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Hardware

Pedals for your PC (but not for gaming) 82

Posted by CmdrTaco from the works-for-cars dept.
Kris_J writes "Bilbo Innovations produce a set of pedals that plug in between your keyboard and PC. They are used to emulate keystrokes - the default is CTRL, ALT & SHIFT, but they'll do lots more than that. " Maybe its just my aching wrists, but I'm beginning to wonder more and more about things like this. Are pedals a good idea for ergonomics? Anyone tried it? Will it work under Linux?
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Pedals for your PC (but not for gaming) More

Pedals for your PC (but not for gaming)

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  • I expect someone to program a hardware driver for the pedal so that they can type in Morse Code.

    Windows 98 loading...
    di-di-di dah-dah-dah di-di-di !!!

  • How am I supposed to play Quake with my feet???

    Check the archives dangling from here [userfriendly.org] for illustrations.

  • I tried turning a normal mouse into a foot mouse. It didn't work too well - I think I prefer operating a touchpad with my thumbs.
  • Posted by Eidos:

    Actually, I see a perfectly good reason to own a set of these. That is, if you were a person with some sort of wrist or hand handicap.

    I can only imagine how difficult it must be for a small percentage of the population to hit Alt-Y or Alt-1 or some such thing with only one hand or with tendon trouble, arthritis, etc....

    Just a thought.

  • I've never done it, but I've heard of people taking a track ball (the real thing dummy, not those thumb whatchmacallits) putting foot pedals on the buttons, and useing their feet to control it. Not sure it would work great for games, but for choosing your window (What else do you need a mouse for anyway?) it is said to work great.

    With my carpil tunnel problems I'd like to try it. Maybe I could then play my mandolin wihtout pain.

  • When I dislocated my shoulder three years ago, I was in a nasty brace for a while and a sling after that, so I nearly got the company I worked for to get some of those for me. Turned out I was able to get enough freedom with the sling to do full-fledged typing, so we didn't end up getting them, but if you're one-armed I think it wouldn't be a bad idea.

    Another alternative no one has mentioned is the chord keyboard, one of which is commercially known as the Bat. Again, I've never actually tried it, although there are times when I hate the cost of moving from keyboard to mouse.

    My personal idea, free for any takers, is the "mouse keyboard." Basically, movement of the keyboard itself (or perhaps just pressure, a la SpaceTec's spaceorb et al) would serve as mouse movements. This would be meant for more as a supplemental device -- there's no reason you should have to be stuck with just one mouse/trackball/etc.
  • Haven't pedals been around ever since MIDI was invented? They were just used to turn your computer into an instrument. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to reuse the same technology from MIDI to control the keyboard? It looks like another company just figured out how to make money off of old technology by creating a proprietary interface and driver.

  • Well, you've already got Control, Shift and Alt on the keyboard, so the obvious use for the pedals is as Meta, Myper and Super modifiers.

    M-x 1000 praise-emacs

    Of course, if you've got one of those dodgy Windows keyboards you can always use those wacky extra keys instead -- remember, xkeycaps [jwz.org] is your friend.


    --
    W.A.S.T.E.
  • I've also wondered about this stuff.
    I think using it for keystrokes is kinda stupid - it would be better to use it as an alternative to a mouse so you wouldn't ever need to move your hands off the keyboard.


    Still not satisfactory - bring on the implants. Humanity doesn't have long to go, we'll all plug into our computers, then we'll mesh with the hardware, then we'll use the hardware in our heads for enhanced communication, but multiple communicating processors are really just a single machine once communication bandwidth gets high enough... we will become the Borg.. any other existence will seem shallow, and eventually literally unthinkable (try to imagine being a mollusk). All within a few hundred years. Isn't technology wonderful.



  • The ENTER key is one of the most used on the keyboard, uses the weakest finger, and takes one of the longest stretches to reach. That'd be the first key I'd want on a pedal. And since it's not a modifier key, it wouldn't take as much coordination to use...
  • Check out the Jargon file entry on double bucky [fwi.uva.nl] complete with this song:

    Double Bucky
    Double bucky, you're the one!
    You make my keyboard lots of fun.
    Double bucky, an additional bit or two:
    (Vo-vo-de-o!)
    Control and meta, side by side,
    Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide!
    Double bucky! Half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!
    Oh,
    I sure wish that I
    Had a couple of
    Bits more!
    Perhaps a
    Set of pedals to
    Make the number of
    Bits four:
    Double double bucky!
    Double bucky, left and right
    OR'd together, outta sight!
    Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of
    Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of
    Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!
    --- The Great Quux (with apologies to Jeffrey Moss)
  • Why do I think that this development might just herald the return of the space-cadet keyboard?

