I love how honest this is about the limitations and the whole design process. Truly a great example of a real hacker project
I have a Georgi keyboard (mentioned in the article) which I started getting to grips with then put aside during a way too busy period at work. This has made me want to dig it out and try again.
I’m also thinking that two of those faunchpads put together on the long edges could make an even better ‘back of phone’ keyboard (or back of mini tablet) for a handy portable note taking device
Sure, but if you have a few keys to press, why not go all the way and make it a Braille keyboard? It would teach sight-able people how to write braille.
I'm a Blackberry fanboy. My Key2 was far, far superior a device to the latest gen iPhone I own. I have tried for years to get used to glass, and while I'm ok with it, it's still a massive compromise.
My second favourite mobile-device keyboard was that of the Ericsson T28 [0] from about 20 years ago. At some point I accidentally discovered a feature I just found outlined at the bottom of page 28 of the T28 user manual [1], where the volume rocker switch on the left side would act as a text entry modifier key, so that pressing the number 2 button normally resulted in a B, holding the volume up and pressing 2 gave a C, and holding volume down and pressing 2 gave a D.
I remember getting so, so fast and so comfortable at texting with this method. By random chance, an acquaintance a few years ago in a co-working place had an old T28 that still worked and let me play with. Naturally the first thing I tried was the old input method - and it was like my muscle memory never left. I was so fast and so comfortable with it. She was blown away... after 20 years she still had no idea that that mode existed.
pressing the number 2 button normally resulted in a B, holding the volume up and pressing 2 gave a C, and holding volume down and pressing 2 gave a D
The SonyEricsson M600 series had something similar. The keys were rockers. Press the left side of a key and it was an Q. Press the right side and it was a W.
Interesting to use, and I wrote a lot of text on it while on buses and trains. But the keys were necessarily very hard and so your fingers would hurt after a while.
I applaud any effort to rethink keyboards from first principles.
After years of shoulder, neck and back pain I discovered that the root cause was the standard keyboard design. It causes rounded shoulders. Perhaps my shoulders are just too wide. This pinched all sorts of muscles, tendons and nerves. Doctors and physical therapists just failed to identify the issue. Weight lifting didn't help all that much, even with a strong back I had to scrunch and round the shoulders to type.
I finally picked up a second keyboard, and used one for each hand. It was surprisingly easy to convert to. Just added some larger rubber nub things on home row.
It's been life changing. Years of pain was gone in days. No special design necessary.
Each keyboard is arranged at an outward angle, distanced so my shoulders are in a natural position.
I can't recommend this enough.
On Mac it required a system preference tweak (Karibiner app) so each keyboard can share shortcut keys.
Are you aware of split keyboards? I use a mistel barrocco (essentially two normal keyboard halves tied together with a USB cable) and j can’t recommend it enough
I love (in theory at least) the concept of being able to work from literally anywhere, and the concept of some sort of smart display (glasses, lenses, etc) but having a physical keyboard to type out code is always a major barrier.
Something like this starts to edge towards that vision which is cool.
I wonder as well if there's a way to have some sort of bracelet (but probably something less comfortable) that can track the way your hands move, so you'd be able to just "type" normally with your hands (eventually with less actual movement and more intent I suppose) to make use of these wearable displays. No idea how feasible it is, but it feels like it is!
One day I'll be able to work whilst walking around in the forest... One day!
Zack freedman made a video [0] last year where he created a wearable glove that tracked hand movements to achieve something similar to what you describe. Seemed really cool, and I'm sure we will get something better than this in the not-too-distant future.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6raRftH9yxM
You should look up the Korean alphabet on 9 (?) keys. It's really cool that you can type anything in Korean using 6 or so keys.
It works because in Korean, characters are made up of base characters. So you can essentially build a character out of two other characters, and then a syllable out of three of those characters. Then words out of a match of syllables.
https://twiddler.tekgear.com - bluetooth chord keyboard that fits in one hand, look in their forums for a whole lot of different layouts to try, including ones designed for programmers.
