Any musicians here??? - Ideal keyboard design

[technocrat]

The keyboard is still the most efficient computer/human interface - allowing for the highest productivity for the vast majority of applications.

I know that you all are already informed about QWERTY and how it has kept us back from more efficient typing. How many of you have really adapted to non-qwerty and tried to push the limits of computer/human interactivity?

I consider myself to be an experienced musician, athlete - and as a (for many hours per day for many years) computer addict I would like to experience the same natural interface between myself and my computer.
 
I hope you musicians have noticed something about the natural ergonomics of musical instruments. You can (and should – if you aren't you're doing it wrong) actually relax, play, and improve your skills (for those of you who have the concept of "chops"). This is how it should be to type on a computer keyboard. We should be exercising our chops while typing – not moving our muscles against what feels natural and become tired, cramped, or injured at the end of a typing session.

I was exploring the possibility of creating a xylophone-like keyboard. Such an input device would have entirely intuitive and natural ergonomics - and allow for relaxation and continued improvement over one's time practicing. It turns out that I have way too many other projects and stuff to work on - so I might as well just release my hopes and dreams for computer keyboards onto the web and hope that others find them as important as I do.

Furthermore, I cannot believe that folks like Dr. Dvorak, after studying this stuff for so long (which I surely won't have time to do), haven't come up with something better. I'm hoping that there is already a better option available since so many people use computers and so many people have worked on these ideas.

Anyway, I've done a lot of keyboard exploring in the last few weeks, and the closest I've seen to an instrument is the Maltron. That is just my speculation, though – concluded from the fact that it has a more efficient layout, and supposed fact that you can relax your hands in a natural position and have access to all of the keys by use of natural movements.

There are too many small questions for me to ask in this post about such things as Maltron, but I'll give a few up front:

Is the Malt layout really more efficient than dvorak?

Do any of you have a Maltron? If so, then please post and talk about your experiences.

Do any of you have a typing technique that you think feels great?

Are any of you percussionists?  I have always found it entertaining to apply some percussion skills to my keyboard -  If I don't have to move around much, then I can do rudiments, for example, at a god awful speed for as long as I want without getting tired or feeling any discomfort. Basically, the ideal keyboard would be like that for everything.


Here are a few of the links I've gather from my searches:

one of many options I'd try:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/77ba/

lots of keyboards:
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/price-compare/

more keyboards with not much info:
http://splitkeyboard.blogspot.com/

some interesting posts from colemak forum:
http://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=233
http://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=188&p=1

more keyboards:
http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/top-ten-worst-keyboards-you-will-hate-to-touch/


If any of you have tried these or any other obscure keyboards, then I'd certainly like to hear about it.


Thanks for your time and help.

[technocrat]

tl:dr version:

Has anyone here tried the Maltron? Is it that much different from Kinesis et al? Do you think you have great typing efficiency and comfort on another keyboard? Have you actually developed a typing style that is enjoyable?

Thanks.

[megarat]

Judging by the dearth of responses, I would assume that this is unknown territory for the group.  If you want to spring for the MSRP of US$500, you'd be blazing a trail for everyone!    I'm sure we'd love to hear about it.

[wellington1869]

I know that you all are already informed about QWERTY and how it has kept us back from more efficient typing. How many of you have really adapted to non-qwerty and tried to push the limits of computer/human interactivity?

for the record, my friend and I at one point decided to learn dvorak based on the idea (as you express above) that qwerty is inherently inefficient (having to do with its origins and etc) and that dvorak was more scientific. We initially googled this and saw some information about why dvorak was supposedly better and about tests or studies showing that it was. HOWEVER, when we googled further, we came upon additional data - from more mainstream and authoritative sources - that showed actually that dvorak's advantage in the real world was negligible (both for speed and for ergonomics or finger stress). After reading stuff on that we eventually decided the marginal improvement was not worth a) the whole process of relearning the keyboard, b) the discomfort and inconvenience being incompatible with the rest of the world's keyboards, since in our jobs we're required to work on other people's computers all the time.
 
From what i gathered, one of the reasons why the difference between qwerty/dvorak becomes marginal over time, is because human beings are ultimately adaptive creatures; our brains rewire themselves, our muscles strengthen, etc. So even if qwerty is less efficient in the early stages, by the time you're a touch typist apparently the differences are marginal. I looked up this stuff a long time ago so i dont have any links, but if you google far enough you'll come across the same sources I did (I didnt do any research outside of extensive googling on this issue). I know qwerty/dvorak will likely remain one of those controversial topics in computing, but speaking for myself I'm happy and efficient enough with qwerty that I dont feel any overwhelming reason to switch at this point, I guess.

[technocrat]

Found two more interesting things in my search:

I know the data hand is not in production anymore, but this thread has some great discussion:
http://www.atpm.com/7.05/datahand.shtml
Has anyone here tried it? The company claims that 90wpm is fairly easy to acheive.

Can you make out what kind of layout this woman is using? Pretty amazing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk8ZFAM2N2s&feature=related

[lowpoly]

Can you make out what kind of layout this woman is using? Pretty amazing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk8ZF...eature=related

That's a stenography keyboard:

http://www.seihin-world.com/s/2004/08/07_2250.php

[wellington1869]

That's a stenography keyboard:
 
http://www.seihin-world.com/s/2004/08/07_2250.php

300wpm?! So why doesnt everyone use stenography keyboards? Why even mess with qwerty at all?

[lowpoly]

Probably for the same reasons Dvorak, Coleman, etc. didn't catch on.

The next step in speed improvement (after layout) is some sort of auto-completion. Stenography isn't even mentioned in the (german) article about touch typing. I suspect it's lacking in some department, like punctuation or capitalization.

Here's the english Wikipedia article on stenotype:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype

In short, it requires editing. Which is mostly computerized nowadays but if you ever used some sort of auto-completion you probably know how reliable that is.

Still a stenotype machine is something I'd like to have:

[D-EJ915]

stenography isn't complete words, it's the shorthand of the typing world

[lowpoly]

Here's the Treal TR keyboard:



http://www.wordtechnologies.com/products_main.asp?shx=treal&sec=pics#pd

Looking nice, unfortunately the software is incredibly expensive.

[wellington1869]

stenography isn't complete words, it's the shorthand of the typing world

speaking of which, I always wanted to learn shorthand too, for the same reasons.

[technocrat]

This guy made a fairly regular custom keyboard:
http://mykeyboard.co.uk/microswitch/

Some claim that the larger the number of keys, the less stress on the typist and the more efficient the keystrokes. This is certainly not the only thing to take into account. Biology is the constraining factor here. There needs to be a balance between key choices and movement.

I wonder about the possibility of creating a custom data hand since they are not made anymore. The design idea seems closer to my original musical instrument-based proposition.

The best options so far seem to be a mix between the data hand and the features offered by a stenographer's keyboard such as the one in the youtube video. Like Dvorak, the layout should be language optimized (there are layouts optimized for German and other languages). Therefore, in designing this keyboard I would take into account the English language, programming languages, special keys used for both, and of lesser importance the number keys. This should be like designing a musical instrument with the aide of science - accounting for the necessities: touch typing, efficiency in lingual layout, least biological stress. Finger tapping is quite natural, and so is percussion. These two should be emulated while trying to distribute the load naturally upon the arms (not just hands - as flat keyboards work to isolate movement which is a cause of injury and why the solution to injury is relaxation exercises).

[technocrat]

Pretty thorough discussion
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Keyboard_design

Interesting keyboard - the testimonials have links to professors of wearable computing (who I'm sure have made innovations in keyboarding).
http://www.handykey.com/site/twiddler2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard