I see from the text that this gadget is patented. What permission does the reader have regarding its construction and use? I assume that if the reader builds it, he/she will have to write their own software code for it, as no code listing is provided in the article.
Maybe I'm making some assumptions here but my assumptions based upon the very breif article here is that you would need to enter a two digit code for each letter or some code for a word. But this I can not see becoming very popular at all, there is a reason by D.O.S. is no longer used by the common average user today. Syntax code requires a person to memorize a series of codes and translate them. Which personally I really would not want to have to go back to entering syntax again.
After watching the video which explains a lot more about what Wayne has developed . I still think this would not be well suited to the consumer market at all, it may work in the markets he intended it for but again requires memorization of syntax which people really dislike having to do. While I used to be fairly proficent in using D.O.S. and able to write some interesting AutoEXEC.BAT files for my PC in the 1990's. I still would not want to go back to syntax code.
Nice job Wayne, although I have to admit, I'd much prefer the larger real estate of my full-out QWERTY keyboard. Personally, it would require way too much thinking or rethinking on my part to get any kind of use out of your device whereas typing on the same old standard keyboard is totally natural for me. I applaud your efforts, though, and your creativity!
I used to be a batch-file wizard, too. I loved DOS, because it was simple and worked well, but it was a pain to have to learn its syntax.
I think this invention would be useful for certain disabilities as the keyboard could be adapted to whatever fingers or body parts the disabled user is able to move. I imagine there are disabled people already out there, using something similar, that has been custom-designed for them. They would already have to learn some kind of syntax code to communicate. I would not recommend using this invention to text from the steering wheel of your car as that would still be distracting. I'm sure there are situations where this invention would be useful, but I don't think it's something that everybody is going to want to buy and learn to use.
I had the same thought, armorris. It might be well-suited for people with certain disabilities, including those who may have lost the use of a hand, or have limited use of one hand. I'm wondering it Wayne Rasanen has considered it for those users.
Hi armorris, try it at home and if you like it and want to make stuff to sell, we should talk. No code is provided but I spelled it out so someone could write it out. I hope to have some keyboards to go by the end of the year and just a few on ebay now if someone is eager to try it.
I really don't think about it in terms of numbers at all, it's just moving one finger and then another. It's more about thumbs for letters and index fingers for punctuation, etc. so your dos comment shows your engineers brain trying to classify it with numbers. True, I did show the keys with just numbers on them but trying to show all the letters and functions would be too confusing. You can see one like that on in10did.com. As far as using it in a car goes, it might only get power when the gear shift is in park. That's the only way to really be safe, but really I hope it can help the disabled. In fact I just did a presentation on Wednesday at the James A Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa for about a dozen doctors, nurses and staff. I gave them one to experiment with and have given others to the lighthouse for the vision impaired and the Florida Assistive Technology program. Maybe not right for everyone but it could be great for someone.
Sorry but chorded keyboards are older than personal computers. He may have gotten a patent for this particular configuration but the principle has been in use for a VERY long time. 2 specific examples would be (1) stenographic machines used in the court reporting tade use chorded keyboards. (2) the five key chord keyboard was developed and used extensively by Doug Englebart's NLS project at SRI in the late 70s. You directly input the bits of each character in teletype (Baudot) code. Englebart also invented the "mouse" at about the same time. Both devices were carried over to the Xerox Alto (1973) you can see a photo at: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/07/0702_retelling_computer_history/image/15_xerox_alto_workstation.jpg
Chording is not new and a Microwriting had 20000 followers, probably more than any other chording system.
The difficulty with all systems is convincing people they can learn the codes. Microwriting lives on in CyKey. www.cykey.co.uk. A demo video can be seen and speeds comparable with average touch typists can be achieved. The actual alphabet is based on the shape of the letters, something you learnt when you were 4 or 5 years old and hence most people can touch type the alphabet in about 20 minutes.
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