Keyboard design

Please try to limit the opinions of other people's ideas and save it for the discussion pages. If you think someone has a particularly good or bad idea, say so in the discussion page. This discussion/argument/feud can be noted in the article, but in a less familiar style.

See also keyboard layouts.

Keyboard

• Omit the CAPS LOCK key and status LED from the keyboard! This could save valuable real-estate inside the OLPC and on its face. When was the last time you pressed the CAPS LOCK key on purpose?? Typing in all caps is usually either a mistake or rudeness. My new Microsoft keyboard even has a (software) option to disable the CAPS LOCK key. I'm surprised the Apple hasn't already removed the Mac's CAPS LOCK key.
  • that is actaully a pretty good idea. I still use caps lock sometime but is is usally when I am programing and I wouldn't miss it too much my self. Lotu
    • This is actually a pretty dumb idea. Most of the alphabets in the world do not use CAPITAL letters. Therefore, the keyboards for those alphabets will not have this issue. And for the languages like English which use the Latin alphabet, capslock is essential for people to learn how to use a STANDARD keyboard. Anything less is ghettoization and it is wrong.
      • I don't follow how capslock is helpful, much less essential, to learning how to use a keyboard. As to usefulness of the key: I've remapped the silly thing to something far more useful to me (a Hyper- modifier) many many years ago, and I don't miss the functionality of capslock in the least. -kp
        • Capslock is used to switch between "normal" letters like Thai, Khmer, Kannada,.. and Latin Letters. --Bz 17:31, 30 June 2006 (EDT)
          • So replacing the CAPS LOCK with LANG key is in order (for non Latin alphabet languages). And this key should have also a LED attached to it. Note that language switching can be a bit more tricky when working with complex directionality (such as when left-to-right text is intermingled with right-to-left text. A key for Unicode's RLM/LRM could be usefull in this situation. - cl

Dvorak and V for 200million wrists

If enough are to be manufactured, maybe it would not cost too much to

• Use an ergonomic split keyboard in the shape of a V for 200million healthier wrists

• Configure it with the Dvorak layout or some other better than QWERTY layout

--Rogerhc 18:31, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

QWERTY and its variants are standards (ISO, EN, DIN) with acceptable mappings when using with less common languages. Dvorak isn't a standard and as its layout is based soleley on letter frequency of the English language, it isn't of much use for non-english or non-programmers. The V shape takes too much room and would require a split rubber-membrane, which augments costs.

English is a highly used international language. Many other languages have similar letter frequency. Chinese pinyin even does and is commonly used to type Chinese. Standards are driven by large projects like olpc. Keyboards can be built for hands. Is moving standards and design forward good policy for olpc? (I don't know but I ask. Little changes that work well maybe.) --Rogerhc 16:14, 29 May 2006 (EDT)

I agree. Even if dvorak might not suit exactly for non-english, well nor does qwerty, and it's even less efficient. Maybe OLPC is the last chance we have to give dvorak a chance. For those that live in a qwerty word, it's not so hard to live in a non-qwerty one. Most local languages keyboards have sliglthly different keyboard, with on or two extra letters and the punctuation all mixed up and it's relatively simple to learn them. While living in france, it took me two months to learn to type in AZERTY, and I could switch from one to the other easily. It's not that hard to go against standart. And all it takes it's a different silk screen on the keyboard... --Avsa

Dvorak is a standard, under the name ASK (Alternate Standard Keyboard, ANSI X3.207:1991). It is provided on every recent version of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and BSD Unix. No changes to the hardware are needed for using it for touch typing. There are also Norwegian Dvorak, Left-Handed Dvorak, and Right-Handed Dvorak layouts provided with many of these systems, and Dvorak layouts for [other languages]. A US ASK keyboard is not optimal for all languages using the Latin alphabet, but its basic principle is applicable to the design of other alternate standards: placing the vowels under the left hand, and the most common consonants under the right hand.

