(Nearly) Zero-Force Keyboard

ahertz writes: "Just ran across another nifty keyboard, the FingerBoard from FingerWorks. It's like a giant touchpad (although the technology is a bit different), so you can type with virtually zero force. It also works as a mouse, and lets you perform guesture based commands. Would something like this be good for someone with RSI?" To me, this looks like the most unresponsive, most annoying possible keyboard, even if I'm a QUERTY typist rather than a shuffle-weird-disc-items typist, and trackpads always seem wibbly to me.

QUERTY??

Er, QUERTY, eh? Didn't you notice that you weren't using the keys at the top-left of your keyboard?

The Perfect Keyboard

I've been a keyboard hoarder for too long now. Here's a list of things I think the perfect keyboard would have.

• Boxed with a device that physically proxies between the port on your motherboard and the actual keyboard. This piece of hardware would remap all keyboard requests to dvorak, or perhaps other key mappings.
• Tactile keys that don't resist key presses worth a damn, they just fall under the lightest touch and go click
• A hardware option to override BIOS key repeating and have rapid fire like the old NES Advantage controller on the Nintendo - you hold down one button, and the system registers massive repeats. I would use this to up my key repeat rate from 30 to an inane number around 200. Rare few people might remember the TSR Hyperkey for DOS that had this same effect.
• Macro recording and playback.
• There are no damn windows keys, ever. Logitech bonus keys are out, too.
• Function keys on the left, perhaps doubled with the ones on the top.
• Bundled with one of those keyboard skins, because you can never buy any that fit your keyboard perfectly.
• Scroll lock, num lock and caps lock rights in the upper right hand corner, so light flashing programs don't act stupi.
• Big backwards 'L' shaped enter key.
• Long wire
• Phat plastic design that allows you to drum on the thing below the spacebar and have it sound like a wicked snare drum. I hate keyboards that are too solid sounding.
• Can withstand a few punches.

Given a few different circumstances, I may have gone into producing such a device years ago.

\\\ SLUDGE

ouch!

As a touch-typist looking for a nice long-travel clickety-clack USB board, this looks abysmal. I can't see how the claimed RSI benefits will come about - try "typing" on your desktop (real, not virtual) for a bit to see what I mean.

Yeah, right...

Looking at the image [fingerworks.com], I can't imagine why I would type with my hands crossed.

The picture shows an image of a right hand on the left hand side of the keyboard.

Re:The Perfect Keyboard

Wat I would also like is a choice in material. I think plastic is a little uncomphy when you are sweating. I think I would really like wood.

I like it!

Ok, well everyone here seems to be down on this technology but I think it would really be useful. People are complaining about the sensitivity but from what I understand it reads your hand position, not the points that you are touching. That means that your hand does not even have to touch the surface to make a gesture.

From the FAQ [fingerworks.com]: Isn't the MultiTouch Surface just an oversize touchpad?

No. The technology used in our MultiTouch surface produces images of the hands and fingers as they approach the surface. In effect, a video is created that records the complete motion of all fingers and the other parts of the hands.

It also goes on to say that after you start the gesture/keyboard input you can rest your hand on the surface. It is supposed to be smart enough to differenciate between gestures and resting (I'd like to see that!).

And I agree that it would be great for Macintosh users (layout/graphics operations).

BTW: Check here [fingerworks.com] for details, including the price of $289 (which puts it in the ballpark of the Happy Hackers Keyboard).

--
Later...

Kewl! It explicitly supports Linux!

Quoting from their FAQ [fingerworks.com], 4th question:

What is the physical interface?

The FingerBoard connects to Windows/linux computers through the USB port or through the PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports.

However, I wonder why they chose to spell Linux with lower caps, rather than upper caps as they did for Windows? Multi-touch technology failing to reliably sense shift key?

Re:Don't dis Dr. Querty.

We should ask the guys of Microsoft what to do with this... They probably will dynamically change key so you have to look for them all the time! And finally some annoying paperclip will say: "you do not seem to use the 'e'. Should I show it in the future?" A nightmare!

