Article 9246 of news.answers: Path: cs.utk.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!elmer-fudd.cs.berkeley.edu!dwallach From: Dan Wallach Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.occupational,comp.human-factors,comp.answers,sci.answers,news.answers Subject: FAQ: Typing Injuries (3/4): Keyboard Alternatives [monthly posting] Supersedes: Followup-To: sci.med.occupational Date: 25 May 1993 08:40:50 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 697 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Expires: 3 Jul 1993 08:40:44 GMT Message-ID: Reply-To: Dan Wallach NNTP-Posting-Host: elmer-fudd.cs.berkeley.edu Summary: everything you ever wanted to know about replacing your keyboard Originator: dwallach@elmer-fudd.cs.berkeley.edu Xref: cs.utk.edu sci.med:55194 sci.med.occupational:91 comp.human-factors:1547 comp.answers:798 sci.answers:204 news.answers:9246 Archive-name: typing-injury-faq/keyboards Version: $Revision: 6.0 $ $Date: 1993/05/25 08:27:16 $ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Answers To Frequently Asked Questions about Keyboard Alternatives ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Alternative Keyboard FAQ Copyright 1992,1993 By Dan Wallach The opinions in here are my own, unless otherwise mentioned, and do not represent the opinions of any organization or vendor. [Current distribution: sci.med.occupational, sci.med, comp.human-factors, {news,sci,comp}.answers, and e-mail to c+health@iubvm.ucs.indiana.edu, sorehand@vm.ucsf.edu, and cstg-L@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu] Changes since previously distributed versions are marked with change || bars to the right of the text, as is this paragraph. || Information in this FAQ has been pieced together from phone conversations, e-mail, and product literature. While I hope it's useful, the information in here is neither comprehensive nor error free. If you find something wrong or missing, please mail me, and I'll update my list. Thanks. All phone numbers, unless otherwise mentioned, are U.S.A. phone numbers. All monetary figures, unless otherwise mentioned, are U.S.A. dollars. Products covered in this FAQ: Using a PC's keyboard on your workstation / compatibility issues ("normal" keyboards -- by normal, I really mean non-chording) Apple Computer, Inc. Comfort Keyboard System DataHand FlexPro (KeyTronic) Kinesis Ergonomic Keyboard The MIKey Maltron The Tony! Ergonomic KeySystem The Vertical The Wave ("chording" systems / speech recognizers / other products) AccuKey The Bat Braille 'n Speak Dragon Systems Half-QWERTY Kurzweil Microwriter The Minimal Motion Computer Access System Octima Twiddler GIF pictures of many of these products are available via anonymous ftp from soda.berkeley.edu:pub/typing-injury. (128.32.149.19) I highly recommend getting the pictures. They tell much more than I can fit into this file. If you can't ftp, send me mail, and I'll uuencode and mail them to you (they're pretty big...) ============== Using a PC's keyboard on your workstation / compatibility issues Mini outline: 1. Spoofing a keyboard over the serial port 2. X terminals 3. NeXT 4. Silicon Graphics 5. IBM RS/6000 6. Other stuff 1. Spoofing a keyboard over the serial port If you've got a proprietary computer which uses its own keyboard (Sun, HP, DEC, etc.) then you're going to have a hard time finding a vendor to sell you a compatible keyboard. If your workstation runs the X window system, you're in luck. You can buy a cheap used PC, hook your expensive keyboard up to it, and run a serial cable to your workstation. Then, run a program on the workstation to read the serial port and generate fake X keyboard events. The two main programs I've found to do this are KT and A2X. a2x is a sophisticated program, capable of controlling the mouse, and even moving among widgets on the screen. It requires a server extension (XTEST, DEC-XTRAP, or XTestExtension1). To find out if your server can do this, run 'xdpyinfo' and see if any of these strings appear in the extensions list. If your server doesn't have this, you may want to investigate compiling X11R5, patchlevel 18 or later, or bugging your vendor. kt is a simpler program, which should work with unextended X servers. Another program called xsendevent also exists, but I haven't seen it. Both a2x and kt are available via anonymous ftp from soda.berkeley.edu. 2. X terminals Also, a number of X terminals (NCD, Tektronics, to name a few) use PC-compatible keyboards. If you have an X terminal, you may be all set. Try it out with a normal PC keyboard before you go through the trouble of buying an alternative keyboard. Also, some X terminals add extra buttons -- you may need to keep your original keyboard around for the once-in-a-blue-moon that you have to hit the Setup key. 3. NeXT NeXT had announced that new NeXT machines will use the Apple Desktop Bus, meaning any Mac keyboard will work. Then, they announced they were cancelling their hardware production. If you want any kind of upgrade for an older NeXT, do it now! 4. Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics has announced that their newer machines (Indigo^2 and beyond) will use standard PC-compatible keyboards and mice. I don't believe this also applies to the Power Series machines. It's not possible to upgrade an older SGI to use PC keyboards, except by upgrading the entire machine. Contact your SGI sales rep for more details. 5. IBM RS/6000 IBM RS/6000 keyboards are actually similar to normal PC keyboards. Unfortunately, you can't just plug one in. You need two things: a cable converter to go from the large PC keyboard connector to the smaller PS/2 style DIN-6, and a new device driver for AIX. Believe it or not, IBM wrote this device driver recently, I used it, and it works. However, they don't want me to redistribute it. I've been told Judy Hume (512) 823-6337 is a potential contact. If you learn anything new, please send me e-mail. 6. Other stuff Some vendors here (notably: Health Care Keyboard Co. and AccuCorp) support some odd keyboard types, and may be responsive to your queries regarding supporting your own weird computer. If you can get sufficient documention about how your keyboard works (either from the vendor, or with a storage oscilloscope), you may be in luck. Contact the companies for more details. =========== ("normal" keyboards -- things that bear a resemblance to QWERTY) =========== Apple Adjustable Keyboard Apple Computer, Inc. Sales offices all over the place. Availability: February, 1993 Price: $219 Supports: Mac only Apple has recently announced their new split-design keyboard. The keyboard has one section for each hand, and the sections rotate backward on a hinge. The sections do not tilt upward. The keys are arranged in a normal QWERTY fashion. The main foldable keyboard resembles a normal Apple Keyboard. A separate keypad contains all the extended key functions. The keyboard also comes with matching wrist rests, which are not directly attachable to the keyboard. As soon as soda comes back up, I'll have a detailed blurb from TidBITS available there. Comfort Keyboard System 414-253-4131 FAX: 414-253-4177 Health Care Keyboard Company N82 W15340 Appleton Ave Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin 53051 U.S.A. Jeffrey Szmanda (Vice President -- contact) Shipping: Now. Supports: PC (and Mac???) Planned future support: IBM 122-key layout (3270-style, I believe) Sun Sparc Decision Data Unisys UTS-40 Silicon Graphics Others to be supported later. The hardware design is relatively easy for the company to re-configure. Price: $690, including one system "personality module". The idea is that one keyboard works with everything. You purchase "compatibility modules", a new cord, and possibly new keycaps, and then you can move your one keyboard around among different machines. It's a three-piece folding keyboard. The layout resembles the standard 101-key keyboard, except sliced into three sections. Each section is on a "custom telescoping universal mount." Each section independently adjusts to an infinite number of positions allowing each individual to type in a natural posture. You can rearrange the three sections, too (have the keypad in the middle if you want). Each section is otherwise normal-shaped (i.e.: you put all three sections flat, and you have what looks like a normal 101-key keyboard). DataHand 602-860-8584 Industrial Innovations, Inc. 10789 North 90th Street Scottsdale, Arizona 85260-6727, U.S.A. Mark Roggenbuck (contact) Supports: PC and Mac Shipping: Now. (Expect it to take about a month) || Price: $2000/unit (1 unit == 2 pods). (new price!) Each hand has its own "pod". Each of the four main fingers has five switches each: forward, back, left, right, and down. The thumbs have a number of switches. Despite