Keyboards for Indic alphabets such as Devanagari already put all of the vowels on the left and all of the consonants on the right; Korean does it the other way around, but the effect on ease of learning and ease of use is the same. In each case, the various consonant series are placed in horizontal or vertical lines as a memory aid. It took me more than a month to switch from QWERTY to Dvorak, but only a day or so each to learn to touch-type in Sanskrit and Korean.--Ed 2006-7-31

• If proper posture is utilized from the beginning, an individual can type rapidly on any surface including knees while seated on the floor. My experience has been as a typing teacher for 3rd - 12th graders. The arms should be loosely away from the body so that an upside down V is naturally formed from left elbow to left thumb on spacebar and right thumb to right elbow.

Chord Keyboard

At the outset of the Computer Rennaissance in the 1970-s a few companies sold a five key chord keyboard which seemed to offer various advantages. The pioneering SRI R&D into collaboration (via the Augment project) may have used such a keyboard. Could be interesting to think about seeding popularization of such an arrangement on OLPC, PDA-s, mobile phones and TV remnote controls - maybe to augment full keyboards on OLPC.

L Pfeffer April 6,2006

I am developing a two handed chorded keyboard[1] (which also works with just one hand to make learning easier) for my project and it would be great if this would be useful for OLPC as well.

--Jecel 15:20, 11 April 2006 (EDT)

IBM had a Chord Keyboard project. There were twelve keys for the four fingers, dished on the sides and corners so that a finger could push two keys next to each other, or four keys meeting at a corner. Experiments showed that it was easy enough to learn for basic typing, and had great advantages for those willing to learn a large number of chords for common words and phrases. Naturally, it had no public acceptance, and was not made into a product.--Mokurai 02:58, 1 November 2006 (EST)

Straight key-layout

Whatever the logical layout (querty, dvorak, or non-latin), the biggest issue, methinks, for RSI is the physical layout of the keys. This may be a good place and oportunity to get rid of the slanted-column traditional layout and opt for a matrix-like layout. I would not be happy giving millions of kids physical layouts that, from the beginning, force them to adopt awkward hand and wrist positions that may lead to RSI. See Kinesis countoured keyboards, or Maltron keyboards.

Keyboard Backlight

It seems to me that this laptop might need to work sometimes in low lighting. It would be good to possibly turn on a backlight under the keyboard. It sounds easy to have translucent rubber so the light shows through to help see keys. --imajeff 2006-04-10

Touch typing is far more efficient. --Mokurai 02:58, 1 November 2006 (EST)

The following keyboard always worked for me, do these keyboards have removable keys or are they going to be sealed units to avoid dust and dirt damage, i like the idea given of luminous keys, or key LED's;

Perhaps an all in one piece of rubber keyboard like the grey one that was included in the old zx spectrum (if you took the cover off), there are not going to be as many lights or sinks to wash hands in I am presuming? Or even an eluminated surrounding area to the keys could be considered?

http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?c=223

Or possibly another idea for enabeling users to type in the dark would be to have a sort of WaterMark, faded kepboard that could be displayed on or off at the press of a function key. This would mean that the users could see on screen, as they were typing, the actual keyboard layouts that they are typing on, locating where the keys are! And therefore they would then not need a backlight for the keys in any form, they could simply use the display that they are reading from to show an outline drawing of the keyboard and individual keys as they type. This is all aimed at getting the users who may not have access to extensive lighting and electricity at home up-to-speed with using the keyboard layout as quickly possible, even if this is at home in the late evening.

Illuminating the keyboard

(section as suggested in http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/User_talk:Imajeff even though the section above on Keyboard Backlight was noticed after that suggestion was made. The thing is, I thought that "Illuminating the keyboard" is a good idea, yet I thought that it meant a light onto the keys rather than a light under translucent keys, which is also a good idea.)

