RE: Optimus keyboard in the news

From: Debbie Garside (debbie@ictmarketing.co.uk)
Date: Thu May 03 2007 - 14:55:43 CST

  • Next message: John Hudson: "Re: Uppercase ß is coming? (U+1E9E)"

    I agree with most of what you say. However, the idea of having a Latin
    keyboard one minute and clicking an option and having an Arabic one the next
    is very appealing to me at this very moment. And I type at approx 70 words
    per minute so no onscreen options are useful. I need a real, robust
    keyboard that can change at whim and doesn't mind if I spill my tea on it...
    I also do not touch type conventionally so I like to look at the keys - dual
    keys or sticky labels would be confusing (for me at least) and would not
    give all the options that I require.

    I wonder what the manufacturing costs are to change the keyboard layout for
    each locale?

    Best

    Debbie

    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org
    > [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On Behalf Of John Hudson
    > Sent: 03 May 2007 19:23
    > To: Debbie Garside
    > Cc: dzo@bisharat.net; a12n-collaboration@bisharat.net;
    > unicode@unicode.org
    > Subject: Re: Optimus keyboard in the news
    >
    > Debbie Garside wrote:
    >
    > > IMHO the Optimus keyboard is way too over priced and
    > because it uses
    > > individual LCDs for each key it will remain over priced.
    >
    > My concern is less with the price per se than with the
    > likelihood of such a thing breaking so easily. I've seen
    > several laptop computers die, and the LCD screen always seems
    > to be the first thing to go, and that's when the screen is
    > just sitting there. A keyboard needs to be robust, especially
    > for someone like me who learned to type on a manual
    > typewriter and still hits the keys a lot harder than necessary.
    >
    > I've also managed to kill off a few keyboards, usually by
    > spilling drinks on them. So an expensive and probably more
    > fragile keyboard isn't something that I find appealing.
    > Keyboards should be cheap and rugged, and so should
    > mechanisms to customise the key displays (labels, indelible
    > marker, etc.).
    >
    > John Hudson
    >
    > --
    >
    > Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com
    > Gulf Islands, BC tiro@tiro.com
    >
    > We say our understanding measures how things are, and
    > likewise our perception, since that is how we find our way
    > around, but in fact these do not measure.
    > They are measured. -- Aristotle, Metaphysics
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >



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