4 ms·

Sorry, this isn't very helpful, but I thought I'd take this opportunity to show the world this keyboard: http://www.walyou.com/img/datahand-keyboard.jpg http:/

Sorry, this isn't very helpful, but I thought I'd take this opportunity to show the world this keyboard: http://www.walyou.com/img/datahand-keyboard.jpg http://www.walyou.com/img/datahand-keyboard.jpg Actually, I did have a coworker who used this. He typed absurdly fast with it. However, whenever someone else wanted to use his computer, he went on a search for a regular keyboard.

jodrellblank 17y ago
I was a fan of this for ages, then I bought one from ebay. Good things: It's a great design and it's easy to pick up since it's a lot like wrapping the top and bottom qwerty lines up around your fingers - the same fingers for many of the same keys, but no chance of misreaching and mashing two keys. The keys are magnetically held, and you push them out through an optical sensor - so there is a definite feel of breaking the magnetic grip, but you aren't whacking your fingers into a solid stop like a normal keyboard. Bad things: The one I have is old and emulates a serial mouse, and Microsoft took serial mouse support out of Vista. The mouse emulation is serviceable but not brilliant. It's slightly awkward to extract your hand to reach for a mouse without pressing keys. You can't type one handed and hold a mouse/phone/mug of tea. No numeric keypad. At work, the need for a mouse and phone made it awkward, at home I don't type enough solid blocks of text on a desktop computer (it's not much good for laptop use either). I still like it and like the idea, but it's in a box, unused, because it's mildly inconvenient.
- frig 17y ago
  Another point of experience: out of the box it is pretty poor if you work on the macintosh; by default there's nothing mapped to "command" and there're not enough "keys" on it to remap anything to command without giving up something else you probably need (like shift or alt or control). You can work around this with a footswitch but it's another point to keep in mind. Mine suffered a similar fate to yours: in a box, awaiting some future period where I have enough downtime to ride out a month or two of reduced typing speed to train myself.

jodrellblank 17y ago

I was a fan of this for ages, then I bought one from ebay. Good things: It's a great design and it's easy to pick up since it's a lot like wrapping the top and bottom qwerty lines up around your fingers - the same fingers for many of the same keys, but no chance of misreaching and mashing two keys. The keys are magnetically held, and you push them out through an optical sensor - so there is a definite feel of breaking the magnetic grip, but you aren't whacking your fingers into a solid stop like a normal keyboard. Bad things: The one I have is old and emulates a serial mouse, and Microsoft took serial mouse support out of Vista. The mouse emulation is serviceable but not brilliant. It's slightly awkward to extract your hand to reach for a mouse without pressing keys. You can't type one handed and hold a mouse/phone/mug of tea. No numeric keypad. At work, the need for a mouse and phone made it awkward, at home I don't type enough solid blocks of text on a desktop computer (it's not much good for laptop use either). I still like it and like the idea, but it's in a box, unused, because it's mildly inconvenient.

frig 17y ago
Another point of experience: out of the box it is pretty poor if you work on the macintosh; by default there's nothing mapped to "command" and there're not enough "keys" on it to remap anything to command without giving up something else you probably need (like shift or alt or control). You can work around this with a footswitch but it's another point to keep in mind. Mine suffered a similar fate to yours: in a box, awaiting some future period where I have enough downtime to ride out a month or two of reduced typing speed to train myself.