Path: utzoo!lsuc!maccs!gordan
From: gordan@maccs.UUCP (gordan)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: Inputting  8-bit characters
Message-ID: <1199@maccs.UUCP>
Date: 22 May 88 03:38:23 GMT
References: <3279@enea.se>
Reply-To: gordan@maccs.UUCP ()
Organization: Worldwide Phlogiston Cartel
Lines: 30

In article <3279@enea.se> sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
-Gordan Palameta (gordan@maccs.UUCP) ) writes:
->In the long run, perhaps, chord keyboards would be preferable.  There
->would probably be a sizeable learning curve, but for sheer speed they'd
->be hard to beat, and they could be used to input a virtually unlimited
->number of distinct characters.  
-
-Hm, are you talking of "compose characters" things here, or do I get 
-you wrong?

A chord keyboard is like a piano keyboard, where each character is typed
by holding down several keys at once.  In the short term, this has a
longer learning curve than ordinary keyboards, but the number of
separate characters that could be inputted would be unlimited for all
intents and purposes (and many people learn to play piano keyboards, so
it couldn't be all that difficult).

With this single input device you could touch-type all ISO 8859
characters, all Control-, Meta-, Control-Meta-, etc. sequences in Emacs,
Japanese and Chinese characters, and so on, possibly even leaving one
hand free most of the time for moving a mouse.  Typing speed would also
probably be faster than on QWERTY keyboards, given practice.

This idea is not new at all, but nobody seems particularly anxious to
market such a device.  Probably for valid reasons... it would have a
niche market at best (but I'd certainly be part of that market).

-- 
                 Gordan Palameta
            uunet!mnetor!maccs!gordan