http://www.seanbluestone.com/10-unconventional-keyboards Sat, 19 Jun 2010 06:13:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://www.seanbluestone.com/10-unconventional-keyboards/comment-page-1#comment-27036 Martyn Cowley Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:16:04 +0000 http://www.seanbluestone.com/?p=156#comment-27036 Having suffered minor RSI some years ago, I decided to nip it in the bud before it got too bad to work and went for a Maltron (www.maltron.com) - a highly sculptured layout with the keys in two widely-spaced 'cups' and pads of keys for the thumbs (seems silly to have your most versatile digits just hitting the spacebar). The numeric pad is sensibly placed in the centre where it is accessible to both hands - useful if your right hand is holding a mouse/trackball. The keyboard is switchable between qwerty and a proprietary Maltron layout, which is far more practical - even more so than Dvorak. [I have recently noticed a similar design by Kinesis, but not available in UK] I also use a CyKey (www.bellaire.co.uk) a small one-handed 'chording' keypad derived from the Microwriter and Agenda (I used to have both). I have mine configured for left-handed use so that I can keep my right hand on the trackball. It works through a USB infra-red link. I find it particularly useful with laptops, whose cramped keyboards are particularly uncomfortable. It also works with PDAs directly. Having suffered minor RSI some years ago, I decided to nip it in the bud before it got too bad to work and went for a Maltron (www.maltron.com) – a highly sculptured layout with the keys in two widely-spaced ‘cups’ and pads of keys for the thumbs (seems silly to have your most versatile digits just hitting the spacebar). The numeric pad is sensibly placed in the centre where it is accessible to both hands – useful if your right hand is holding a mouse/trackball. The keyboard is switchable between qwerty and a proprietary Maltron layout, which is far more practical – even more so than Dvorak. [I have recently noticed a similar design by Kinesis, but not available in UK]
I also use a CyKey (www.bellaire.co.uk) a small one-handed ‘chording’ keypad derived from the Microwriter and Agenda (I used to have both). I have mine configured for left-handed use so that I can keep my right hand on the trackball. It works through a USB infra-red link. I find it particularly useful with laptops, whose cramped keyboards are particularly uncomfortable. It also works with PDAs directly.

]]>