Chording Keyboards vs Dvorak or Querty

BMCzech at aol.com BMCzech at aol.com
Thu Feb 24 04:48:06 UTC 2000


The Engelbart keyset really had 31 * 8 because the three mouse buttons served 
as shifts.  With no mouse buttons you had the lower case letters, one mouse 
button upper.  Then you could do special characters and control characters 
etc.  We were able to make a driver for it a few years back and used it as an 
input device to a VisualWorks application.

It's most useful for command line interfaces where you have to rapidly do 
short key inputs and pointing.  Even for long texts Doug goes to the normal 
keyboard even though he could easily do typing as quickly using the keyset.

I guess the thought of people having to learn what appears to be a tough 
keyboard is just a bit too much to force on people even though you could 
learn it in an afternoon.  After all, Apple even removed two mouse buttons!

Cheers,
Bob





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