Pressure sensitive keyboards

[noisyturtle]

First off, yeah, this would be an innovation with gaming in mind at first. Now, arcades and home consoles have implemented pressure sensitive buttons for years, if not decades in the case of arcades. The add an entirely new dimension, feel and possibilities to the experience. Why haven't keyboards done this yet? The technology exists, and all it would really need to happen is a custom board with the switches laid out on top as normal. If anything about modern keyboards could be improved, I think this would one of them. Now PC devs haven't gone this rout because the technology doesn't exist in modern keyboards, and believe me when I say that the thought has crossed many a studio, but in the end it's not up to them , or more aptly, it's not in the budget to create custom peripherals of this nature.

Not only could it change gaming for the PC, but it could also change the way people type and use keyboards today. Think about the possibilities: custom settings for tapping, or holding a button on the keyboard. Layouts specifically tailored for your actuation force. The ability to switch between normal traditional typing and a pressure sensitive layout. Scrolling or moving at speeds that are determined by you and not preset. Imaging even being able to switch between tools in Photoshop, all bajillion of them, because each key has two different settings.

[davkol]

Microsoft did it four years ago.

[FoxWolf1]

Didn't someone make a version of this idea using hall effect switches on WASD configured to register as a joystick? It's certainly doable.

That said, for shorter presses at least, you already get a limited kind of "pressure sensing" effect with normal mechanical switches. The harder you press, the further past the activation point the switch goes, and thus the longer it takes for the switch to reset; in games, this time difference manifests itself as a different amount of movement (there's a thread about this effect here). With a halfway decent macro system, you can have different commands sent based on these differences in timing.

Mind you, I do think that an analog Hall Effect keyboard with super-smooth linear switches, customizable activation force, and advanced macro capabilities could be cool. It'd be expensive, sure, and rather unnecessary...but then, so are a lot of things.