etch-a-Sketch? :-)
Re:Can he replace my mouse? (Score:2)
What I'd love is a mouse that's shaped like a pen. Here's how my dream mouse would work: you would grip it like a pen, click the buttons with your forefinger and thumb and make a simple drawing motion on the mouse pad to move the cursor. To select, you would hold down the button and draw like you were using a highlighter to highlight text in a book. It seems to me that the motions of writing are much more natural than any mouse or trackball I've ever used, and also more intuitive.
It's such a simple thing that I'm sure someone has made one already, but I haven't been able to find it. Has anyone ever seen a mouse like this?
Add a mini-itx and then we have something (Score:2)
no backaspace key??? (Score:5, Funny)
(or maybe I'm just a really poor typist)
I can't wait... (Score:2)
Typewriter, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
One problem i can see right off the bat.. (Score:4, Interesting)
The other issue is ZERO arrow keys so if she has to move the cursor to edit or change posistion or shift to another page, she has to fuss around with the mouse, hence more chances for her carpal tunnel to get worse.
He should have butchered the machine up, disabled the automatic advance, got the backspace to work, and then found a way to wire in a 10-key keypad that would have given almost all the functions of a standard 101 KB.
Oh, I can see her now, trying to enter a URL on a browser with it... heheh it'll drive her bonkers...
Re:One problem i can see right off the bat.. (Score:3, Funny)
Just wire up an old rotary phone... =)
fundamentals of RSI (Score:5, Informative)
This just needs to be said:
1. A new keyboard isn't a good solution to an RSI problem. The only good solution is to type less. Changing your keyboard may "feel" better for awhile because you will be stressing different muscles. But you will still be stressing muscles and unless you make a fundamental change the problem will come back again.
2. Posture matters more than anything else. Perhaps with "more resistence" you are forced into a better posture. A good typing posture leaves your arms free so that all of the muscles through your arms, shoulders, and even back can come into play while you type. By distributing the work throughout as many different muscle groups as you can you eliminate the stress on each muscle.
3. You stress your muscles even when you are not typing, just by sitting in the "typing position" you are creating stress. It takes work to hold your fingers ready over the home row, and if you don't get a break from that, that alone can contribute to your RSI.
I had two rounds with RSI problems and I'll tell you how I solved it--today I'm seemingly healthy again. I tried all kinds of different keyboards, mouses, workstation arrangements, etc., but only the fundamentals worked in the end.
My first round at RSI I won by changing the fundamentals: I drastically cut the amount of time I spend sitting in front of a computer by giving up video games completely. Nothing else worked, but cutting the time I spent in front of a computer in half made a difference.
My second round with RSI was more difficult to beat, I had to change my attitude. First I took a two month hiatus from touching computers--I was consulting, so I simply stopped consulting for awhile until I felt normal again. When I returned I tried to make some changes, like altering my keyboard, and I failed. Back to another two month break. In the end I had to learn to get up and leave my workstation every so often--anywhere from 15 minutes to 30min, and just go for a little walk around the office. I also had to learn that no matter how pressing my deadlines were, if I didn't feel right, it was time to go home.
It took me a LONG time to change my work attitudes, so that I no longer sat in front of a computer for too many hours, or worked too much in a day. I learned to think while walking around the room rather than sitting at my desk, I learned to take more breaks, and these are FUNDAMENTAL things that matter--changing your keyboard is a minor factor at best.
Before I recovered I'd lost a total of five months to long breaks required to get me back to a healthy state. I was paranoid about it, I stopped on pain and took long breaks--many people feel work pressure and try to find ways to work through the pain, I just gave it up. I figured that although I suffered financially at the time (and still feel some effects of that) it was more important to me to have a long and full career in the future.
I've had things pretty well under control for the past five years now, but it takes dedication and paranoia and you have to grow a pretty serious attitude about it.
I think people who feel they can "fix it" by changing keyboards or rearranging their workstation are only prolonging their suffering.
Re:fundamentals of RSI (Score:2)
That's why I have a Microsoft Natural Elite Keyboard--because you type on this keyboard with the wrists not scrunched at an angle, I can type for much longer than with a regular keyboard. Mind you, some people need other types of ergonomic keyboards, so the MS Natural may not be suitable for everyone.
Re:fundamentals of RSI (Score:2)
For someone who has progressed further into RSI, feeling not just "a funny feeling", but distinct discomfort and even pain, there is no substitute for stopping work completely. You did the right thing by giving up work completely and getting better. Switching to another input device such a a special keyboard, trackball or pen device, can be beneficial, but I would advice it only to people with early symptons of RSI, or people that have recovered from it.
