Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!uflorida!winnie!pd1!bill From: bill@pd1.ccd.harris.com (Bill Davis) Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: one-finger keyboard Message-ID: <604@pd1.ccd.harris.com> Date: 18 Oct 89 20:45:25 GMT References: <1989Oct6.221013.8269@agate.berkeley.edu> <1259@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> <783@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> Reply-To: bill@pd1.ccd.harris.com (Bill Davis) Distribution: comp Organization: Harris Controls and Composition Div., Melbourne Fla. Lines: 36 In article mef@dalek.silvlis.com (Mary Ellen Foley) writes: >I kind of figured a one-finger keyboard would be good for people >who (don't laugh, I'm serious) are handicapped, and hold a pencil >in an otherwise-useless hand, and move their whole arm to type, >or else hold the pencil (or other pointer) in their teeth. I dunno, >well the original poster please stand up and explain? > >I'm interested in uses of computers to make life easier for >handicapped people. Is anybody else out there interested in >this? Have the particular human-machine interface problems >of these people been discussed here before? (I only dip into >comp.cog-eng occasionally, so maybe I missed it) (ON the other >hand, maybe this is the wrong group for such a discussion) For what it is worth: I am not an expert in this, but I have been exposed to a system under development in 1983. I don't know if it was completed and put on the market or not. The basic idea was to have the letters scroll by on the screen with a box in the center. Kind of like the numbers on a gas pump except you could see the letters coming and time it to improve your speed. As the desired letter came into the box, the user would hit a bumper with the forehead. This would select the letter. The system was being developed for amputees and people who had crippling artheritis. It was to be assumed that the head could be moved and nothing else, so that the maximum number of handicapped people could use it. Obviously, it wouldn't work for the blind. -- * Truth comes as an enemy only to those who have lost the ability to welcome * * it as a friend. ** Be thankful for your troubles. If your job did not have * * problems, they could hire someone else to do your job at half the cost. * Bill Davis EMAIL: w.davis@ccd.harris.com (<-best) uunet!hcx1!pd1!bill