DaChesserCat's Journal: Replacement for traditional keyboard / mouse

The problem with a traditional keyboard and mouse is that you need to take one hand off the keyboard to work the mouse, then move it back. Various tricks have been tried to get around that; the Trackpoint, introduced by IBM, comes to mind. It lets you keep both hands on the keyboard and be able to "mouse" without moving your hands.

Is there a better way?

I've been looking at a lot of gaming keypads. These are good for one hand but they are lacking enough keys to be a full keyboard.

There are plenty of other, reduced-key keyboards out there. When you only have the usual alphanumeric keys and modifiers, how do you get function keys, arrow keys, etc? You have multiple layers. Indeed, the caps-lock modifier key "switches layers" on most keyboards, giving each key multiple functions. Ditto for control and alternate.

If you have even fewer keys, you need even more layers. Which means you need even more modifers. But if you have fewer keys, you have fewer modifiers. Meaning you won't be able to do the whole thing on one keypad.

So, how about using a gaming mouse, like the the Logitech G600? It has several buttons on the side. With the right software, it should be possible to use multiple of those buttons as modifiers, enabling different layers on the keypad. You could use your thumb, holding a button on the side of the mouse, to select the layer for the keypad and then use the keypad to input various things.

You'd probably want a different layout than the traditional QWERTY. An interesting article explains the logic behind a different keyboard layout. I'd like one where the layout is optimized such that you can "roll" your fingers to type commonly-used sequences. If you built something optimized for English-language words, you would see that "the," "and," and "for" are commonly used, so each should be lined up on a row. Seeing as how such a keypad would have 4 rows of keys on it (16 separate keys), you should probably try to setup:

• 2 layers with letters and connected-use punctuation marks
• a layer of numbers (probably lined up like a numeric keypad) and connected-use punctuation
• a layer of less-used punctuation
• cursor-control and F1 - F12

That's 4 layers. Plus the ability to shift alphas (you can hold down the shift key while typing, so you probably don't need a caps-lock), control, alternate, etc. That eats up a lot of those extra buttons on the mouse.

It would allow you to put a keypad under one hand, a mouse under the other and spread those arms nice and wide, minimizing the carpal-tunnel strain we get from bending our wrists to accommodate a normal keyboard.