Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!uwvax!umn-d-ub!umn-cs!griesel From: griesel@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU (Curtis W. Griesel) Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng Subject: Re: one-finger keyboard Message-ID: <16518@umn-cs.CS.UMN.EDU> Date: 23 Oct 89 21:25:08 GMT References: <1989Oct6.221013.8269@agate.berkeley.edu> <1259@cbnewsj.ATT.COM> <783@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> <604@pd1.ccd.harris.com> Reply-To: griesel@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Curtis W. Griesel) Distribution: comp Organization: CSci Dept., University of Minnesota, Mpls. Lines: 28 >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. The PC Serial Aid, by DADA, which I've mentioned earlier as the interface box used for many alternative keyboards, has a scanning system analogous to this built into its software. There are other similar products, too, most notably the Words+ system, made in California, that the physicist Stephen Hawkings (sp?) uses. The problem with scanning systems is that they are s - l - o - w ! Direct selection, provided by some kind of alternative keyboard, or coding methods provided by switches are, at this point, preferred. I think we need to seriously rethink the issue of human language generation. I doubt that the formation of ideas occurs in units of letters, or even words, at the cognitive level; yet this is the method that is being used for current machine interfaces. I don't have any concrete ideas, it just seems that some fundamental changes in the approach to this problem are needed before we'll see drastic improvements in performance. -- Curtis W. Griesel EQUAL Project (EQuipment for Universal Access to Learning), U of Minnesota Internet: griesel@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu; Voice: 612/625-9081; TDD: 612/626-1346 U S Mail: 4-192 EE/CSci Building; 200 Union Street SE; Minneapolis, MN 55455