Trying to purchase US-layout keyboard [SOLVED]

[Solar]

Judging from their webshop, they don't have that brand of keyboard at all. And the 300km round-trip makes it about as expensive as ordering one shipped from the US.

But I like Dutch. "Toetsenborden", "In de Winkelwagen" - no wonder most Germans don't take Dutch people seriously.

[Owen]

Judging from their webshop, they don't have that brand of keyboard at all. And the 300km round-trip makes it about as expensive as ordering one shipped from the US.

But I like Dutch. "Toetsenborden", "In de Winkelwagen" - no wonder most Germans don't take Dutch people seriously.

I'm sure you've seen this by now...

[Love4Boobies]

Speaking of keyboards, I remembered of an interesting one I learned about about 7 years ago. It has OLED displays on every key and it's fully configurable (you can have colored icons, any layout you like, letters that change case when you press SHIFT, images that change depending on which program is active, etc.). The only thing that's not configurable is the key shape, although I can see their upcoming product doesn't have that problem (however, I dislike not feeling the buttons press under my fingers).

Warning: Expensive.

[Solar]

That's for show-offs. Besides, true keyboard warriors don't look at their keyboard anyway.

[Love4Boobies]

Sure, I just meant it was a cool idea. The first one isn't even usable because the keys are way bigger than they're supposed to, meaning that one needs to learn how to type on it and there's more effort involved.

[adsm]

Here's one, possibly:

http://www.komplett.nl/Komplett/product ... tails.aspx

I know the feeling. I can't even properly score a Dutch layout keyboard in my own country.

For keyboards in various languages could try here, couldn't see a USA layout MS or another ergonomic one but they have regular ones:

Dutch:

http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_deta ... PRODUCT=69

USA:

http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_deta ... PRODUCT=94

[DavidCooper]

Ideally you'd want a programmable keyboard where you get to decide where the keys pop up, how big they are and what's displayed on them, and it isn't impossible that that might be available some day for a reasonable price. The main thing I'd want to change though would be much simpler - it's is the warped alignment which was dictated by the mechanical connections in a typewriter - nowadays you ought to be able to move your fingers directly up or down the keyboard to get to the qwerty and zxcvbn rows without having to go slightly sideways as well, and this would be particularly helpful for finding the number keys reliably without having to look.

Of course, keyboards are more stuck in the past in another way - they only allow keys to be pressed down without allowing movement sideways, away or towards you to provide extra functionality. Imagine more of a pit than a normal key, and being able to push it N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW or down, plus being able to push it N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW while pressed down, plus being able to be pushed down after being pushed N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW, plus having more than one stage of press so that pressing harder enables you to click it further down or further sideways, plus being able to press more than one "key" at a time for further multiplications of functionality - you could do just about everything a normal keyboard can do but with only ten keys, and it might be a lot more efficient too due to the reduction in overall movement. This same system could also be used on a tablet device by putting eight of the keys round the back and two on the front, either built in or provided as a clip-on accessory - this would allow fully-efficient work to be done on a tablet device while using it in unusual orientations for typing, such as lying in bed. Voice input will obviously become the main way to get your text into a machine before long, but if you're writing your novel while on the train you aren't likely to want anyone listening in, and that will continue to be important until devices can read your thoughts directly.

[TylerH]

Ideally you'd want a programmable keyboard where you get to decide where the keys pop up, how big they are and what's displayed on them, and it isn't impossible that that might be available some day for a reasonable price. The main thing I'd want to change though would be much simpler - it's is the warped alignment which was dictated by the mechanical connections in a typewriter - nowadays you ought to be able to move your fingers directly up or down the keyboard to get to the qwerty and zxcvbn rows without having to go slightly sideways as well, and this would be particularly helpful for finding the number keys reliably without having to look.

