> Engelbart was not using the chorded keyboard for text input but for command input. It was designed for both, and certainly Engelbart himself could and did ty

> Engelbart was not using the chorded keyboard for text input but for command input. It was designed for both, and certainly Engelbart himself could and did type with it. Context menus (originally from Smalltalk) are another substitute for the expanded command set of NLS' chording-augmented mouse. The advantage of having a chord keyboard for typing is that you can avoid the mouse-to-keyboard-to-mouse hand-movements that are so annoying when you can only type with a two-handed keyboard. However a one-handed chord keyboard is even slower than two-handed QWERTY when it comes to typing, all else being equal, and there is obviously the burden of having to learn it. For programmers and many other people, then, a better setup is probably a two-hand keyboard that lets you control a mouse pointer with minimal hand movement: and in fact we now have these, in the form of pointing-stick keyboards and keyboards with a trackpad in relatively easy reach of the user's thumbs http://www.loper-os.org/?p=861&cpage=1#comment-16138 http://www.loper-os.org/?p=861&cpage=1#comment-16138 . The mystery is why why people are still selling and buying expensive keyboards without either.