    (The keyboard equivalent of this command is [left-pedal]+[right-pedal]+[meta]+[left-shift]+[Q] )
  • ...but it's very simple, I like that. did anyone read in the FAQ you have to reprogram the pedals with M$..."Does it work with OS/2? [UNIX, WindowsNT, NeXT Step, etc.]
    Yes. However, to reprogram the pedals you would have to run the Bilbo pedal reassignment software under DOS or Windows. "
    http://www.bilbo.com/faq.html

    how U going to do that with *nix?
  • I know we aren't talking about Gaming, but a guy
    who regularly whipes the walls with me in quake used foot pedals to strafe.
  • As one of those people who tends to shake his leg involuntarily, I can see what would happen should I get a device like this:

    I wOuLd TyPe lIkE sOmE ElItE IrC fReAk.
  • I sure could use this. After about an hour or two of mousing, my arm is sore all the way up to my shoulder.

    However, rarely is there a time when I am sitting down that one of my legs is not bouncing and twitching around. (I know I'm not the only one). This would solve a lot.

    Brian
  • Ever since I redefined my keyboard (away from QWERTY, to my own layout), I've never had any such problems... OK, I don't type at 500 cpm with it yet (I do with QWERTY), but I like it more and more...

    /* Steinar */
  • I was actually thinking about this a while ago could be a fun way to get that advantage on those games :^P
  • Certainly such a setup seems worthwhile if you have aching wrists. Anything that reduces stretching is worth a try.

    However, if your wrists are healthy I'd hesitate to habituate yourself to a setup that will hamper you if you ever have to work on a machine that doesn't have pedals (at least w/ a Dvorak (sp?) keyboard, you can usually remap easily if you have to work on another machine - but if you got used to pedals, you'd have to bring them with you).
  • Is it posible to use those old Commodore 64/128/amiga compatible joysticks/trackballs in Linux on PCs? The plug is compatible with the cua's but I fear that the pins are somewhat wrong.

    A friend of mine had one of those huge trackballs on his C64, and it would be fun to use it in X for feet movement.

    On the other hand: Does X support 2 miceinputs at the same time?

  • a company came out with the Foot Mouse in 1985. I worked for a company writing DOS drivers for it. It was a Foot Joystick, really, a 3" mushroom that you shoved around with your foot. Trouble was it was spring-loaded with very strong springs so you had to use too much leg muscle -- OK if standing, no good if sitting. Maybe it was a prototype. It never went anywhere in the market.
  • yep, in X with reasonable toolkits (motif doesn't count), shift-insert pastes the selection. I wish the Linux console did the same; maybe there's a way to do it in the keymap. and every decent window manager lets you bind keys to activate specific windows and warp the cursor to them, so you can easily define keys to pop up xterms in various positions, warp to them, etc... useful to keep your hands on the keyboard. and the ultimate in mouse laziness: a key that tells a running netscape to go to the url in the current selection.
  • I've been meaning to switch to Dvorak for so long; right now I type US-qwerty no matter what the keyboard layout actually is (it's sucky french azerty most of the time). the thing that's been keeping me from dvorak is thinking that it'll mess up my vi(m) bindings. once hjkl are not in their usual position, you have to re-learn vi. that, or make qwerty-bindings for all its command keys...
  • From their webpage:

    Because the control box supplies standard scan codes into the keyboard port, no resident software driver is used. If the user accepts the default " Ctrl - Alt - Shift " configuration, no software is needed - just plug in the pedals and play! The only purpose of the supplied software, is to reassign the pedals (if desired) to keys other than the default keys. (To do this, DOS or Windows must be running.) After the reassignment is completed, the pedal software can be removed from computer memory. The new configuration will be stored by the control box, even when the power is turned off.

  • i work with sun boxen now and i miss my pinky esc oh so bad....sniff snifff.....damn you, damn you all....ok i'm better now.
  • ...goes well with coffee, a geek staple.
  • I've been using an M$ 'natural' kbd for over two years, and I'm very comfortable with it. Keeps my wrists from getting tinggly. But I'd love to try it in Dvorak.

    The greatest kbd I've ever used came from a 'Northgate' computer, in the early '90's. Remember those? They had a "*" key and a "" key where the "Win" keys are on the clone boards. That REALLY made it handy.

    So I guess it's just a matter of choice.

    I can't see how anyone can like the IBM mice though. Those two freaky button-bars, and the jacked-up rear end that made it look like a dragster.. That was definite abuse on my hands.

