a new keyboard - discuss and critique

[Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman)]

On Wed, 3 Jun 2009 17:27:00 +1200 Robin Paulson <robin.paulson at gmail.com> said:

> apparently, triangular buttons produce less errors.
> 
> http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/06/02/crocodile_keyboard/
> 
> i'm not totally convinced, but it would be worth a go, i think

he's smoking crack. his logic (that more deadspace makes for less mis-presses)
is just wrong. it makes for fewer "presses". you hit the deadspace much more
often and press nothing. if you simply expanded each key to just fill the
rectangular region it ocupies (which it effectively does as that space is
unused and dead) hen you get a no less accurate keyboard than what he as, but
somewhere were u are MORE likely to actually hit a key as opposed to hit
nothing.

the kbd just makes no sense. making keys bigger is simply the way to make them
more accurate to hit. if that isn't an option an you still do a kbd-style
keyboard, then having some sort of guessing algorithm that guesses what you
meant to hit is all you have left.

doing a non "qwerty" style is the only other way you have a way out as you
could have fewer keys, now easier to hit, but you may need to hit them multiple
types (normal abc, def, ghi etc. number keypad style), and even here to avoid
the multiple hits, you need again a guessing algorithm (t9). :)

> now, is it possible to coerce raster's keyboard into using anything
> other than square keys?
> 
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-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler)    raster at rasterman.com