8 ms·

Apple patents MacBook with key switches under a flexible touchscreen keyboard

75 points by gjvc 8y ago

romanr 8y ago
This opens up possibility for keyboard that acts as touchpad if you press and slide finger. Like on the iPhone. And that, by removing touchpad opens possibility of smaller MacBook.
wanderfowl 8y ago
Hm. At some level, this would be great, particularly for fluidly switching among keyboards across many languages, or even for particular games or applications (remapping the keys to functions which are nicely labeled). But it would need to get the haptic cues right, such that touch-typing remains possible and enjoyable. One side bonus is that presumably, your keyboard would now be covered in a continuous non-permeable sheet. Combined with haptic touchpads, we're edging closer and closer to a more water-resistant laptop.
- swombat 8y ago
  That's already achieved with the iPad Pro Keyboard case keyboard. If they wanted to make water-resistant Macbooks today they could (or at least the keyboard is not the main block).
- Eric_WVGG 8y ago
  Let's give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment: the faux button on the trackpad is absolutely magical, superior in every way to a physical button. So imagine that the "glass" of the new keyboard had physical ridges for the gutters between the keys, and then adjustable sensitivity for the force "clicks"… I could get into this. The lack of moving parts would provvide greater long-time durability, and make water damage a distant memory. btw, see that double-vv above? Guess who's keyboard is failing for a second time? Yes, I, like many others, wouldn't mind a return to the older keyboard, but I'm also not afraid of the future. If that trackpad button is possible, I am confident that we'll see a faux keyboard of this quality at some point in my lifetime.
  - throwaway98121 8y ago
    I don’t see how a glass screen, no matter how amazing it feels, would be better than a keyboard. Of course, any judgement I pass is far too premature and a tad unfair since it’s just a patent and I haven’t tried out the product that uses the patent. I do think that Apple is seemingly out of ideas. I’d be happy to buy a MacBook if they fixed the problems since 2016.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >I don’t see how a glass screen, no matter how amazing it feels, would be better than a keyboard. 2007 called, it wants its arguments back -- for those were the same arguments made in favor of Blackberry and other crappy experiences compared to today's touch smartphones.
      - frosted-flakes 8y ago
        Except modern BlackBerrys provide a far more enjoyable and accurate experience than typing on glass. It's not necessarily faster, but nicer. And you even get gesture support for stuff like adding suggestions and moving the cursors around. Modern BlackBerrys run Android.
        coldtea 8y ago
        And all 10 people prefer that "more enjoyable experience", so it makes one wonder, more enjoyable to whom?
        frosted-flakes 8y ago
        I've never understood this attitude toward BlackBerry. Not that I really care, but you'd think more people would rather have more choice, than less. It's true that BlackBerry the company was unsuccessful at selling phones since its heyday many years ago, but they're not in that business anymore, and haven't been for years. These days, they license the BlackBerry brand and patents to companies like TCL, who've been relatively successful with phones like the KeyOne and Key2. Just because BlackBerrys (BlackBerries?) form an almost insignificant share of Android devices doesn't mean they're not good.
- diffeomorphism 8y ago
  There already are actual keyboards with oled displays on the keys. Also, many business laptops (e.g. thinkpads) are already spill-proof. I don't see how the proposal here is not strictly worse than what is currently available.
kkylin 8y ago
I've been hoping for something like this for some time (and have thought Apple might be moving in that direction with the Touch Bar etc). It may just be the way I type, and I may well be in a minority, but I'd much prefer a configuration with the keyboard closer to me and the trackpad elsewhere, since I actually don't use the trackpad as much as the keyboard. It'd be nice to be able to reconfigure the input surface on the fly.
- jwr 8y ago
  I found that the ipad pro keyboard is surprisingly ergonomic, exactly because of this.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
highace 8y ago
Is this punishment for all the complaints about the current keyboard?
- ypolito 8y ago
  People complained when the Touch Toolbar replaced the Function keys row. Now it looks like Apple plans to replace the whole keyboard. Haptic feedback sounds nice, but the invisible "buttons" and bumps will always remain at the same positions. Reprogramming these keys and their backgrounds might be useful in some applications, but the hardware layout wouldn't be very configurable. The next iteration of this design would be to mechanically even out the keyboard layout bumps, whenever the keyboard or a specific key isn't in use.
- on_and_off 8y ago