Reminds me of http://octodon.mobi/ keyboard. They went through so many many design iterations, tried really hard to get it going, but failed to start production and haven't posted anything since 2017. Guess typing on a phone will remain a pain forever.
I've always thought it was a bit odd that for touchscreen phones we just decided to grab the near exact keyboard layout we use with physical keyboards, and just stick them on a tiny touchscreen. Sure, everyone knows how to use it and its fine for early smartphones, but it seems like a really terrible place for a full keyboard to go; imagine using a keyboard the size of your phone keyboard (so about the third the size of your phone itself) for your desktop or laptop. It'd seem insane and impossible to use on a daily basis.
You see the same thing with games. Not so great game designers just copy whats on PC for mobile, and add load of virtual buttons all over the screen. Phones are no good for that, really you want to limit yourself to 3 buttons at any one time at the maximum.
If this could be learned fairly easily, it could be the solution I've been looking for. Of course it won't replace on screen keyboards for everyone, we're too far gone now, but at least there'll be something better availible
Its a rocker-key design: hit the left side, Q, right side, W. The U-shaped key made it super easy to hit the right letter, I could type amazingly quickly on this janky phone from 2006.
Once the capacitive-touch revolution happened, the closest keyboard that really took advantage of the small-screens was the TouchPal T+ keyboard.
It was similar, in that one soft key was Q and W, but you pressed it and swiped left or right for each key, and up and left for capital versions. It also held special characters with a swipe down. This also worked really well, in my opinion, especially on the small screened devices we used to use.
This is all a long winded way of saying, I agree, I think straight QWERTY is still odd, even today!
> I've always thought it was a bit odd that for touchscreen phones we just decided to grab the near exact keyboard layout we use with physical keyboards, and just stick them on a tiny touchscreen
This happens with technology all the time. When the printing press was invented the first books were designed to look like their handwritten counterparts. Similarly, when electronic maps happened they were just like paper maps with fixed scales ("zoom levels"), north up, top down etc. It takes a while for people to realise the potential of newer technology for some reason.
Keyboards are a funny one, though. People don't learn to type any more. In fact, people don't really learn to do anything with computers. Millions of people interact with computers every day but have never really learnt to use them effectively, and this goes for both hardware and software. If you want to be a lorry driver, you need a driver's licence. But people get employed all the time to work on computers and nobody ever asks "can you type?" or "can you produce typeset documents to basic quality standards?" Walk into any office in the world and you'll see hunt-and-peck typing and untrained, misuse of common software like MS Word.
The problem is interfaces like a keyboard and MS Word do allow you to do something without any training at all. There would be huge resistance to having a "better" keyboard that required users to learn how to use it. People have been conditioned to expect no training.
A big driver in the trend towards no training is that the powerful players in tech (ad companies) have an interest in getting as wide a userbase as possible. The manufacturer of a locomotive or MRI machine does not care about this and it's fine and expected to need training to operate those machines. I wouldn't expect keyboards, especially those on a phone, to move to anything that requires training any time soon.
I was quite surprised when I went to China and looked at people texting with their phones, wondering how many keys they would need in their touchscreen keyboard, and finding out that most of them use... 9.
The classic pre-smartphone phone keyboard, where you write in pinyin and the corresponding Chinese characters get predicted.
> odd that for touchscreen phones we just decided to grab the near exact keyboard layout we use with physical keyboards, and just stick them on a tiny touchscreen
An anecdote: Early in Steam's controller support, they used a really nice alternative keyboard, where you picked one of 8 directions with the analog stick, and pressed a face key for the specific letter. It was fast, convenient, and built for controllers.
It didn't last.
Steam shortly moved back to a standard QWERTY keyboard layout with the joysticks moving virtual fingers. If I had to speculate, I'd say that they received too much negative feedback, because people didn't immediately recognize it as a keyboard, and didn't want to learn something new.
Even if it's slower, virtual QWERTY keyboards are (almost) universally familiar, and there's nothing new to learn.
