Chord Keyboards

[inakito]

Did anyone work with one of those so called, 'chord keyboards' ?.
The one I remember was Microwrite made in UK.
Did these keyboards have any success?
Apparently these allowed typing speeds way beyond common keyboards and all with one hand!

 

[MCbx]

I work with one and I built one (see here for design). I found it very difficult to learn typing on it, especially repetitive two-character combinations which went slower than in typical PC keyboard. But for automating e.g. design in KiCAD by launching different xdotool macros it works just perfectly and really saves time.

 

[Osgeld]

its been a couple decades since I tried one, it is a entirely new thing to try to type on and I imagine it can be quite fast once learned, but its kind of like texting on a keypad only phone, if it had a couple operator keys added on (if that makes since)

I could see a desktop one working good for macro stuff, but in most cad I have found I waste 10x more time scrolling around a design than hitting a 3 letter menu option (like in altium I wouldnt use it much as most of the commands are at most 3-4 letters deep if you dont want to use the menus ... but I love my jog wheel)

 

[Chuck(G)]

Wouldn't the original chorded keyboard for text be a stenotype machine?

I recall a DIY chord keyboard that was essentially a hemisphere with buttons that matched the finger positions. I couldn't see anyone getting much speed out of such a device. After all, there are only 32 possible combination of finger presses on one hand--and some of them are very awkward, even for a pianist.