  Apple just wants us to get used to a shitty key feel to open the door to even worse.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    You're not entirely wrong here. Companies have no obligation to give the consumer the biggest and best, if they know the consumer will be satisfied with par. For instance, if a business has no/weak competition, then even if the company has a next-level product ready for distribution, it would make more sense to keep the lesser product on the shelf and only increment features when competition arrives. For Apple, they know their customers are loyal and getting them riled up about some things here and there will only heighten the excitement when the truly epic product is released. I'm not sure if that's what's happening here, but I don't see Apple struggling.
    - on_and_off 8y ago
      I was half joking. In my personal case I have grown more and more frustrated with Apple's products. It boggles my mind that my 5 years old MBP is more pleasant to use than the one I got at work 1 year ago (to be 100% fair, the new model has one nicety : the fingerprint reader, even though I am not 100% satisfied/convinced, it is nicer than entering a password). I am more than ready to jump ship to any other product at this point. Even an OS that I feel is inferior for my personal needs won't be too much of an issue if it does everything else better than my current laptop.
bastawhiz 8y ago
Reminds me a lot of the ill-fated optimus keyboard. https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/ https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/
- mratzloff 8y ago
  Hopefully it doesn't cost $1000 like that did.
  - fuck_This_Shit 8y ago
    Fortunately, since this is Apple, it will cost $5000.
tomcam 8y ago
I look forward to Apple releasing a small, light laptop with a keyboard as reliable as my 2011 MacBook Air.
agumonkey 8y ago
Few years ago they patented some tactile LCD matrix
aaaaaaaaaaab 8y ago
Suddenly the current MBP keyboard doesn't seem that bad.
- in_hindsight 8y ago
  Beautiful damage control on Apple’s part, now people will stop posting their complaints on the forums
crsmithdev 8y ago
Perhaps eventually they'll invent and patent their way back to a usable laptop keyboard :) IMO, declaring bankruptcy on the current design and reverting to the previous chiclet keys would be welcomed by most users, but it seems unlikely that Apple will actually admit a mistake for a few more years (e.g. what happened with the Mac Pro).
- throwaway98121 8y ago
  The 2015 MacBook Pro was the last piece of great hardware from Apple, in terms of their laptops. The newer MacBooks with their gimmicky touchbar and useless keyboards, for the sake of being thin, just show Tim Cook and his advisors have no ideas other than taking advantage of Facebooks privacy disasters and trying to get consumers to keep buying Apple products because Apple is supposedly on a higher moral pedestal.
  - lilactown 8y ago
    2015 MBP was great, but I also immensely enjoyed my 2013 MacBook Air. The Air's battery life, form factor and performance made it hands down the best laptop for its time. I'm actually in the process of wiping it to give to a friend and feeling a bit of sadness. I use a 2017 MBP now - the screen is what finally got me - but you're right, todays hardware just doesn't compare to how it felt back then.
    - simple_phrases 8y ago
      The Macbook Air form factor was, in my opinion, ideal. I have a 2011 MBA I keep around the house because it's still great.
    - dorchadas 8y ago
      I consider myself lucky that the store still had a few 2015 MBP left in stock when I went to buy mine. Definitely much better than that stupid touchbar stuff, and the fault keyboard.
- jotm 8y ago
ckrraa 8y ago
So the current MacBook is going to seem like a good deal over at the Apple office, where most developers dread to have one of the new ones assigned to them and hope for an older one without the touchpad. Did you ever try to use Idea or IntelliJ with the new one? Fuck those function keys! ..
- danso 8y ago
  What is the latest MacBook to not have a touchpad?
  - barbecue_sauce 8y ago
    Probably means the touch bar, in which case pre-Late 2016.
  - mmgutz 8y ago
    I think he meant Touch Bar
- jhhnn 8y ago
  If you haven't already, go into Keyboard settings, shortcuts, function keys, and assign IntelliJ as an app that always has the F keys open so you don't need to press fn first.
xixixao 8y ago
"it’s more of a way to enhance interaction by creating dynamic buttons that are application dependent." But this is fundamentally touch-typist unfriendly. And most serious professionals, most people who actually try to maximize their productivity, will be at some level of touch typing - not having to look at the keyboard while they type. So this makes much more sense for non-professional use cases - where the iPad might already be a winner anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if this was just a defensive patent that never makes it into a product.
- dreamcompiler 8y ago
  They might be assuming that most computer users nowadays never learned to touch type. Maybe they're right. Anybody know the current statistics on this?
  - dgzl 8y ago
    I would bet you're right. As soon as an option was presented for using computer functions away from the PC (i.e. smartphones), people ditched the keyboard and desk.
purplezooey 8y ago
Is it just me or does it look like the top touchscreen layer would wear out fast, constantly being "inverted"/bent for every keystroke.
cs02rm0 8y ago
Yet another way to increase failure rates and repair costs, just what the MBP needs. To be fair, I'd think it more likely Apple would just remove the keyboard and sell you a dongle to plug an external one in than this. Although right now I wouldn't put it past them.
- nimish 8y ago
  That's what they sell iPad for
fuck_This_Shit 8y ago
This is going to fucking suck.
liquidise 8y ago
