keyboards, keyboards, everywhere
by Christopher Blizzard
One of the hardware components in the laptop is the keyboard. Because we’re looking to build a laptop that’s relatively well-sealed against the elements (that’s “water resistant” not “water proof”) we’ve been looking into using sealed keyboards.
The last set of keyboards that we got weren’t very good. When you used them it was too easy to hit the keys next to them, the keys were hard to press and the layout and feel wen’t very good.
We’ve just now gotten in a huge set of keyboards with a variety of weight and travel to test out what might be a good keyboard to use on the laptop. Even the keyboards that are at the edges of the weight and travel combinations feel so much better than the ones we originally had in the office. I’ve been able to plug them into my laptop and use them full time to get a feel for what people might experience with them. I must report that aside from the fact that it’s a bit smaller than what I’m used to, it’s not bad!
Were going to do a larger test with a bunch of kids (K-12) some time in the next few weeks and see what they think of them.
I have that same clock, it keeps terrible time. Right now it is 35 minutes behind…
Perhaps this is well known, but why is there lots of space between the function keys on those keyboards? F1 . . . F2, F3 . . . F4, F5 . . . F6
It looks like there could be other buttons between them.
Very observant about the Function keys. We’re actually going to be using those for other purposes and we did a bad job of describing what we’re doing to the company that made the keyboards, so that part of the keyboard came out a little funky. We’re going to be using them as “sliders” to move between different states in the interface. You can also use them for volume and brightness controls.
I can’t tell from the image, though I am very curious: do those keyboards (and/or the final versions) have CAPS LOCK keys?
Negroponte is quoted as saying, “What is the purpose of the CAPS LOCK key? The inventor should be put in jail.”
Nevermind – I now viewed the full-sized image and see the CAPS LOCK key is gone. Might that be a final decision?
Great job with those caps/num/scroll lock buttons!
Oh, i wish, i could change the world way you are going to :)
Yep, the CAPS LOCK and the other *LOCK keys are gone. A lot of other things are going to change on the keyboard, but those aren’t coming back. I’m amazed no one has mentioned the location of the CTRL key!
What does the “pirate skull” button do? The one left of the arrow buttons.
CAPS LOCK is awesome for writing correctly syntaxed FORTRAN code.
Those $100 laptops look great!
The little “skull and crossbones” is actually a quick key for the home page that we’ve built as part of the interface.
No CAPS LOCK key so far…
Well whaddya know. While I was just speculating on the fate of the CAPS LOCK key on One Laptop Per Child 2B1’s, Christopher Blizzard posted about the OLPC keyboards he’s testing.
“Water resistant” not “water proof”, the sealed keyboards are a v…
Please give these kids a straight-column keyboard (similar to the TypeMatrix 2030 (http://www.typematrix.com/ezr2030/)). If we give them staggered-column keyboards, they’ll all grow up to have carpal tunnel syndrome.
Hey..Blizzard..!
I do remember you..I saw you on your visit to..India for Linux Asia Conference 2006. Well gr8 going with the OLPC Project..!! Nice Keyboard layouts..
The article on Red-Hat website sayz..Big UNDO button..but I see a small one :D
and what about a XXX Button near ESC key…?
..you people sure are working to take over the world. Keep it UP ;)
but, but where is the ANY key.
The F-keys seem rather oddly space at the top of the keyboard. They have F numbers at the end of a long key with dimples in it.
What are they intended to be used as? Someling like a slider?
Marc Eisentstadt at the Open University (OU) mentioned your testing on his blog when we hooked up last week. I created KAZ (Keyboard A-Z) 90 minutes typing tutor for schools some years ago and also have patents pending on some keyboard developments in the pipeline now. These are to do with helping children (and adults) learn keyboard skills more easily and to help protect them from RSI (I designed a PC product some time back to do this as well)
I have often said to Marc that I would love to be able to help this project so please do come back to me if you want to explore some ideas. FYI, KAZ is being provided free of charge to state schools in South Africa and other countries and I have ported special versions to keyboards like the alphasmart keyboard (www.alphasmart.co.uk/neo/kaz.html). KAZ Online is widely used in schools and colleges (www.touchtypeonline.com) and I would be happy to set you up with access to this.
My passion has always been to equip children with this most essential of all skills. When I first started out 10 years ago all I could find was bloated products that took many hours of boring drills to to learn to touch type. We spent almost 2 years to refine our learning method based on 11 words in just 5 phrases. The OU conducted student research and have provided KAZ to over 300,000 students.
No pressure. If you feel we can help your project in any way please let me know.
One Laptop Per Child keyboards
Glad to see Chris Blizzard blogging about keyboard trials for One Laptop Per Child / OLPC / $100 Laptop.
Keyboard design is a critical variable, and it was interesting to see a posting from the TypeMatrix people about their attempt at an RSI-busting …
[...] The Caps Lock key on your keyboard is frequently renowned as the most useless key. Even the One Laptop Per Child laptops have dismissed the caps lock key in favor of a more ergonomic Ctrl key! Well perhaps it is not as useless as Scroll Lock but it is taking up very valuable keyboard estate in its current position. Amongst all keys in close proximity to a touch typist’s hand placement, caps lock is by far the least used (if typing correctly). [...]
work at home typing jobs no cost ever free start up…
work at home typing jobs no cost ever free start up…