Phones (at least android ones, don't know about apple ones) allow you to change your keyboard and there are all kind of keyboards. I was using a "swipe" keyboard before, looks (and can work) similar to a normal keyboard but you could also swipe your finger over the keys you want to type without raising your finger and it was doing a pretty good job at predicting what you wanted to type. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a virtual version of the keyboard that OP is using
I think a qwerty keyboard makes sense as a default since that is what people used to and it is hard to teach people new things. But there are alternatives for people wants to try them
A version of the most popular input method for japanese, adapted to latin, seems suitable: the layout is your good ol' feature phone numpad, but instead of tapping 1 2x to input b and 3x to input c, swipe left on that key for b and up to input c instead, etc.
With Latin's smaller alphabet, you can even have the best of both predictive text and precise input: maybe have the plain tap on 1 be a wildcard (a|b|c) for the predictive engine to infer
The funny thing with those little handsets was, with a bit practice you could actually get very quick at typing. Quicker even than on QWERTY keyboards on touch screen phones (at least you had tactile buttons).
Maybe it’s just nostalgia, but I also remember that typing on those keyboards was way more reliable. Even with or without T9. I probably typed a little slower than on a virtual keyboard but at a more predictable pace. On my iPhone, I totally rely on autocorrect and I lose a lot of time if it get a big word wrong.
Typing on those phones required some practice to get muscle memory but it was accessible to barely anyone that had to use it. Even people who use computer keyboard all their life but are still watching they keycaps succeeded to type SMSs with the phone in their pockets.
I’m sad that we are getting nothing that stands between the old closed feature phones and the mini computers we call smartphones.
Oh man I remember ME from when I had my Palm V, it was such an improvement. I think these days swipe input on querty has got it beat, at least for words that are in the dictionary. A one-touch way to switch between the standard keyboard for swipe and ME for the rest would be killer.
Each letter is a two-button chord, but in practice, each letter is an arpeggio because the Twiddler only sends a key event when you release a button. The layout is designed so that when writing English, there is a very high probability that the second button you press for a letter will be the first button you press for the next letter, so you can keep that button held down, press the second button, then release the first button to send the next letter. Your first three fingers (it doesn't use the pinky row) will "walk" around the three rows of the Twiddler.
This is kind of making me want to pull out my Twiddler again, I really haven't used it since I gave up on trying to run Illustrator on a Surface tablet instead of a Mac laptop.
That's an awesome layout, I will have to try it. I actually have two twiddlers - the dream was to split the layout between the two, so that all letters would have easy 2-button chords and to achieve a higher wpm. It works fairly well but I never practiced enough to really make it productive... might have to try that mirrorwalk layout though
I'd love to see a progression of typing speed over time.
That's the real test.
I believe this idea can have potential for breaking the world record because there is no finger-to-key travel. But maybe it is diminished by the having to press a key multiple times over to get to the target just like in old cellphones [0].
Alternatively maybe one could brute force the problem of optimal keyboard layout/etc using simulations. Like that robot (human) hand that solves rubik's cubes by learning through simulation (apparently, from OpenAI [1]).
Way back when paying a stack of bills at the postoffice the clerk was adding numbers at a breathtaking speed on a mechanical calculator. I've often had the thought, why not write by typing ASCII codes on a numeric keypad?
The page seems to assume that semicolon's keyCode is 59 so the modifier key in the demo only works with Firefox according to this table on MDN[0]. The keyCode for semicolon varies not only by keyboard layout but also by browser. Mine is 186.
If you want to see an example of this taken to the extreme then check out Olafur Arnalds semi accompanying piano. It plays along with him using a lot of music theory to create generational music in real time on the same piano:
I tried to create something similar using web audio and a midi piano a while ago but the reason this works is you are applying digital processing to analogue output, along with Ólafur being one of the most talented composers alive at the moment.
There's this really interesting (touchscreen) keyboard for android called 8vim in which you write by drawing circular shapes. I can attain a decent speed after using it for 30 minutes but haven't really kept it on for long:
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/inc.flide.vi8/
I swear FaunchPad has seen 3
Or 4 different input methods like this be developed, I'm not sure what it is about the hardware but I'm absolutely in love with what you all do with it.