This should come as no surprise. Apple has been on a crusade against buttons for years. Trackpads are now haptic, the iphones have cast aside the home button years ago. Ive, and Apple by extension, view buttons as the waste of screen space. Replacing the bottom laptop panel with a touchscreen does present some interesting usability options. It also worries me that we are moving ever closer to OS X being replaced with some version of iOS instead of the other way around.
Moto7451 8y ago
There's a lot of lamenting about this keyboard concept, but to play devils advocate, it could also be presented as the entire keyboard for the patent but actually be meant for the Touch Bar. That way they can give the F keys some tactile feedback. The escape and F "keys" lack of feedback does not inspire confidence when typing. Having some force feedback at the very least would be an improvement. Having an actual key press would be great.
jdietrich 8y ago
This sounds an awful lot like the notoriously awful membrane keyboard on the Sinclair ZX81. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81#/media/File:Sinclair-ZX81.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81#/media/File:Sinclair-ZX81...
amiga-workbench 8y ago
I'd rather daily driver a ZX80.
exabrial 8y ago
I bet they also get rid of all the ports, including the charger.
m0zg 8y ago
The strategy reveals itself: make a keyboard so shitty that a single breadcumb kills it. Then "upgrade" the users to something they wouldn't want if they had a proper, "old macbook pro" style keyboard. Reminds me of an old Soviet joke. A guy comes to his doctor and starts complaining: "Doctor, it's intolerable, 10 of us live in tiny room in a communal apartment, I can't live like that anymore." The doctor suggests: "Get a pet goat and come back for a checkup in a month." So the guy comes back in a month, totally livid: "It's even worse, the goat takes up a lot of space, shits everywhere and starts baa-hing at 4AM in the morning. Everyone is suicidal." The wise doctor: "Now get rid of the goat".
- incelmods 8y ago
  Reminds me that people make stuff up. People like you. Here's the actual joke: A jew comes to his rabbi and tells him it's hard to live in his tiny apartment with his wife, kids, and mother in law. The rabbi tells him to get a dog and check back in a month. The jew comes back and complains it's even worse. Less room, the dog runs around, the kids are crying. The rabbi says to get a goat. The jew comes back in a month - it's even worse. The goat is shitting everywhere. Rabbi says to get a cow. The jew comes back and tells the rabbi he's always had respect for the man, but his advice has made his family life completely intolerable - save me! Rabbi tells him to sell the dog, the goat, and the cow. The jew comes back the next day glowing from happiness. Thanks rabbi - life is great now - there's so much space. Source: I'm a Russian-American Jew, and my family is from Soviet Moscow. EDIT: and here's the actual joke: https://www.anekdot.ru/id/-301115039/ https://www.anekdot.ru/id/-301115039/
cosanostra 8y ago
Great, I look forward to $1000+ repair bills when this keyboard inevitably breaks.
shrimpx 8y ago
This will be awesome for vim-ers. Imagine the keyboard symbols change to display the actions you can do in command mode. When you press "d" in command mode, the relevant keys light up to indicate the type of object you can delete. Also in emacs, you hit ctrl-x and then the keyboard lights up to indicate any following actions you can take. It can have small text annotations with the actions, too. Extrapolate further to power tools like Apple Logic, or Final Cut Pro, where the keyboard becomes labeled with sound and film editing actions. The keyboard can go levels deep, where you enter one mode and the keyboard reconfigures itself with actions in that mode. Not just with key symbols, but colored/delineated control areas with arbitrary graphical and animation capability. This would basically finally take the keyboard to the next level; it has been roughly the same since the 60s. It widens the range of sensible input you can do with a keyboard by making it super intuitive to switch beteen and use arbitrary control modes. The power is undeniable, but the true test is feel.
- diffeomorphism 8y ago
  For emacs this is already done by which-key, which tells you about all following actions and their description. Also, this seems only useful if you don't touch type, which seems like the opposite demographic of emacs and vim users.
  - shrimpx 8y ago
    First, yes emacs has this functionality. But a visual keyboard interface would make it super intuitive and direct. Second, I disagree with the touch typing argument. Touch typing is a learned skill on an interface like the qwerty or the dvorak button layout, and has its roots in typewriting. There are innumerable other button layouts you could "touch type" on. On a visual keyboard of course you can still touch type in the classic style in the qwerty layout. But then there are many other possible layouts allowing varying types of control, not just a layout for typing letters and numbers. Also when you really think about it, it's pretty arbitrary that control commands in pro software and games involve letters and numbers. It's an awkward consequence of the ingrained limited keyboard layout. You should be pressing the "fire!" button not the key for typing the letter "f" (if indeed letter "f" is not occupied by some other command whose name starts with "f").
Justsignedup 8y ago
oh god no. no! NO! NO!