I solidly endorse your last advice: if you have progressed to the stage where you are suffering, then down tools!.
doing push-ups to avoid RSI (Score:2)
ok, the theory is that the combination of weak wrists + lots of typing can lead to rsi
if you want to keep using a computer, then the option that remains is to build up the strength of yr wrists
a good way to do that is by doing pushups
it is not however necessary to do them in a macho fashion - i.e. do as many as you can, as quickly as you can, in a row - if you try to do this you will exhaust yrself and be unable to and disinterested in doing them regularly
building yr wrist strength by doing pushups is most effective if you do them slowly and do small sets i.e do 2 slow pushups, rest, 2 more slow ones, rest, 2 more
even doing 6 pushups like this (3 sets of 2) will build up yr wrist and arm strength - find a combination that works well for you without too much strain
i do 2 sets of 7 pushups most every day and never feel twinges in my wrists any more - i am capable of doing 4, 6 or 8 sets but i find it unnecessary to do that many - 14 pushups in 2 sets of 7 is quite sufficient - but if you have trouble doing this many start with less
use hatha-yoga style breathing and breathe in while pushing up and breathe out while (slowly) coming down - it helps to focus on yr solar plexus (stomach area) and visualise this area as powering you up
side-effect warning - this will also build up yr upper arms and chest muscles - however you may consider this a feature and not a bug
switching to Kinesis keyboard IS a good solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Some years ago when I was in high school, I suffered a complete meltdown with my wrists. Since then, I have learned about the Dvorak layout and the Kinesis Contoured keyboard. Both have made a tremendous difference for me.
Quite simply, flat keyboards and the qwerty layout suck. Posture is not going to make much difference when the hands are doing so much extra work on keyboards which are not designed for the human hand and with an inefficient key layout.
The Kinesis [kinesis-ergo.com] Contoured keyboard is designed for the proportions of human fingers, and also takes advantage of the thumbs.
Naturally, if someone is in serious pain from typing, then he should stop everything immediately. After recovery is the time to think about switching to a better keyboard and better layout.
My ergonomic typing story is detailed on my Explorations in Ergonomic Typing [umbc.edu] page.
Re:fundamentals of RSI (Score:5, Informative)
If your problem is not with the keyboard, but with the mouse, an easy solution that cuts your pain in half is to simply learn to mouse with your off-hand. It's so obvious, it's easy to overlook. That way, when one starts to hurt, just switch over. Of course, this is irrelevant to typists.
Also, guitarists have had this problem sinch before keyboards were invented. Stretches for the guitarist [musicianshealth.com] are equally useful to the computer scientist.
yeah, famous last words (Score:3, Interesting)
So switching mouse hands was, for me, a disaster - I should've changed pointing devices, or my usage patterns...
Shades of Max Headroom (Score:2)
old Underwood keyboards (and the cars were all Studerbakers).
That was Brazil (Score:2)
I don't think they appeared in the Max Headroom series too.
Re:That was Brazil (Score:2)
The human side of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to go, sir! You sound like a great husband, a guy your wife was lucky to snag!
Mirror (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mirror (Score:2)
So if we break the mirror... will that mean seven years bad karma?
I know exactly what she means... (Score:2, Funny)
Brazil (Score:2, Funny)
And I'll bet the best thing is having a "shift lock", which is a fantastic time-saving feature that seems to have disappeared from modern keyboards allowing you to enter all the shift symbols on the number keys without needing to hold down shift. Its great!
And for the tablet PC... (Score:5, Funny)
Music to type by (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Music to type by (Score:2)
Seriously
sources for copper tape (Score:3, Informative)
A search for "stained glass copper tape" on Google turns up a few sources.
I thought I'd never see one of those again (Score:2)
Ooh! the nostalgia.
CTRL-ALT-DEL ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Fyi (Score:2, Insightful)
It's true that mechanical one has better feedback than those you find in computers, but don't ignore the extra straint that would be exerted after prolong use.
Your wife need a better keyboard. Some serious manufactured computer keyboards offer proper resistance and a 'click' feedback before you hit the button so that after some use your fingers can change key when feeling the 'click'. All old keyboards you found in IBM terminals offer such mechanism. Very old Acer keyboard, like one I'm using, has similar design. They are much better than mechanical one, as they've less resistance and no chance of jamming.
However, in order to lower cost, most newer keyboard behave just as you described. Not even Microsoft's Natural keyboard could offer the same feeling as in terminal keyboards.
Big mistake (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.multipledigression.com/typewriter/pics
Opps.
Re:Big mistake (Score:3, Funny)
Notice they are just deposit slips... no check blanks? Must be married
(/me ducking bride when she sees my post)
ELECTRICLERK one-ups this guy (Score:2)
a few notes on my typewriter-keyboard conversion (Score:3, Interesting)
As for my wife being limited by the regular length of a line, this isn't the case unless she were to try using it as a typewriter at the same time. Otherwise, she would still be able to type merrily away even though the carriage had come to the end of the line, so there really isn't a problem there.
One person emailed me with a link to an even cooler creation of his from a few years back: http://www.idiom.com/~decay/art_folio/letter.html
Erik
Re:umm (Score:2)
My experiance (Score:5, Interesting)
I find I get more problems with my hands from using the wheel on the mouse then from playing the guitar.
Although the motions are fairly simila, the extra bit of resistance on the guitar strings might be what prevents the stress....
