Chording Keyboards vs Dvorak or Querty

Peter Crowther Peter.Crowther at IT-IQ.com
Thu Feb 24 11:58:18 UTC 2000


> From: Aran Lunzer [mailto:aran at meme.hokudai.ac.jp]
> In the end I gave up using it because of frustration at the inherent
> limitation of having no rollover; every character is a separate
> down...up of some combination of fingers, which one can repeat (say)
> four or five times a second, but this is painfully slow when 
> compared to
> the ability to hit sequences such as "ing" or "ion" as pretty much a
> single stroke on a QWERTY.

This is why I think chord keyboards won't catch on.  A 120wpm typist [yes, I
do know one] has to type 12 characters per second.  Using each finger as a
separate keystroke, it's barely possible --- the muscles will work at that
speed as the duty cycle is much less than 100%.  But cycling your muscles at
12Hz, reliably, to use a chord keyboard?  Not convinced.  I think it has a
niche market as a one-handed keyboard you don't have to locate well --- I
saw a dive computer a while back that had a chord keyboard on a string, a
display that went inside your (modified) dive mask, and you wore the rest as
a backpack.  That would work well.  But I don't see many people using them
on desks, or even on lap- or palm systems.  There's too much convenient flat
space around to put a keyboard near the display.

Boy, I wish I'd never started this topic by mentioning Dvorak!

		- Peter





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