appearances, the key layout resembles QWERTY, and is reported to be no big deal to adapt to. The idea is that your hands never have to move to use the keyboard. The whole pod tilts in its base, to act as a mouse. (see also: the detailed review, written by Cliff Lasser available via anonymous ftp from soda.berkeley.edu) FlexPro Keyboard Key Tronic Phone: 800-262-6006 Possible contact: Denise Razzeto, 509-927-5299 Sold by many clone vendors and PC shops Availability: Spring, 1993 (?) Price: $489 (?) Supports: PC only (highly likely) Keytronic apparently showed a prototype keyboard at Comdex. It's another split-design. One thumb-wheel controls the tilt of both the left and right-hand sides of the main alphanumeric section. The arrow keys and keypad resemble a normal 101-key PC keyboard. Keytronic makes standard PC keyboards, also, so this product will probably be sold through their standard distribution channels. Kinesis Ergonomic Keyboard 206-455-9220 206-455-9233 (fax) Kinesis Corporation 915 118th Ave. SE. || Bellevue, Washington 98005, U.S.A. || Shirley Lunde (VP Marketing -- contact) Shipping: Now. Supports: PC. Mac and Sun Sparc in the works. Price: $690. Volume discounts available. The $690 includes one foot pedal, one set of adhesive wrist pads, and a TypingTutor program. An additional foot pedal and other accessories are extra. The layout has a large blank space in the middle, even though the keyboard is about the size of a normal PC keyboard -- slightly smaller. Each hand has its own set of keys, laid out to minimize finger travel. Thumb buttons handle many major functions (enter, backspace, etc.). You can remap the keyboard in firmware (very nice when software won't allow the reconfig). Foot pedals are also available, and can be mapped to any key on the keyboard (shift, control, whatever). Maltron (+44) 081 398 3265 (United Kingdom) P.C.D. Maltron Limited 15 Orchard Lane East Molesey Surrey KT8 OBN England Pamela and Stephen Hobday (contacts) U.S. Distributor: Jim Barrett Applied Learning Corp. 1376 Glen Hardie Road Wayne, PA 19087 Phone: 215-688-6866 Canadian Distributor: || Robert Vellinga || Human Systems, Inc. || 310 Main Street East, Suite 205 || Milton, Ontario, L9T 1P4 || Phone: 416-875-0220 || Fax: 416-878-1683 || Supports: PC's, Mac, Amstrad 1512/1640. || Price: 375 pounds $790 + shipping in the U.S.A. || They have a number of accessories, including carrying cases, switch boxes to use both your normal keyboard and the Maltron, an articulated arm that clamps on to your table, and training 'courses' to help you learn to type on your Maltron. You can also rent a keyboard for 10 pounds/week + taxes. U.S. price: $120/month, and then $60 off purchase if you want it. Shipping: Now (in your choice of colors: black or grey) Maltron has four main products -- a two-handed keyboard, two one-handed keyboards, and a keyboard designed for handicapped people to control with a mouth-stick. The layout allocates more buttons to the thumbs, and is curved to bring keys closer to the fingers. A separate keypad is in the middle. The MIKey 301-933-1111 Dr. Alan Grant 3208 Woodhollow Drive Chevy Chase, Maryland 20815, U.S.A. Shipping: As of July, 1992: "Should be Available in One Year." Supports: PC, Mac (maybe) Price: $200 (estimated) The keyboard is at a fixed angle, and incorporates a built-in mouse operated by the thumbs. Function keys are arranged in a circle at the keyboard's left. The Tony! Ergonomic KeySystem 415-969-8669 Tony Hodges The Tony! Corporation 2332 Thompson Court Mountain View, CA 94043, U.S.A. Supports: Mac, PC, IBM 3270, Sun, and DEC. Shipping: ??? Price: $625 (you commit now, and then you're in line to buy the keyboard. When it ships, if it's cheaper, you pay the cheaper price. If it's more expensive, you still pay $625) The Tony! should allow separate positioning of every key, to allow the keyboard to be personally customized. A thumb-operated mouse will also be available. The Vertical Contact: Jeffrey Spencer or Stephen Albert, 619-454-0000 P.O. Box 2636 La Jolla, CA 92038, U.S.A. Supports: no info available, probably PC's Available: Summer, 1993 Price: $249 The Vertical Keyboard is split in two halves, each pointing straight up. The user can adjust the width of the device, but not the tilt of each section. Side-view mirrors are installed to allow users to see their fingers on the keys. The Wave (was: 213-) 310-644-6100 FAX: 