Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!crdgw1!uunet!vtserf!cohill From: cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Andrew M. Cohill) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: One-handed keyboards (was Re: Efficient Keyboards) Message-ID: <442@vtserf.cc.vt.edu> Date: 17 Oct 90 14:20:28 GMT References: <1990Oct15.224911.16099@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <2353@trlluna.trl.oz> Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA Lines: 18 What everyone is talking about are called, in ergonomic circles, *chord* keyboards. The term is used because the keys are played like one plays chords on a piano; that is, you depress several keys at once. Although someone in the Netherlands may have marketed one, they certainly did not invent it. I do not have any references handy, but it would not be too hard to dig up a fair amount of human factors literature on them. Karl Kroemer, a human factors professor here, has been trying to develop an optimum design for several years, and has published some papers. There has never been any question that chord keyboards are much faster than QWERTY keyboards: I vaguely recall that a trained "chorder" can easily hit 200 wpm. The main obstacle to their use is that no one wants to buy a new input device and put in the training time needed to use it well--an economic roadblock, not an ergonomic one. -- | ...we have to look for routes of power our teachers never | imagined, or were encouraged to avoid. T. Pynchon |Andy Cohill |703/231-7855 cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu VPI&SU