Re: [MMM] Digest Number 728

Hi Carl,

> Do both at once. A little pricey, but should be the
> ultimate HID...
>
> http://www.fingerworks.com/

Thanks, it does look interesting. Yes a bit more than
I'm expecting to pay indeed.

It looks as if it may be of interest for
the option in FTS to play music from the p.c. keyboard.
I wonder if it is able to play chords and triads...
(most keyboards miss out notes in some triads)
As far as I can see from the information, it looks
as if it should be possible to program it to do so
once they release the SDK if it can't do so yet.

Have you tried it out by any chance?

Though, it has a few drawbacks for typing for a touch typist.
I just found this forum where various programmers and others
discuss the very keyboard:

http://slashdot.org/articles/01/07/10/0220214.shtml

Reading through those, a thing that springs to mind
is that when I type I almost never look at the keyboard,
except for some special characters, then out of the corner
of my eye. Normally I type looking at the screen as I type, and
touch type. So it is important to be able to feel where
the keys are, otherwise how do you know if your
hand drifts in position until you start to see wrong
keys appear on the screen? Maybe the small area
might also be a bit awkward for a touch typist.

But it has got me onto the lines of what to look for.

For now probably I'll get a silent tactile keyboard
with a touchpad for the mouse, as I found a few of those using a search
for "quiet touchpad p.c. keyboard". I've tried out touchpads
before for mouse movement, sand they work well.

I'll be interested also to explore this one at
some point for chord playing on the p.c.
as it seems it has a lot of potential as a musical
input device for a computer. It seems that they
will release an SDK later too. I wonder if you
will then be able to program it to do things
like e.g. do pitch bend glides by simply
moving your finger around after you press the
note, maybe pitch bend different notes
independently at once in that way too.
So maybe I'll come back to it once they
release the SDK and find out what can be done.

Thanks for an interesting link.

Robert

>It looks as if it may be of interest for
>the option in FTS to play music from the p.c. keyboard.
>I wonder if it is able to play chords and triads...
>(most keyboards miss out notes in some triads)
>As far as I can see from the information, it looks
>as if it should be possible to program it to do so
>once they release the SDK if it can't do so yet.

It's my guess it can do arbitrary chords. Their gesture
tools also invite musical applications! I was under the
impression they had already released an SDK, or were
about to.

>Have you tried it out by any chance?

At a trade show. There's definitely a learning curve.
The advantage though is much reduced hand strain and
instant mousing! Should speed up HCI by a huge factor.

>Though, it has a few drawbacks for typing for a touch typist.
>I just found this forum where various programmers and others
>discuss the very keyboard:
>
>http://slashdot.org/articles/01/07/10/0220214.shtml

The /. crowd are usually nitwits.

>Thanks for an interesting link.

For me it's too expensive also, at the moment, but I hope to
get one eventually. Right now, though, I am extremely happy
with the keyboard on my Thinkpad X20. It's the best keyboard
I've ever used, and it's nearly silent.

You can read my complete HID review at...

http://lumma.org/microwave/#2002.07.09

-Carl