Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!jik
From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Optimal keyboards
Message-ID: <1990Sep4.225620.17176@athena.mit.edu>
Date: 4 Sep 90 22:56:20 GMT
References: <24190@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <1990Aug25.015334.16702@nmt.edu> <1990Aug30.005509.2877@athena.mit.edu> <1523@madnix.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Reply-To: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 19

In article <1523@madnix.UUCP>, zaphod@madnix.UUCP (Ron Bean) writes:
|>    It doesn't matter how slow a chord keyboard is, because it's not
|> supposed to _replace_ the full keyboard; it's supposed to _supplement_ the
|> mouse. You still enter text the usual way; you use the chord-keyboard
|> (which its inventors at SRI called a "keyset") to make corrections and give
|> commands while your other hand is "mousing around" (or otherwise occupied).

  This may be true of some chord keyboards, but certainly not all of them. 
The only chord keyboards I've heard of were meant to produce the whole range
of characters available on the system, and were meant to replace the
traditional qwerty (or dvorak) keyboard, since the claim is that with a good
chord keyboard, it is possible for a user to type as fast as, or faster than,
he/she can on a qwerty.

-- 
Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				11 Ashford Terrace
jik@Athena.MIT.EDU				Allston, MA  02134
Office: 617-253-8495			      Home: 617-782-0710