Of course, keyboards are more stuck in the past in another way - they only allow keys to be pressed down without allowing movement sideways, away or towards you to provide extra functionality. Imagine more of a pit than a normal key, and being able to push it N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW or down, plus being able to push it N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW while pressed down, plus being able to be pushed down after being pushed N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW, plus having more than one stage of press so that pressing harder enables you to click it further down or further sideways, plus being able to press more than one "key" at a time for further multiplications of functionality - you could do just about everything a normal keyboard can do but with only ten keys, and it might be a lot more efficient too due to the reduction in overall movement. This same system could also be used on a tablet device by putting eight of the keys round the back and two on the front, either built in or provided as a clip-on accessory - this would allow fully-efficient work to be done on a tablet device while using it in unusual orientations for typing, such as lying in bed. Voice input will obviously become the main way to get your text into a machine before long, but if you're writing your novel while on the train you aren't likely to want anyone listening in, and that will continue to be important until devices can read your thoughts directly.

Have you tried moving your finger exactly forward in front of you on the keyboard? I just did, and I don't think I'd want to do it very often. I have to move my wrist and contort my finger in a relatively annoying way. I think the reason for going slightly sideways is that your hands are naturally sideways when positioned onto a keyboard. Unless the keyboard is directly in front of both of your arms (and thus *very* wide), you have to bend your elbows inward to reach it and rotate your hand sideways slightly to orient them downward to the keyboard.

But in general, your right about keyboards having a lot of historical baggage. The QWERTY layout comes from trying to keep people from hitting consecutive keys when typing on a typewriter, because the old ones would jam more often because of consecutive keys being hit. Coincidentally, typing consecutive keys is faster. Dvorak was designed later to try to optimize the positions of keys so as to group letters most often used together.

[DavidCooper]

Have you tried moving your finger exactly forward in front of you on the keyboard? I just did, and I don't think I'd want to do it very often. I have to move my wrist and contort my finger in a relatively annoying way. I think the reason for going slightly sideways is that your hands are naturally sideways when positioned onto a keyboard. Unless the keyboard is directly in front of both of your arms (and thus *very* wide), you have to bend your elbows inward to reach it and rotate your hand sideways slightly to orient them downward to the keyboard.

Have you thought that through carefully? What you say might apply to the right hand, but it certainly doesn't apply to the left one, and that's the one which does most of the work (in English, at least).

But in general, your right about keyboards having a lot of historical baggage. The QWERTY layout comes from trying to keep people from hitting consecutive keys when typing on a typewriter, because the old ones would jam more often because of consecutive keys being hit. Coincidentally, typing consecutive keys is faster. Dvorak was designed later to try to optimize the positions of keys so as to group letters most often used together.

Indeed, but there's an opportunity to design a new system of key input now which could be designed to make typing even faster (while possibly reducing RSI at the same time) and making it more practical for tablet devices. The Microsoft Surface tablet has a well designed keyboard (they've really addressed the main defect of tablet computers and come up with something I'd love to run my OS on), but it's still going to need a table to sit it on. I think there may be a better solution, though until I can try out a physical device of the kind I described in my previous post, I won't know if it's really practical. Maybe it would turn out to be terrible for RSI rather than better, but I don't have the means to build a prototype. Perhaps I could print one out some day with a 3D printer though... (it wouldn't have to work for that - just have keys that move in the required ways)

[Owen]

Have you tried moving your finger exactly forward in front of you on the keyboard? I just did, and I don't think I'd want to do it very often. I have to move my wrist and contort my finger in a relatively annoying way. I think the reason for going slightly sideways is that your hands are naturally sideways when positioned onto a keyboard. Unless the keyboard is directly in front of both of your arms (and thus *very* wide), you have to bend your elbows inward to reach it and rotate your hand sideways slightly to orient them downward to the keyboard.

Have you thought that through carefully? What you say might apply to the right hand, but it certainly doesn't apply to the left one, and that's the one which does most of the work (in English, at least).

I'm sitting here now, typing this away at my keyboard, and although my left hand is indeed more straight than my right hand, its still actually sitting at the keyboard at such an angle as to make reaching somewhat diagonally easier than reaching straight.