Bad idea

OK, so it'll be easier to wipe coffe off it, and it looks kinda like it's from Star Trek. But I really wouldn't like to replace a usual keyboard with one of these for the following reasons:

1. I like to have to exert force on keys - I can currently rest on the home keys or even brush past others without my cack-handedness appearing on screen.
2. How on Earth would you touch type on this? I'm not the greatest touch typist (got bored with Mavis Beacon too easily), but I still like to be able to type about half of what I'm writing without staring at the keyboard.
3. I've seen similar products that are too slow, or unresonsive (there was some stupid programmable game controller like this a few years back with interchangeable sheets for different games, that was horrible to use) - does this suffer any of these problems?

There's probably other potential problems, but even from a cursory examination it seems like a waste of cash. Thoughts/opinions?

Re:This is okay but...

I know this is common knowledge but qwerty was developed with the opposite of usability in mind

This is actually an urban myth, and a false one. QWERTY was developed with ergonomics and optimal typing speed in mind. It was also influenced by some mechanical restriction that are not anymore a problem, but that wasn't all. Unbiased studies have never shown QWERTY to be significantly slower (or faster) than alternative layouts.

Keyboards, then and now

I must say that the direction keyboards has gone to, from the clickyclick '80s keyboard to the unusable cheap devices available now, could be one of the sources of RSI. After reading the documents on the zero-force keyboard, you'll see that one cannot hold their fingers on the keyboard while typing. It is however possible to bang all 10 fingers simultaniously on the keyboard to indicate a "rest".

Such keyboards might be very interesting in places where it is necessery to keep dust and dirt away (like in kitchens), but as a working keyboard I think it misses the comfort of an "old" keyboard. I still think it's a step into the right direction however. Maybe time will learn. At least these keyboards look quite "startrek" like :]

I had one of these 18 years ago

It was called a ZX81.

TS/1000, Anyone?

I suppose most people who are looking at this and think it's neat have never used a Timex Sinclair 1000 (a nice computer with a standard 2K of RAM, but my family splurged and bought the 16K expansion module). We loved the thing (bought several games, including frogger -- load off your tape player and play in glorious black and white!), but had one major problem using it for any period -- the keyboard was a membrane one like this. You would push buttons, and you didn't know if it happened or not. Of course, this condition was made worse b/c the thing was so slow that there would usually be a delay.

Trust me, you fingers like tactile response. I always figured the Star Trek keyboards gave some sort of vibration or something back to the fingers. Think about it -- do you want your weapons control system NOT controlled by a button that you can feel push in?

Keyboard with no "feel"

In my country we have a few ATMs with keyboards similar to these and although they might look cool and have few moving parts, they are just too sensitive, and as a result, people tend to mistype alot. I don't know about most people, but without the feel of the keys I'd have a hard time navigating a keyboard like that and would have to resort to hunt and peck. The horror! The horror!

I don't care how Star Treky people might think it is. It actually isn't. Everything in Star Trek is high res touchscreens with GUI-interfaces. People in Star Trek do not spend hours on end typing stuff in, they dictate to the computer, that's why they don't need traditional keyboards.


A penny for your thoughts.

guesture based commands

lets you perform guesture based commands

Oh dear. If my laptop starts to understand some of the gestures I make to it, it would never talk to me again.

Anyone used TO7 ?

most unresponsive, most annoying possible keyboard

I have used Thomson TO7's at school a long, long time ago. Keys were flat but did require a non-zero force, and in fact you had to push them madly to type a character...

OTOH, that zero-force keyboard could be a step in the direction of movement-activated controls in the HHGG, where you just wave at them to activate them, with all the annoying side-effects you can imagine.

Don't dis Dr. Querty.

He was the greatest mind ever to have developed a keyboard layout. Far greater than that wannabe Dvorak.

Any hack can study character frequency and place the keys to minimize finger travel (hint: layouts based on past usage are optimized for use in the past!), but it takes a real genius to create a design that lets you spell "typeuriter" using only the top row.

However, there is a better keyboard design, which promises to reduce instruction time to a fraction of current cost by the use of a surpassingly elegant mnemonic device:

\Mr.Jock:TV"
quizPhD,bags
([few])lynx?

And who created this great innovation?

It was found among the lost notes of none other than the great Jock Querty! He invents better dead than Dvorak did alive!
--

Not for me

I couldn't use something like this. I am a very fast typist. I need the tactile feel of the keys to know when I have successfully made a keystroke. My keyrate takes a nose dive when I use a keyboard that has a different pressure threshhold than the one that I am currently typing on.

How about the rest of you?