yep. this theme is not yet open enough.
what do you think when you hear word “keyboard”?
probably you think of something which looks like this:
and you’re right — that’s that a keyboard of yesterday looks like.
the tech is not from the times of the internet — that mechanism has been used in electronic typewriters since 1892 — and it is incredibly awful in design to human hands.
see that different move in the third and upper rows? — that breaks your fingers.
so, do you want to see the fix to this problem? then go with me and see how deep the rabbit’s back hole goes.
now, isn’t that strange that we have to press each letter continiously, to say something?
also, we have an ability to press multiple buttons at once, yet 99.9% of the time we press only one key.
is where a faster, leaner, cleaner way to do it?
as you guessed, I mean stenotyping, which uses a “sound keyboard” (steno guys don’t call it like that, but who cares anyway) to write words and phrases.
stenotype machines are mostly used in the courts — when the jury, the judge, the defendant έ̦ the plaintiff talk simultaneously the talk turns into such a mishmash that robots can’t understand a single sentence. yet a human with a stenotype machine can (and will) write all of it in a matter of seconds.
unfortunately, most of us cannot afford using one of them — the price is extremely high ($4000), and you need to relearn the whole typing experience.
if you really want to try how this works, you may use plover (rhymes with “lover”). sadly, I can’t use it — I need to use three languages, and russian is not supported much.
let’s move on to the next topic:
no more do you have to press&hold the modificators with your hands: leave that work to your legs!
jokes aside, using pedals is awesome — the only problem I’ve met with mine ($60 for these) is the setup. windows was required.
so I recommend you to look at the car simulator pedals (used ones), as they are much cheaper even with an analog→digital converter.
if you have ever wanted a custom keyboard, you’ve probably seen qmk
that is the firmware which drives most of them out there — yet the firmware needs the hardware to communicate with your hands.
aaand that’s where you try to wrap your head around the “which type of a switch do I need??”, “what the hell is a diod?”, “holy crap how much these keycaps cost‽” &c.
the next big thing is not recommended for keyboard enthusiasts.
layout is the most speculative topic — each and everyone prefers their own custom layout — yet most people still use qwerty. oh weh.
I suggest you to leave the page to see how many layouts are where.
my preferred layout is minimak (4 key — etdk→dkte), ’cause it is similar to qwerty, yet much more savvy to your fingers.
three to four letters abbreviated writing — found on xah lee’s page and on my list there.
abbreviation solves a plethora of problems and had proven itself on blackberry phones decades ago. plus, it is available nearly everywhere — on android in an app, on iphone in keyboard settings, on macos in the system preferences, on windows via apps or using word, on linux via — sorry, not available by default in linux, diy next evening.
yup, doing something like this in linux is a nightmare more nightmarish than a nightmare on elm street. currently, I search for a way to use it on linux.
syl!