75 points by gjvc 8y ago

This opens up possibility for keyboard that acts as touchpad if you press and slide finger. Like on the iPhone. And that, by removing touchpad opens possibility of smaller MacBook.

wanderfowl 8y ago

Hm. At some level, this would be great, particularly for fluidly switching among keyboards across many languages, or even for particular games or applications (remapping the keys to functions which are nicely labeled). But it would need to get the haptic cues right, such that touch-typing remains possible and enjoyable. One side bonus is that presumably, your keyboard would now be covered in a continuous non-permeable sheet. Combined with haptic touchpads, we're edging closer and closer to a more water-resistant laptop.

swombat 8y ago
That's already achieved with the iPad Pro Keyboard case keyboard. If they wanted to make water-resistant Macbooks today they could (or at least the keyboard is not the main block).
Eric_WVGG 8y ago
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt for a moment: the faux button on the trackpad is absolutely magical, superior in every way to a physical button. So imagine that the "glass" of the new keyboard had physical ridges for the gutters between the keys, and then adjustable sensitivity for the force "clicks"… I could get into this. The lack of moving parts would provvide greater long-time durability, and make water damage a distant memory. btw, see that double-vv above? Guess who's keyboard is failing for a second time? Yes, I, like many others, wouldn't mind a return to the older keyboard, but I'm also not afraid of the future. If that trackpad button is possible, I am confident that we'll see a faux keyboard of this quality at some point in my lifetime.
- throwaway98121 8y ago
  I don’t see how a glass screen, no matter how amazing it feels, would be better than a keyboard. Of course, any judgement I pass is far too premature and a tad unfair since it’s just a patent and I haven’t tried out the product that uses the patent. I do think that Apple is seemingly out of ideas. I’d be happy to buy a MacBook if they fixed the problems since 2016.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >I don’t see how a glass screen, no matter how amazing it feels, would be better than a keyboard. 2007 called, it wants its arguments back -- for those were the same arguments made in favor of Blackberry and other crappy experiences compared to today's touch smartphones.
    - frosted-flakes 8y ago
      Except modern BlackBerrys provide a far more enjoyable and accurate experience than typing on glass. It's not necessarily faster, but nicer. And you even get gesture support for stuff like adding suggestions and moving the cursors around. Modern BlackBerrys run Android.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        And all 10 people prefer that "more enjoyable experience", so it makes one wonder, more enjoyable to whom?
        frosted-flakes 8y ago
        I've never understood this attitude toward BlackBerry. Not that I really care, but you'd think more people would rather have more choice, than less. It's true that BlackBerry the company was unsuccessful at selling phones since its heyday many years ago, but they're not in that business anymore, and haven't been for years. These days, they license the BlackBerry brand and patents to companies like TCL, who've been relatively successful with phones like the KeyOne and Key2. Just because BlackBerrys (BlackBerries?) form an almost insignificant share of Android devices doesn't mean they're not good.
diffeomorphism 8y ago
There already are actual keyboards with oled displays on the keys. Also, many business laptops (e.g. thinkpads) are already spill-proof. I don't see how the proposal here is not strictly worse than what is currently available.

