5 ms·

Pretty awesome. He had a binary keyboard, one button on each handlebar, and could type at 35 WPM using it. Impressive! I wonder if there is a market for that

Pretty awesome. He had a binary keyboard, one button on each handlebar, and could type at 35 WPM using it. Impressive! I wonder if there is a market for that now, so people could text while biking. Or driving? https://microship.com/on-the-loose-in-dataspace/ https://microship.com/on-the-loose-in-dataspace/

ajuc 6y ago
At 2 seconds per word you're probably better off with speech recognition. But it wouldn't work in loud traffic.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  A throat microphone[1] might work. Another interesting option would be some kind of subvocal recognition device.[2] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_microphone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_microphone [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition
- egypturnash 6y ago
  BEHEMOTH hit the road in 1991. Speech recognition was... not a solved problem at that point in time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_NaturallySpeaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_NaturallySpeaking
  - vermilingua 6y ago
    “I wonder if there is a market for that _now_”
    - egypturnash 6y ago
      Ah yeah, I missed that. I bicycle everywhere and I sure would not wanna try taking my attention off the road. Might be different if I was taking long cruises down the blue highways like Behemoth was designed for. And probably quiet enough for dictation to have a decent chance to work. Two-finger keyboard sounds like something that goes in the bin of "weird keyboards only nerds with tons of time to learn to use them can love" though, right next to all the other chording keyboards people have made over the years...
  - mulmen 6y ago
    Behemoth had speech recognition. Although I'm not sure it could do dictation.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  SR is faster than 99% of the population can type. You can type for far longer than you can talk though.
- mulmen 6y ago
  Some of the linked articles mention macros such as OTR for on the road. That's one typed word for three written words. It also apparently had speech recognition. I'm very curious how capable this thing was. It has parts that sound familiar but the capabilities sound alien.
mulmen 6y ago
You mean like "Hey Siri"? Pretty sure BMW even had a commercial along these lines a couple years ago, although that may have only been TTS. I'm having a hard time understanding what this handlebar binary keyboard really was. Did it literally only have two keys? I'm imagining something with at least 8 that decoded keypress combinations to ASCII characters. e: Here is a direct link to the part of a NextStep segment that shows the handelbar keyboard in use, it appears to have at least 8 keys. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgNPLH2SYtk&t=1m21s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgNPLH2SYtk&t=1m21s ee: Here's a link to the part in the video where he explains there are 7 keys per handgrip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgNPLH2SYtk&t=2m3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgNPLH2SYtk&t=2m3s

ajuc 6y ago

At 2 seconds per word you're probably better off with speech recognition. But it wouldn't work in loud traffic.

pmoriarty 6y ago
A throat microphone[1] might work. Another interesting option would be some kind of subvocal recognition device.[2] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_microphone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_microphone [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition
egypturnash 6y ago
BEHEMOTH hit the road in 1991. Speech recognition was... not a solved problem at that point in time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_NaturallySpeaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_NaturallySpeaking
- vermilingua 6y ago
  “I wonder if there is a market for that _now_”
  - egypturnash 6y ago
    Ah yeah, I missed that. I bicycle everywhere and I sure would not wanna try taking my attention off the road. Might be different if I was taking long cruises down the blue highways like Behemoth was designed for. And probably quiet enough for dictation to have a decent chance to work. Two-finger keyboard sounds like something that goes in the bin of "weird keyboards only nerds with tons of time to learn to use them can love" though, right next to all the other chording keyboards people have made over the years...
- mulmen 6y ago
  Behemoth had speech recognition. Although I'm not sure it could do dictation.
aidenn0 6y ago
SR is faster than 99% of the population can type. You can type for far longer than you can talk though.
mulmen 6y ago
Some of the linked articles mention macros such as OTR for on the road. That's one typed word for three written words. It also apparently had speech recognition. I'm very curious how capable this thing was. It has parts that sound familiar but the capabilities sound alien.

mulmen 6y ago

You mean like "Hey Siri"? Pretty sure BMW even had a commercial along these lines a couple years ago, although that may have only been TTS. I'm having a hard time understanding what this handlebar binary keyboard really was. Did it literally only have two keys? I'm imagining something with at least 8 that decoded keypress combinations to ASCII characters. e: Here is a direct link to the part of a NextStep segment that shows the handelbar keyboard in use, it appears to have at least 8 keys. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgNPLH2SYtk&t=1m21s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgNPLH2SYtk&t=1m21s ee: Here's a link to the part in the video where he explains there are 7 keys per handgrip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgNPLH2SYtk&t=2m3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgNPLH2SYtk&t=2m3s