Nice write-up OP! Excited to see where you go with Peggi :)
Here is chorded example https://artsey.io/ (in case you have not seen one). People claim that you can reach 50 wpm with chords. I may play with that in the future but I do not even try using chords on my 34 keys keyboard. I have tried but that does't work for me.
I really like this. I hate moving my fingers off of home row, and have a bunch of "layers" to put more keys on home row (extra thumb keys on the opposite hand define what; for example, I have ({}) on jkl;). I hadn't had the idea to "arpeggio", or to optimize normal letters, but now that seems really appealing to me. (I tried the demo and I love it.)
What's nice about having the full keyboard is that you can keep normal keybindings and just not use them when you're feeling lazy. I'll have to play with this more, it's a really good idea.
If you haven't come across Doug Engelbart yet, I highly recommend it. He invented the mouse (yes, that mouse), and was a staunch believer in chorded keyboards.
[+] [-] funnybeam|4 years ago|reply
I have a Georgi keyboard (mentioned in the article) which I started getting to grips with then put aside during a way too busy period at work. This has made me want to dig it out and try again.
I’m also thinking that two of those faunchpads put together on the long edges could make an even better ‘back of phone’ keyboard (or back of mini tablet) for a handy portable note taking device
[+] [-] laurent92|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedimastert|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boomskats|4 years ago|reply
My second favourite mobile-device keyboard was that of the Ericsson T28 [0] from about 20 years ago. At some point I accidentally discovered a feature I just found outlined at the bottom of page 28 of the T28 user manual [1], where the volume rocker switch on the left side would act as a text entry modifier key, so that pressing the number 2 button normally resulted in a B, holding the volume up and pressing 2 gave a C, and holding volume down and pressing 2 gave a D.
I remember getting so, so fast and so comfortable at texting with this method. By random chance, an acquaintance a few years ago in a co-working place had an old T28 that still worked and let me play with. Naturally the first thing I tried was the old input method - and it was like my muscle memory never left. I was so fast and so comfortable with it. She was blown away... after 20 years she still had no idea that that mode existed.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson_T28
[1] https://www.lokety.com/ericsson_t28s_manual.pdf
[+] [-] reaperducer|4 years ago|reply
The SonyEricsson M600 series had something similar. The keys were rockers. Press the left side of a key and it was an Q. Press the right side and it was a W.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Sony_Eri...
Interesting to use, and I wrote a lot of text on it while on buses and trains. But the keys were necessarily very hard and so your fingers would hurt after a while.
[+] [-] ruffrey|4 years ago|reply
After years of shoulder, neck and back pain I discovered that the root cause was the standard keyboard design. It causes rounded shoulders. Perhaps my shoulders are just too wide. This pinched all sorts of muscles, tendons and nerves. Doctors and physical therapists just failed to identify the issue. Weight lifting didn't help all that much, even with a strong back I had to scrunch and round the shoulders to type.
I finally picked up a second keyboard, and used one for each hand. It was surprisingly easy to convert to. Just added some larger rubber nub things on home row.
It's been life changing. Years of pain was gone in days. No special design necessary.
Each keyboard is arranged at an outward angle, distanced so my shoulders are in a natural position.
I can't recommend this enough.
On Mac it required a system preference tweak (Karibiner app) so each keyboard can share shortcut keys.
[+] [-] smallpipe|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hundchenkatze|4 years ago|reply
There's also tons of split keyboards available now.
https://github.com/diimdeep/awesome-split-keyboards
[+] [-] dom111|4 years ago|reply
I love (in theory at least) the concept of being able to work from literally anywhere, and the concept of some sort of smart display (glasses, lenses, etc) but having a physical keyboard to type out code is always a major barrier.
Something like this starts to edge towards that vision which is cool.