kkylin 8y ago

I've been hoping for something like this for some time (and have thought Apple might be moving in that direction with the Touch Bar etc). It may just be the way I type, and I may well be in a minority, but I'd much prefer a configuration with the keyboard closer to me and the trackpad elsewhere, since I actually don't use the trackpad as much as the keyboard. It'd be nice to be able to reconfigure the input surface on the fly.

jwr 8y ago
I found that the ipad pro keyboard is surprisingly ergonomic, exactly because of this.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

highace 8y ago

Is this punishment for all the complaints about the current keyboard?

ypolito 8y ago
People complained when the Touch Toolbar replaced the Function keys row. Now it looks like Apple plans to replace the whole keyboard. Haptic feedback sounds nice, but the invisible "buttons" and bumps will always remain at the same positions. Reprogramming these keys and their backgrounds might be useful in some applications, but the hardware layout wouldn't be very configurable. The next iteration of this design would be to mechanically even out the keyboard layout bumps, whenever the keyboard or a specific key isn't in use.
on_and_off 8y ago
Apple just wants us to get used to a shitty key feel to open the door to even worse.
- dgzl 8y ago
  You're not entirely wrong here. Companies have no obligation to give the consumer the biggest and best, if they know the consumer will be satisfied with par. For instance, if a business has no/weak competition, then even if the company has a next-level product ready for distribution, it would make more sense to keep the lesser product on the shelf and only increment features when competition arrives. For Apple, they know their customers are loyal and getting them riled up about some things here and there will only heighten the excitement when the truly epic product is released. I'm not sure if that's what's happening here, but I don't see Apple struggling.
  - on_and_off 8y ago
    I was half joking. In my personal case I have grown more and more frustrated with Apple's products. It boggles my mind that my 5 years old MBP is more pleasant to use than the one I got at work 1 year ago (to be 100% fair, the new model has one nicety : the fingerprint reader, even though I am not 100% satisfied/convinced, it is nicer than entering a password). I am more than ready to jump ship to any other product at this point. Even an OS that I feel is inferior for my personal needs won't be too much of an issue if it does everything else better than my current laptop.

bastawhiz 8y ago

Reminds me a lot of the ill-fated optimus keyboard. https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/ https://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/

mratzloff 8y ago
Hopefully it doesn't cost $1000 like that did.
- fuck_This_Shit 8y ago
  Fortunately, since this is Apple, it will cost $5000.

tomcam 8y ago

I look forward to Apple releasing a small, light laptop with a keyboard as reliable as my 2011 MacBook Air.

agumonkey 8y ago

Few years ago they patented some tactile LCD matrix

aaaaaaaaaaab 8y ago

Suddenly the current MBP keyboard doesn't seem that bad.

