I'm starting a project to build a keyboard for the left-hand only, and was wondering if anyone else has tried this?
I usually use a MS Sculpt ergonomic keyboard, but I'm not a fan of the low profile keys, or the layout of the delete/home/cursor key section so I started thinking about alternatives.
When I looked at how I used my computer closely at work (I'm a programmer) I realised the following:
1. I use the mouse heavily rather than keyboard shortcuts. I select text with my mouse, compile with the mouse, do pretty much anything I can with the mouse
2. I don't type heavily for long periods, a lot of my job is figuring out what to type, rather than laying down thousands of characters. So I don't really need 120 words per minute typing speeds
Ok so what if I could type totally on my left hand? That way I leave my right hand on the mouse all the time, and navigate around using it like normal, but I wouldn't have to move it back to the keyboard to type. It would also mean my mouse could be in front of my right shoulder rather than off to the side, which I like the idea of.
So I did some research and found the Matias half keyboard
http://www.halfkeyboard.com/resources/hkb_pix/hkb_375.jpgNow I quite like this, it uses the spacebar as a modifier key to essentially flip the keys from the left hand ones to the right hand ones. There's even a flash simulator you can use to try this out, and it feels kinda sensible to me! There are a few problems though, primarily it makes it a bit hard to access all the random punctuation which C++ relies on so heavily. Similarly the function keys are, well, not really there.
Oh and it costs $600US!!!
So I'm thinking I could make my own, add in the punctuation keys I need, use proper mechanical switches etc. Seems like quite an interesting project to me, overlooking the risk that I might hate actually using it when I'm finished!