But in general, your right about keyboards having a lot of historical baggage. The QWERTY layout comes from trying to keep people from hitting consecutive keys when typing on a typewriter, because the old ones would jam more often because of consecutive keys being hit. Coincidentally, typing consecutive keys is faster. Dvorak was designed later to try to optimize the positions of keys so as to group letters most often used together.

Indeed, but there's an opportunity to design a new system of key input now which could be designed to make typing even faster (while possibly reducing RSI at the same time) and making it more practical for tablet devices. The Microsoft Surface tablet has a well designed keyboard (they've really addressed the main defect of tablet computers and come up with something I'd love to run my OS on), but it's still going to need a table to sit it on. I think there may be a better solution, though until I can try out a physical device of the kind I described in my previous post, I won't know if it's really practical. Maybe it would turn out to be terrible for RSI rather than better, but I don't have the means to build a prototype. Perhaps I could print one out some day with a 3D printer though... (it wouldn't have to work for that - just have keys that move in the required ways)

Not quite the same design idea, but there are already keyboards which are both smaller and more efficient to type on. Look up "chorded keyboard".

[DavidCooper]

I'm sitting here now, typing this away at my keyboard, and although my left hand is indeed more straight than my right hand, its still actually sitting at the keyboard at such an angle as to make reaching somewhat diagonally easier than reaching straight.

I find R and E very awkward to reach, to the point that I have to move my hand in order to reach them. It's hard to judge exactly how I type when I'm thinking about it, but I appear to move my hands around quite a lot in order to get to the keys in a way that makes it more comfortable to press them, though not as much as I would have to on a mechanical typewriter where each key needs to be struck with the same strength. The B and Y keys are a really awkward reach too, and that would be completely fixed by aligning the keys in columns. Given that the keys are lined up completely differently for the right and left hand, I suspect that you only think it's the best way to arrange the keys because it's what you're used to, and I'm used to it to, to the point that I don't normally think about it - just so long as I'm only working with letter rows, the only thing that annoys me is the distance I have to go to hit Y and B. The real problem with the slant of the colums is that it makes it hard to hit the right number keys without looking at them - I used to type in the dark in order to get my touch-typing up to scratch, but I've never been able to hit the number keys reliably. The equivalent to asdf and jkl; on the number row are 1234 and 7890, but they're way out of position. If diagonals were really the ideal, the qwerty row would be even further left than it is and the zxcvbn row further to the right, while the 1234 and 7890 keys would have been put directly up from asdf and jkl; to make them dead easy to locate, but diagonals aren't really ideal - the slant of the colums was only ever put there to enable the keys to be mechanically connected to the hammers without getting in each other's way.

Not quite the same design idea, but there are already keyboards which are both smaller and more efficient to type on. Look up "chorded keyboard".

These have their advantages, particularly for people with only one hand, but having to type most chars with multiple (simultaneous) key presses is likely to make RSI problems worse. A key which can be pushed easily in different directions would be an improvement over that by requiring less overall movement and introducing a range of different movements which may further reduce the impact of RSI (though that would need to be tested). The easiest movements are down, away and towards the typist, while the sideways moves are more likely to cause RSI, though the index fingers may be better at that than the rest. There may not be room for comfortable sideways moves for most of the fingers, so perhaps it should be reserved for the index fingers and thumbs. Whatever the case though, it should give you a good 40 ways to type a character with a single press in a comfortable direction (with only ten keys), and that's already far better than a standard keyboard.

[Love4Boobies]

Check this out, tactile touchscreens. Buttons pop up due to pressure and a fluid in the top layer of the display, which replaces the conventional glass/plastic one.

[adsm]

Buttons pop up due to pressure and a fluid

That sounds disgusting.

[Love4Boobies]

Heh. You don't feel it as if it were a liquid and it has very good optical properties.

[adsm]

Heh. You don't feel it as if it were a liquid and it has very good optical properties.

It does seem an interesting idea, apart from that the description also sound like the symptoms of Smallpox!