in_hindsight 8y ago
Beautiful damage control on Apple’s part, now people will stop posting their complaints on the forums

crsmithdev 8y ago

Perhaps eventually they'll invent and patent their way back to a usable laptop keyboard :) IMO, declaring bankruptcy on the current design and reverting to the previous chiclet keys would be welcomed by most users, but it seems unlikely that Apple will actually admit a mistake for a few more years (e.g. what happened with the Mac Pro).

throwaway98121 8y ago
The 2015 MacBook Pro was the last piece of great hardware from Apple, in terms of their laptops. The newer MacBooks with their gimmicky touchbar and useless keyboards, for the sake of being thin, just show Tim Cook and his advisors have no ideas other than taking advantage of Facebooks privacy disasters and trying to get consumers to keep buying Apple products because Apple is supposedly on a higher moral pedestal.
- lilactown 8y ago
  2015 MBP was great, but I also immensely enjoyed my 2013 MacBook Air. The Air's battery life, form factor and performance made it hands down the best laptop for its time. I'm actually in the process of wiping it to give to a friend and feeling a bit of sadness. I use a 2017 MBP now - the screen is what finally got me - but you're right, todays hardware just doesn't compare to how it felt back then.
  - simple_phrases 8y ago
    The Macbook Air form factor was, in my opinion, ideal. I have a 2011 MBA I keep around the house because it's still great.
  - dorchadas 8y ago
    I consider myself lucky that the store still had a few 2015 MBP left in stock when I went to buy mine. Definitely much better than that stupid touchbar stuff, and the fault keyboard.
jotm 8y ago

ckrraa 8y ago

So the current MacBook is going to seem like a good deal over at the Apple office, where most developers dread to have one of the new ones assigned to them and hope for an older one without the touchpad. Did you ever try to use Idea or IntelliJ with the new one? Fuck those function keys! ..

danso 8y ago
What is the latest MacBook to not have a touchpad?
- barbecue_sauce 8y ago
  Probably means the touch bar, in which case pre-Late 2016.
- mmgutz 8y ago
  I think he meant Touch Bar
jhhnn 8y ago
If you haven't already, go into Keyboard settings, shortcuts, function keys, and assign IntelliJ as an app that always has the F keys open so you don't need to press fn first.

xixixao 8y ago

"it’s more of a way to enhance interaction by creating dynamic buttons that are application dependent." But this is fundamentally touch-typist unfriendly. And most serious professionals, most people who actually try to maximize their productivity, will be at some level of touch typing - not having to look at the keyboard while they type. So this makes much more sense for non-professional use cases - where the iPad might already be a winner anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if this was just a defensive patent that never makes it into a product.

dreamcompiler 8y ago
They might be assuming that most computer users nowadays never learned to touch type. Maybe they're right. Anybody know the current statistics on this?
- dgzl 8y ago
  I would bet you're right. As soon as an option was presented for using computer functions away from the PC (i.e. smartphones), people ditched the keyboard and desk.

purplezooey 8y ago

Is it just me or does it look like the top touchscreen layer would wear out fast, constantly being "inverted"/bent for every keystroke.

cs02rm0 8y ago

Yet another way to increase failure rates and repair costs, just what the MBP needs. To be fair, I'd think it more likely Apple would just remove the keyboard and sell you a dongle to plug an external one in than this. Although right now I wouldn't put it past them.

nimish 8y ago
That's what they sell iPad for

fuck_This_Shit 8y ago

This is going to fucking suck.

liquidise 8y ago

This should come as no surprise. Apple has been on a crusade against buttons for years. Trackpads are now haptic, the iphones have cast aside the home button years ago. Ive, and Apple by extension, view buttons as the waste of screen space. Replacing the bottom laptop panel with a touchscreen does present some interesting usability options. It also worries me that we are moving ever closer to OS X being replaced with some version of iOS instead of the other way around.