Keys with a light emitting diode array in each of them

I cannot remember where I saw the idea. It was in an article years ago and that article referred to a science fiction novel by Dr Arthur C. Clarke where the author of the article had seen the idea. I think that the novel mentioned was set in the future at the American Quincentennial in 2276, though I do not remember the name of the novel. The idea was that each key would be illuminated with a glyph of the character which would be entered into the computer if that particular key were pressed. In that way the keyboard would be software alterable so as to be suitable for a variety of writing scripts and languages. As we now have Unicode with many scripts encoded and each language not only needs its script yet may also need various particular characters, (for example, the different set of accented characters needed for Spanish and Portuguese) I wonder whether a feasibility study of whether such keys could be produced and what they would cost could be carried out by the hardware experts. They could perhaps be very useful in India where the keyboard could be switched by software from Latin script to an Indian script as desired. This could also provide the advantages of illumination which would otherwise be provided by keyboard backlighting or by illuminating the keyboard.

William Overington

2006-04-11 0818Z

Whoa! I think normal exchangable keycaps are just a little cheaper! :-) IMHO this would only be worthwhile if there is a pressing need to be able to change the keycaps dynamically. It might be useful for devanagari but the scripts that it would seem to be most useful for (CJK) seem to get on fine with software solutions. 62.252.0.11 03:51, 12 April 2006 (EDT)

Yes the cost could be prohibitive. However, I have now thought of a possibility which could perhaps produce some of the benefits of such a keyboard. I have started a new section for it.

Keys with a small piece of electronic paper on each of them

I saw a television item about electronic paper technology. I found the following on the net.

http://www2.parc.com/hsl/projects/gyricon/

I cannot find a date on the document. Does anyone know how new is this technology?

Suppose that there were an option of a type of keytop for use on a laptop where the keytop had a piece of electronic paper built into its surface. Would that then mean that there could be a special gadget, which could be a laptop peripheral, which could fit over a keytop and reprogram the piece of electronic paper so as to display the desired glyph? Thus someone could, by a fairly slow, one at a time process, reprogram the glyphs displayed on each of the keys of the keyboard. This could mean that customized keyboards for various languages, such as those of Africa and India, could be produced in small quantities, even one off, relatively easily. Naturally, if electronic paper keytops were developed there could be machines made which could be used to customize the keytops in bulk; however, hopefully the one-keytop-at-a-time programming gadget could also be developed.

Does anyone know if the electronic paper technology could stand up to continual pressing with fingers?

William Overington

2006-04-13 0754Z

Some links regarding the electronic paper and electronic ink technologies.

http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/monthly/1999_Mar_24.EPAPER.html

http://www.e-ink.com/

http://www.prism.washington.edu/lc/CLWEBCLB/electpaper.html

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj/363/jacobson.html

Have dedicated <HELP> and <SAK> keys

The concept linked to the <Secure Attention Key> is "give me an input field that cannot be spoofed". For the login on newer Windows operating systems such a key is emulated by <CTRL><ALT><DEL>. The impact is potentially high.

The concept linked to the <HELP> key is "being able to get help in any situation without loosing pointer context (location/buttons)". (There is no <HELP> key on your PC keyboard but there should be one, <F1> is sometimes used to give help.) The impact of <HELP> for first time users is high.

Both of these basic functionalities seem important enough to justify a dedicated key.

Please don't follow the tempting way to tie any single high level functionality like <XML> or <Wiki Word> to a key (OLPC News 2006-07-01). As you can see on your favourite Multimedia keyboard that's a dead end, there are simply too many.

Quiet Keyboards

The amount of noise generated by typing on the keyboard should be considered in the design. If fifty children are taking notes in a small classroom as the teacher is speaking, it could add up to be a considerable distraction. Likewise, children may have to share a small living space with parents on a night-shift sleeping schedule, infant siblings, etc., and noise complaints in the home could mean that homework doesn't get done. Besides, the other components of this system have the potential to be essentially silent, and I think that this would be a desirable point for commercial sales. Mike Serfas 20:21, 13 August 2006 (EDT)

The current design has the keyboard as a membrane--it makes no noise. --SamatJain 21:13, 13 August 2006 (EDT)