

Show HN: Engelbart's Chorded Keyboard - Built at SHDH42 yesterday - ptarjan
http://paulisageek.com/chord/

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biot
Interesting idea, but it's rather odd that the keystroke for P is pressing
<SPACE>, but the keystroke for <SPACE> is a four character combination when
<SPACE> should be its own chord. While the binary incrementing keystroke
combination is somewhat logical, I would imagine that a more frequency-based
assignment would ultimately be more successful as muscle memory is far more
important than remembering that the chord for V is binary+1 of the chord for
U.

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kadavy
This was really interesting to play with.

I kept getting caught up cognitively on the fact that the thumb corresponded
to the 5th box in all of the chord diagrams. I feel like some visual
differentiation would have made that easier to grok.

~~~
ptarjan
Great idea. I tried to do a <sub> and it looked funny, and adding a full
&nbsp; was too wide. Maybe I'll play with a smaller space character.

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agscala
I don't think you can make it too wide. Even if it was twice as wide or three
times as wide it would be good enough for the brain to grok

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gnosis
Cute. But I'd need a lot more than this for programming, which uses many
special symbols. Even regular English requires being able to type quotes,
question marks, exclamation points, numbers, etc..

Also, as far as the implementation of this particular typing tutor goes, it
needs to let the user retry to type a given chords until he gets it right,
instead of immediately moving on to the next one.

And the chords should be taught in small batches, rather than trying to teach
them all at once.

While we're on the subject of chording, I should mention that there's a vim
plugin that will let you map chorded keystrokes:

<http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2425>

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reeses
I remember reading about Steve Roberts building chording keyboards into his
"handlebars" on his Winnebiko years ago. Since he had well more than 2^5 bits
using both hands[1], he was able to assign macros that helped significantly
with his effective typing speed.

Englebart says that his layout is not intended for speed typing, with the
typical trained typer being able to type 30-50wpm. He observed that typing
speed on conventional keyboards does not have a strong correlation with typing
speed on his chording layout. Sight-reading piano players have a bit of an
advantage here, of course.

I've always wanted one of the Twiddlers, and am kind of excited they're back
on the market, but I'd vastly prefer a wireless version. I've also been
looking forward to the release of the FrogPad. It would be nice to have a
better-than-touchscreen keyboard for emails on the iPad or iPhone.

[1] I can't remember the exact layout now. If it used all ten fingers, or if
it had multiple positions for, say, thumbs, à la the BAT keyboard, it's gone
from my memory. Regardless, it used both hands.

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ptarjan
I was inspired by Englebert's "Mother of all Demos" shown at Super Happy Dev
House 42 and decided to actually try out the device that was in his left hand.

~~~
jf
How did it look on the big screen? We got a DVD copy of the original tapes
from the Stanford library!

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ptarjan
It was amazing on the IMAX. I was a little sad that it only displayed on about
1/5th of the screen infront. I assume it only fit onto one projector instead
of the software cutting it up to fill the whole dome.

It is a little slow at first, but once he gets to explaining the tech, it was
wonderful.

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js2
If you're looking for a one-handed chorded keyboard on which to type, the BAT
has been around for many years:
<http://www.infogrip.com/product_view.asp?RecordNumber=12>

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pkamb
It's funny how it's not optimized at all. "E" and "T" are both incredibly hard
to type; this would give you RSI problems in no time.

~~~
ptarjan
Yeah, exactly. He just enumerated the binary representation. A=1, B=2, C=3...

Maybe I should build a Dvorak-ish version of this...

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wazoox
I'm a pianist; it was easy as cake, actually would be even easier with finger
numbers, or represented as notes :)

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makmanalp
I can't type G for the life of me. Maybe it has to do with the number of
simultaneous keypresses on my keyboard?

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yurylifshits
After 5 minutes: I can not get G either!!!

Paul, can you change time intervals to to catch less accurate chors?

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ptarjan
I have it set to 125ms. I bumped it to 200 and it felt really unresponsive.

When in doubt, make a configuration option right? ;)

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pz
is there a standard mapping for chorded keyboards? i feel like X has a much
easier combo than E. would be interesting to use data on people's error rate
for different key combos and then remap frequently used letters to easier
combos.

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gnosis
The only standards I'm aware of are standards for stenotype machines (chorded
keyboards that stenographers) use:

<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Stenotype>

And there are a fair number of competing standards and keyboard layouts
(especially if you count layouts/standards for various languages).

Stenotypes machines and musical instruments are really the only chorded
keyboards in wide enough use to develop any kind of standard.

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mbreese
I found it very hard to do this with my left hand. Especially since the first
bit is so widely used and my pinky on that side is pretty weak.

I guess you can tell that I'm not an emacs user :)

~~~
ptarjan
Yeah, totally agree. The key mappings need some work. I just wanted to emulate
his original one. I'll do a Dvorak one, might be easier.

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dmcg
I spent a happy year with a MicroWriter chorded keyboard in the early 90s. My
right hand still knows the letters, so there must be something in it.

~~~
ptarjan
Neat. What was they keyboard layout? The same as this one or was it frequency
based?

~~~
jodrellblank
I believe they are the same as the descendent
<https://sites.google.com/site/cykeybellaire/cykey-codecard>

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Yzupnick
Why is it lefty?

~~~
jodrellblank
I guess because Englebart's was.

[http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs6751_97_fall/projects/fol...](http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs6751_97_fall/projects/follow_me/hw4/first_demo_large.jpg)

Right hand for navigating (mousing), left hand for typing.