I wonder as well if there's a way to have some sort of bracelet (but probably something less comfortable) that can track the way your hands move, so you'd be able to just "type" normally with your hands (eventually with less actual movement and more intent I suppose) to make use of these wearable displays. No idea how feasible it is, but it feels like it is!
One day I'll be able to work whilst walking around in the forest... One day!
[+] [-] V-2|4 years ago|reply
To be frank, this sounds thoroughly dystopian to me
[+] [-] throwaway23091|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seoulmetro|4 years ago|reply
It works because in Korean, characters are made up of base characters. So you can essentially build a character out of two other characters, and then a syllable out of three of those characters. Then words out of a match of syllables.
Edit: It's 10 keys sorry. Example:
https://img1.daumcdn.net/thumb/R720x0.q80/?scode=mtistory2&f...
[+] [-] akavel|4 years ago|reply
- Steve Mann: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann_(inventor)
- https://chordite.com
[+] [-] egypturnash|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nsb1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] diplodocusaur|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drath|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bodge5000|4 years ago|reply
You see the same thing with games. Not so great game designers just copy whats on PC for mobile, and add load of virtual buttons all over the screen. Phones are no good for that, really you want to limit yourself to 3 buttons at any one time at the maximum.
If this could be learned fairly easily, it could be the solution I've been looking for. Of course it won't replace on screen keyboards for everyone, we're too far gone now, but at least there'll be something better availible
[+] [-] girvo|4 years ago|reply
https://www.cnet.com/a/img/oje2OkhPIKnnKkJDXCAYnXJBst0=/1200...
Its a rocker-key design: hit the left side, Q, right side, W. The U-shaped key made it super easy to hit the right letter, I could type amazingly quickly on this janky phone from 2006.
Once the capacitive-touch revolution happened, the closest keyboard that really took advantage of the small-screens was the TouchPal T+ keyboard.
It was similar, in that one soft key was Q and W, but you pressed it and swiped left or right for each key, and up and left for capital versions. It also held special characters with a swipe down. This also worked really well, in my opinion, especially on the small screened devices we used to use.
This is all a long winded way of saying, I agree, I think straight QWERTY is still odd, even today!
[+] [-] globular-toast|4 years ago|reply
This happens with technology all the time. When the printing press was invented the first books were designed to look like their handwritten counterparts. Similarly, when electronic maps happened they were just like paper maps with fixed scales ("zoom levels"), north up, top down etc. It takes a while for people to realise the potential of newer technology for some reason.
Keyboards are a funny one, though. People don't learn to type any more. In fact, people don't really learn to do anything with computers. Millions of people interact with computers every day but have never really learnt to use them effectively, and this goes for both hardware and software. If you want to be a lorry driver, you need a driver's licence. But people get employed all the time to work on computers and nobody ever asks "can you type?" or "can you produce typeset documents to basic quality standards?" Walk into any office in the world and you'll see hunt-and-peck typing and untrained, misuse of common software like MS Word.
The problem is interfaces like a keyboard and MS Word do allow you to do something without any training at all. There would be huge resistance to having a "better" keyboard that required users to learn how to use it. People have been conditioned to expect no training.
A big driver in the trend towards no training is that the powerful players in tech (ad companies) have an interest in getting as wide a userbase as possible. The manufacturer of a locomotive or MRI machine does not care about this and it's fine and expected to need training to operate those machines. I wouldn't expect keyboards, especially those on a phone, to move to anything that requires training any time soon.
[+] [-] Al-Khwarizmi|4 years ago|reply
The classic pre-smartphone phone keyboard, where you write in pinyin and the corresponding Chinese characters get predicted.
[+] [-] falcolas|4 years ago|reply
An anecdote: Early in Steam's controller support, they used a really nice alternative keyboard, where you picked one of 8 directions with the analog stick, and pressed a face key for the specific letter. It was fast, convenient, and built for controllers.
It didn't last.
Steam shortly moved back to a standard QWERTY keyboard layout with the joysticks moving virtual fingers. If I had to speculate, I'd say that they received too much negative feedback, because people didn't immediately recognize it as a keyboard, and didn't want to learn something new.