310-644-6068 Iocomm International Technology 12700 Yukon Avenue Hawthorne, California 90250, U.S.A. Robin Hunter (contact -- in sales) Cost: $99.95 + $15 for a set of cables Supports: PC only. Shipping: now. Iocomm also manufactures "ordinary" 101-key keyboard (PC/AT) and 84-key keyboard (PC/XT), so make sure you get the right one. The one-piece keyboard has a built-in wrist-rest. It looks *exactly* like a normal 101-key PC keyboard, with two inches of built-in wrist rest. The key switch feel is reported to be greatly improved. =========== (Chording keyboards / speech recognizers / other products) =========== AccuKey AccuCorp, Inc. P.O. Box 66 Christiansburg, VA 24073, U.S.A. 703-961-3576 (Pete Rosenquist -- Sales) 703-961-2001 (Larry Langley -- President) Shipping: Now. Supports: PC, Mac, IBM 3270, Sun Sparc, and TeleVideo 935 and 955. Cost: $495 + shipping. Doesn't use conventional push-keys. Soft rubber keys, which rock forward and backward (each key has three states), make chords for typing keys. Learning time is estimated to be 2-3 hours, for getting started, and maybe two weeks to get used to it. Currently, the thumbs don't do anything, although a thumb-trackball is in the works. The company claims it takes about a week of work to support a new computer. They will be happy to adapt their keyboard to your computer, if possible. The Bat old phone number: 504-336-0033 current phone number: 504-766-8082 Infogrip, Inc. 812 North Blvd. Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70802, U.S.A. Ward Bond (main contact) David Vicknair (did the Unix software) 504-766-1029 Shipping: Now. Supports: Mac, IBM PC (serial port -- native keyboard port version coming very soon...). No other workstations supported, but serial support for Unix with X Windows has been written. PC and Mac are getting all the real attention from the company. A chording system. One hand is sufficient to type everything. The second hand is for redundancy and increased speed. Price: $495 (dual set -- each one is a complete keyboard by itself) $295 (single) (cheaper prices were offered at MacWorld Expo as a show-special.) Braille 'n Speak 301-879-4944 Blazie Engineering 3660 Mill Green Rd. Street, Md 21154, U.S.A. (information provided by Doug Martin ) The Braille N Speak uses any of several Braille codes for entering information: Grade I, Grade II, or computer Braille. Basically, letters a-j are combinations of dots 1, 2, 4, and 5. Letters k-t are the same combinations as a-j with dot 3 added. Letters u, v, x, y, and z are like a-e with dots 3 and 6 added. (w is unique because Louis Braille didn't have a w in the French alphabet.) DragonDictate-30K (and numerous other Dragon products) Dragon Systems, Inc. 320 Nevada Street Newton, MA 02160 Phone: 800-TALK-TYP or 617-965-5200 Fax: 617-527-0372 Shipping: Now. Price: DragonDictate-30K -- $4995 (end user system) DragonWriter 1000 -- $1595 / $2495 (end user/developer system) various other prices for service contracts, site licenses, etc. Compatibility: 386 (or higher) PC only (3rd party support for Mac) Free software support for X windows is also available -- your PC with Dragon hardware talks to your workstation over a serial cable or network. The program is called a2x, and is available via anonymous ftp: soda.berkeley.edu:pub/typing-injury/a2x.tar.Z export.lcs.mit.edu:contrib/a2x.tar.Z (most current) If you want to use your Dragon product with X windows, you may want to ask for Peter Cohen, an salesman at Dragon who knows more about this sort of thing. Dragon Systems sells a number of voice recognition products. Most (if not all) of them seem to run on PC's and compatibles (including PS/2's and other MicroChannel boxes). They sell you a hardware board and software which sits in front of a number of popular word processors and spreadsheets. Each user `trains' the system to their voice, and there are provisions to correct the system when it makes mistakes, on the fly. Multiple people can use it, but you have to load a different personality file for each person. You still get the use of your normal keyboard, too. On the DragonDictate-30K you need to pause 1/10th sec between words. Dragon claims typical input speeds of 30-40 words per minute. I don't have specs on the DragonWriter 1000. The DragonDictate-30K can recognize 30,000 words at a time. The DragonWriter 1000 can recognize (you guessed it) 1000 words at a