I've never had any problems typing, and I've been doing that long enough. (though again I use clicky not soft keyboards).
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not what he meant. (Score:2)
Since people have managed to get Linux to run on things like XBoxes, toasters and Game Boy Advances, then it wouldn't surprise me if somebody managed to get Linux running on a typewriter-cum-keyboard.
Re:Black backgrounds give me eye stress. (Score:2)
Re:Black backgrounds give me eye stress. (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is, since this is taking advantage of a feature only LCDs have, CRTs will never be that sharp rendering text. Therefore, something that is perfectly readable on a designer's LCD is unreadable on an average surfer's CRT. Another case of "it works fine on my screen, so what's the problem?"
Re:Black backgrounds give me eye stress. (Score:2)
I turned clear type on my laptop (not the usual machine I use) and you're right, it's like night and day.
I think I still like black on white better, but at least now I realize the folks making these pages don't have a different eyeball biology than me.
Re:Good and Bead Keyboards (Score:2)
What is wrong with Keyboard manufacturers these days. MORE != BETTER
Re:Server already slow? (Score:2)
Re:It goes without saying... (Score:5, Informative)
...that this guy should learn how to solder.
Sorry. But this is simultaneously an amazing project and an act of butchery.
A few words of advice for anyone trying this themselves: use electronics solder- it doesn't stick to breadboard. I later got curious and tested regular solder on an old NIC and it stuck everywhere. Watch what you buy."Regular solder"? Is that plumber's solder, like you'd use to sweat two pipes together?
Solder includes chemicals (flux) which help to clean the pieces of metal which are being attached. Electronic solder is either rosin core or organic core; they're fairly gentle. Acid core is used by plumbers and the post-soldering remains of the flux attack electronic components over the years.
Based on some of the pictures, I believe that the soldering to the PC board was done with an overly-large soldering iron. A fine grounded-tip 15-25W soldering iron is *essential*. My favorites are the tiny little Ungar irons from just before Weller bought them out.
BTW, it *is* possible to solder to aluminum, but it's very different. For one thing, aluminum coats itself almost instantly with a very fine layer of very hard aluminum oxide. Solder will not stick to this layer. The other problem is that aluminum conducts heat away from the attempted soldered connection. A large-wattage iron with a sharpened tip will do the trick. Apply a puddle of solder and, scrape the aluminum under the puddle with the tip of the hot iron. A bond will form, and the strength will be mostly dependent on how well you scraped the aluminum under the puddle.
Gaffer tape has a tendency to dry out, shrink and peel off over time. This limits the longevity of this particular modification. Of course, you probably don't want to cut up the typewriter since you chose it because you like it, and they don't make 'em anymore, so I applaud the reversibility.
Rather than attempting to make a distinct "switch" for each button, why not simply have a scheme where each keypress will ground a wire to the crossbar? Of course, that won't work with the keyboard's matrix arrangement, but that can be easily solved in a minute.
PC board looks like a good way to insulate parts of your switch assemblies, since it's cheap, readily-available, easy to work with, and you can use it to make narrow switches.
Onto each one of the levers (which are steel) you could solder a small piece of printed circuit board with a custom pattern. (You can buy printed circuit board etching supplies at Radio Shack.) One part of this tiny board's pattern is used to solder it to the lever. Then a gap, with no copper on the board. The opposite end of this pattern is a place to which you can solder a flexible wire and a small fold of some springy nickel-plated steel.
The tiny board then rides with the lever and the new springy-steel contact then connects the wire to the crossbar.
As for connecting the keyboard to the matrix, my first thought is to use optocouplers. Optocouplers are merely an LED and a photocell built into the same case. They're meant to isolate different parts of electronic circuits.
Solder a piece of flexible wire to the crossbar, and connect that directly to the keyboard's ground on the PS/2 or DIN connector. (You can get the pinout from the Internet.) Take the +5V lead from the keyboard and put about a 500 ohm resistor in series with it, then carry that across to the anodes of the LEDs in the optocouplers. Connect each cathode to each wire coming off the lever boards. Now, when you hit a key, the LED in the corresponding optocoupler should be lit.
The photocell in an optocoupler is actually a kind of transistor, which is essentially an electronic switch. Connect each optocoupler to its corresponding pair of contacts on the keyboard's matrix. Make sure you get the polarity right, a quick check of the keyboard with a voltmeter should do it.
Choose an optocoupler with a good transfer characteristic; probably Darlington-outputs. LEDs need current limiting, and that's what the 500 ohm resistor is for. Now, there's ONE resistor being used to power all those LEDs in the optocoupler, and it limits the single or total LED current to 10mA. This is done because motherboards often have fuses to keep keyboard current below about 50mA. Even if you hold down all the keys on the keyboard, you will not draw more than 10mA. Blowing the keyboard fuse on your motherboard would suck.
Now, when the Smithsonian comes calling and wants your typewriter because FDR used to keep it in the trunk of the Presidential Limo? Desolder the wire from the crossbar, desolder all the little pieces of printed circuit board from the levers, and the typewriter is undamaged.