Moto7451 8y ago

There's a lot of lamenting about this keyboard concept, but to play devils advocate, it could also be presented as the entire keyboard for the patent but actually be meant for the Touch Bar. That way they can give the F keys some tactile feedback. The escape and F "keys" lack of feedback does not inspire confidence when typing. Having some force feedback at the very least would be an improvement. Having an actual key press would be great.

jdietrich 8y ago

This sounds an awful lot like the notoriously awful membrane keyboard on the Sinclair ZX81. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81#/media/File:Sinclair-ZX81.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81#/media/File:Sinclair-ZX81...

amiga-workbench 8y ago

I'd rather daily driver a ZX80.

exabrial 8y ago

I bet they also get rid of all the ports, including the charger.

m0zg 8y ago

The strategy reveals itself: make a keyboard so shitty that a single breadcumb kills it. Then "upgrade" the users to something they wouldn't want if they had a proper, "old macbook pro" style keyboard. Reminds me of an old Soviet joke. A guy comes to his doctor and starts complaining: "Doctor, it's intolerable, 10 of us live in tiny room in a communal apartment, I can't live like that anymore." The doctor suggests: "Get a pet goat and come back for a checkup in a month." So the guy comes back in a month, totally livid: "It's even worse, the goat takes up a lot of space, shits everywhere and starts baa-hing at 4AM in the morning. Everyone is suicidal." The wise doctor: "Now get rid of the goat".

incelmods 8y ago
Reminds me that people make stuff up. People like you. Here's the actual joke: A jew comes to his rabbi and tells him it's hard to live in his tiny apartment with his wife, kids, and mother in law. The rabbi tells him to get a dog and check back in a month. The jew comes back and complains it's even worse. Less room, the dog runs around, the kids are crying. The rabbi says to get a goat. The jew comes back in a month - it's even worse. The goat is shitting everywhere. Rabbi says to get a cow. The jew comes back and tells the rabbi he's always had respect for the man, but his advice has made his family life completely intolerable - save me! Rabbi tells him to sell the dog, the goat, and the cow. The jew comes back the next day glowing from happiness. Thanks rabbi - life is great now - there's so much space. Source: I'm a Russian-American Jew, and my family is from Soviet Moscow. EDIT: and here's the actual joke: https://www.anekdot.ru/id/-301115039/ https://www.anekdot.ru/id/-301115039/

cosanostra 8y ago

Great, I look forward to $1000+ repair bills when this keyboard inevitably breaks.

shrimpx 8y ago

This will be awesome for vim-ers. Imagine the keyboard symbols change to display the actions you can do in command mode. When you press "d" in command mode, the relevant keys light up to indicate the type of object you can delete. Also in emacs, you hit ctrl-x and then the keyboard lights up to indicate any following actions you can take. It can have small text annotations with the actions, too. Extrapolate further to power tools like Apple Logic, or Final Cut Pro, where the keyboard becomes labeled with sound and film editing actions. The keyboard can go levels deep, where you enter one mode and the keyboard reconfigures itself with actions in that mode. Not just with key symbols, but colored/delineated control areas with arbitrary graphical and animation capability. This would basically finally take the keyboard to the next level; it has been roughly the same since the 60s. It widens the range of sensible input you can do with a keyboard by making it super intuitive to switch beteen and use arbitrary control modes. The power is undeniable, but the true test is feel.

diffeomorphism 8y ago
For emacs this is already done by which-key, which tells you about all following actions and their description. Also, this seems only useful if you don't touch type, which seems like the opposite demographic of emacs and vim users.
- shrimpx 8y ago
  First, yes emacs has this functionality. But a visual keyboard interface would make it super intuitive and direct. Second, I disagree with the touch typing argument. Touch typing is a learned skill on an interface like the qwerty or the dvorak button layout, and has its roots in typewriting. There are innumerable other button layouts you could "touch type" on. On a visual keyboard of course you can still touch type in the classic style in the qwerty layout. But then there are many other possible layouts allowing varying types of control, not just a layout for typing letters and numbers. Also when you really think about it, it's pretty arbitrary that control commands in pro software and games involve letters and numbers. It's an awkward consequence of the ingrained limited keyboard layout. You should be pressing the "fire!" button not the key for typing the letter "f" (if indeed letter "f" is not occupied by some other command whose name starts with "f").

Justsignedup 8y ago

oh god no. no! NO! NO!