time. Dragon's technology is also part of the following products (about which I have no other info): Microsoft Windows Sound System (Voice Pilot) IBM VoiceType Voice Navigator II (by Articulate Systems -- for Macintosh) EMStation (by Lanier Voice Products -- "emergency medical workstation") Half-QWERTY (Canada) 416-749-3124 The Matias Corporation 178 Thistledown Boulevard Rexdale, Ontario, Canada M9V 1K1 E-mail: ematias@dgp.toronto.edu Supports: Mac and PC (but, not Windows) Demo for anonymous ftp: explorer.dgp.toronto.edu:/pub/Half-QWERTY Price: $129.95 (higher in Canada, quantity discounts available) Shipping: Now. This thing is purely software. No hardware at all. The software will mirror the keyboard when you hold down the space bar, allowing you type one-handed. Kurzweil 617-893-5151 || Fax: 617-893-6525 || Kurzweil Applied Intelligence, Inc || 411 Waverley Oaks Road || Waltham MA 02154 || Contact: Joe Murphy || The Kurzweil system is a voice recognition system which interfaces || with PC compatibles. For $6000, you get a board which will support || 50,000 words -- 10K user defined and 40K from a 200K word dictionary. || The system is reported to attempt speaker-independence through || continuously adapting voice models. This requires about 12 mbytes || of disk space to store its state, however. || MS-DOS is supported. Windows is not, as yet. Requires 486DX/33 || with 32 mb RAM. || Microwriter AgendA (U.K.) (+44) 276 692 084 FAX: (+44) 276 691 826 Microwriter Systems plc M.S.A. House 2 Albany Court Albany Park Frimley Surrey GU15 2XA, United Kingdom (Info from Carroll Morgan ) The AgendA is a personal desktop assistant (PDA) style machine. You can carry it along with you. It has chording input. You can also hook it up to your PC, or even program it. It costs just under 200 pounds, with 128K memory. The Minimal Motion Computer Access System 508-263-6437 508-263-6537 (fax) Equal Access Computer Technology Dr. Michael Weinreigh 39 Oneida Rd. Acton, MA 01720, U.S.A. Price: InfoGrip-compatible: "a few hundred dollars" + a one-handed Bat For their own system: $300 (DOS software) + "a few hundred dollars" Shipping: these are custom-made, so an occupational therapist would make moulds/do whatever to make it for you. You can buy one now. Supports: PC only, although the InfoGrip-compatible version might work with a Mac. In a one-handed version, there is exactly one button per finger. In a two-handed version, you get four buttons per finger, and the thumbs don't do anything. You can also get one-handed versions with three thumb buttons -- compatible with the InfoGrip Bat. Basically, get it any way you want. They also have a software tutorial to help you learn the chording. Works on a PC under DOS, not Windows. Planning on Macintosh and PC/Windows support. No work has been done on a Unix version, yet. Octima (Israel) 972-4-5322844 FAX: (+972) 3 5322970 Ergoplic Keyboards Ltd. P.O. Box 31 Kiryat Ono 55100, Israel (info from Mandy Jaffe-Katz ) A one-handed keyboard. Twiddler 516-474-4405, or 800-638-2352 Handykey 141 Mt. Sinai Ave. Mt. Sinai, NY 11766 Chris George (President) Shipping: now. Price: $199. Supports: PC only. Mac and X Windows in the works. The Twiddler is both a keyboard and a mouse, and it fits in one hand. You type via finger chords. Shift, control, etc. are thumb buttons. When in "mouse" mode, tilting the Twiddler moves the mouse, and mouse buttons are on your fingers. The cabling leaves your normal keyboard available, also. Most applications work, and Windows works fine. DESQview has trouble. GEOWorks also has trouble -- mouse works, keyboard doesn't. =========== Thanks go to Chris Bekins for providing the basis for this information. Thanks to the numerous contributors: Doug Martin Carroll Morgan Mandy Jaffe-Katz Wes Hunter Paul Schwartz H.J. Woltring Dan Sorenson Chris VanHaren Ravi Pandya Leonard H. Tower Jr. Dan Jacobson Jim Cheetham Cliff Lasser Richard Donkin Paul Rubin David Erb Bob Scheifler Chris Grant Scott Mandell John Darragh and everybody else who I've probably managed to forget. The opinions in here are my own, unless otherwise mentioned, and do not represent the opinions of any organization or vendor. -- Dan Wallach "One of the most attractive features of a Connection dwallach@cs.berkeley.edu Machine is the array of blinking lights on the faces Office#: 510-642-9585 of its cabinet." -- CM Paris Ref. Manual, v6.0, p48.