Even if it's slower, virtual QWERTY keyboards are (almost) universally familiar, and there's nothing new to learn.
[+] [-] shultays|4 years ago|reply
I think a qwerty keyboard makes sense as a default since that is what people used to and it is hard to teach people new things. But there are alternatives for people wants to try them
[+] [-] jhanschoo|4 years ago|reply
With Latin's smaller alphabet, you can even have the best of both predictive text and precise input: maybe have the plain tap on 1 be a wildcard (a|b|c) for the predictive engine to infer
[+] [-] laumars|4 years ago|reply
Eg https://phonesdata.com/files/models/Nokia-E51-807.jpg
The funny thing with those little handsets was, with a bit practice you could actually get very quick at typing. Quicker even than on QWERTY keyboards on touch screen phones (at least you had tactile buttons).
[+] [-] pjerem|4 years ago|reply
Typing on those phones required some practice to get muscle memory but it was accessible to barely anyone that had to use it. Even people who use computer keyboard all their life but are still watching they keycaps succeeded to type SMSs with the phone in their pockets.
I’m sad that we are getting nothing that stands between the old closed feature phones and the mini computers we call smartphones.
[+] [-] lelandfe|4 years ago|reply
I still miss being able to compose messages in my pocket...
[+] [-] avodonosov|4 years ago|reply
Wanted to use https://software-lab.de/penti.html but have difficulty learning all the chords.
[+] [-] bowmessage|4 years ago|reply
the irony of the typo in your comment is not lost :)
[+] [-] andreareina|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egypturnash|4 years ago|reply
Each letter is a two-button chord, but in practice, each letter is an arpeggio because the Twiddler only sends a key event when you release a button. The layout is designed so that when writing English, there is a very high probability that the second button you press for a letter will be the first button you press for the next letter, so you can keep that button held down, press the second button, then release the first button to send the next letter. Your first three fingers (it doesn't use the pinky row) will "walk" around the three rows of the Twiddler.
This is kind of making me want to pull out my Twiddler again, I really haven't used it since I gave up on trying to run Illustrator on a Surface tablet instead of a Mac laptop.
[+] [-] amosj|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doomrobo|4 years ago|reply
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210066
[+] [-] diplodocusaur|4 years ago|reply
I believe this idea can have potential for breaking the world record because there is no finger-to-key travel. But maybe it is diminished by the having to press a key multiple times over to get to the target just like in old cellphones [0].
Alternatively maybe one could brute force the problem of optimal keyboard layout/etc using simulations. Like that robot (human) hand that solves rubik's cubes by learning through simulation (apparently, from OpenAI [1]).
[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Telephon...
[1] https://openai.com/blog/solving-rubiks-cube/
[+] [-] jonsen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] diplodocusaur|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vedosity|4 years ago|reply
[0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/KeyboardEve...
[+] [-] ianthehenry|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deanclatworthy|4 years ago|reply
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/19/630111211/one-key-many-notes-...
I tried to create something similar using web audio and a midi piano a while ago but the reason this works is you are applying digital processing to analogue output, along with Ólafur being one of the most talented composers alive at the moment.
[+] [-] biryani_chicken|4 years ago|reply
It's actually a clone of another keyboard, 8pen, which was abandoned. Here's a video of how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99vsUF4NuLk
[+] [-] germ|4 years ago|reply
Nice write-up OP! Excited to see where you go with Peggi :)
[+] [-] spindle|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daliusd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|4 years ago|reply
What's nice about having the full keyboard is that you can keep normal keybindings and just not use them when you're feeling lazy. I'll have to play with this more, it's a really good idea.
[+] [-] Fatboyrunning|4 years ago|reply
If you haven't come across Doug Engelbart yet, I highly recommend it. He invented the mouse (yes, that mouse), and was a staunch believer in chorded keyboards.
I'll admit, though, I don't really get it.
[+] [-] dotancohen|4 years ago|reply
I just bought the hardware recommended in the fine article, let's see how that build goes!