    Any experience with trackballs out there? Does having them in one place make it easier to reach for them - when you DO have to take your hands of the keys?
  • I've got the Kinesis Classic keyboard and their 3-button foot pedal ( that I use for ctrl-shift-mouse )

    It's really great from an ergo point of view because you almost never have to "chord".

    Chording is bad because you often have to stretch your hands in unnatural ways to do it. I'll recommend this keyboard and the footpad to anyone who will listen.
  • a device called a "rat" (not sure who makes/made it) that was essentially a grossly oversized mouse that sits on the floor under your desk, operated by your feet... one of the guys i used to work with was fond of them (although he still actually preferred an optical mouse for his own use...).


  • YASA (Yet Another Stupid Add-on)

    For some people this can be handy, but I doubt you can speed up the interaction with your PC dramatically.
  • no no no !!
    these are Metal Interface Thingies
    just some Dumb Old Devices
    they say it's Easy Usage
    but it's just Waste Of Money

    btw, what does WOM stand for :-)
  • I can't believe that Bill Joy intended people to use the key marked Esc. After all the whole phillosphy behind vi is not taking you hands off the home row. I believe he meant people to use Ctrl-[ which is quite reachable from the home row - if you have a Ctrl key to the left of your A key.
  • samf: please tell me which keys you have on the
    4 big thumb keys: I'm thinking of putting spc, ret, del, and control on them and then using
    Emacs's keyboard-translate-table to translate ret to esc.
    (I dont need esc on a thumb key when I'm not in Emacs and I can use Control-m instead of a thumb key for ret when in Emacs)
  • Didn't Xerox Parc investigate foot pedals for pointer control back in the 1970's?
  • Well, I don't know about this thing, but there used to be a company out there that produces a product, intended for those are disabled, that allowed input of text via code key/paddles/keyer.

    It's been a while since I saw it, couldn't tell you where to find it.
  • This means you can program them to CTRL-ALT-DEL and have "emergency brakes" for Windoze :-)

  • I mean, if it plugs inline with the keyboard, it's just generating the signals for those keys.. Unless you have to use some windoze proggy to program the things...

    anyway, i just want the neural adapter... read something about that.. they were using alpha wave modulation to generate on/off signals, and using a software program to convert these into keystrokes.. not long now boys..
  • Q: What is wrong with "Plug and play" concept?
    A: Foreplay is missing.

  • Ditto (Score:1)

    by samf ( 18149 )
    I too can vouch for the Kinesis. And, I have also gone Dvorak, but I didn't do this until many months after buying the Kinesis. Of the two changes, I think the Kinesis made the most difference. But I'm an emacs user, and the control and alt keys on each thumb is a huge win.

    Problems people will site are `no one else can use my keyboard' and `I won't be able to use any other keyboard'. With the former, Kinesis sells a `combiner' so that you can have a flat keyboard in tandem, if that's a big worry. For the latter, it's possible to switch back and forth, the flat one is just uncomfortable. (But using Dvorak opens a whole other can of worms!)

    Does it work with Linux? Of course, provided your machine can take a PC keyboard. If not, Kinesis sells adapters for Sun and Mac. They have some software that runs on DOS, but you don't need it, not even for the QWERTY/Dvorak switching.

    I have no financial interest in Kinesis, other than I'd like them to stay in business so I can buy more keyboards when the two I own wear out!
  • I used these at Comdex last November. They were surprisingly easy to use. I can't vouche for long-term ergonomic effects, but they were comfortable short-term. Probably the best thing about them was that I could use a GUI without constantly taking my hands off the keyboard. It was a little tricky to learn (left foot forward and back for left and right-click, right foot for moving the cursor) but didn't take long.
  • Dvorak do not do my day ;)

    Uh! I use iBM Ballistic 2H Keyball, it's fun. And it's eXtremely usable. Big Ball (left side is (iBM) blue and another is white) and I just hold it with my both hands! And I can press enter, ctrl, alt just with my thumbs! First it was quite tricky to learn wirte (ups!) with this ball, but now i type like Demon from AD&D! I think i can type at least 1k kpbm with this ball...

  • As you all know, one day we will all plug some chip directly to our brain. Untill then, I think every body part we have should be used for the human interface with the machine.

    I don't know about you guys, but I write ovec 8000 lines of code every week, and I've pretty much used all possible shortcuts on my keyboard.

    This actulally provides me with 2 more. Cool.

    papi
  • I have a friend who lives in Emacs and he has pedals mapped to Meta and Control. He was getting hand problems and they helped him out. The pedals combined with some wild ergonomic keyboard and a Dvorak keymapping also seem to make him the fastest typist I know.

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