On Tue, 4 Apr 2000, Paul Holman wrote: > So I'm thinking about getting a Twiddler for the fun of it. [how are >they?] Here's my take: AS A KEYBOARD: Summary: very good. The learning curve is not as bad as you think. I type 60 words a minute 2-handed...after about 15-20 hours of practice, I was able to twiddle about 20 words a minute. Considering how long it probably took me to learn 2-handed typing (it was so long ago I don't really remember), this isn't so bad. The ability to use macros and define your own, arbitrarily complex, keyboard shortcuts, helps a great deal in boosting your speed. If I continue practicing with it, I see no reason why my twiddling speed will not match or surpass my typing speed in a few months. AS A MOUSE: Summary: usable, but could be better. The problems are two-fold: 1) there is no mouse acceleration, so moving all the way across your screen involves "resetting" the mouse several times and 2) because the tilt sensor is A) pretty sensitive and B) seems to detect 3-axis movement but pipe it to 2D on your screen, getting aligned exactly on a small screen object (e.g. a splitter bar) can be tricky. IN TERMS OF COMFORT: Summary: Top marks. I do not have carpal tunnel or RSI (thankfully!), but when I spend the day typing on a normal rectangular keyboard, my wrists and forearms ache by the end of the day. I brought my Twiddler to work and, when I went home, I felt like my right hand had just had a massage. IN TERMS OF A PHYSICAL DEVICE: Summary: Decent, could be improved. I have spent several hours trying to design a better version of the Twiddler layout and have come to the conclusion that, as long as you keep the basic concepts (thumb button modifiers + chording for fingers), the current Twiddler is about as good as it can get. There is room for marginal improvement, but not much. Here are the problems I see: Because of the way the thumb buttons are placed, it is extremely awkward or impossible to hit certain combinations...for example, CTRL-ALT. (See the bottom picture on http://www.handykey.com/over.html for a view of how the keys are arranged. CTRL is the one on the far right.) In addition, it would be much preferrable if the end of the Twiddler curved up more...as it is, you end up pressing several of the thumb buttons with the joint of your thumb instead of with the pad, which is uncomfortable. In addition, it would be nice if there was slightly more space between the outermost columns of keys and the physical edge of the device. As it is, curving your fingers in far enough to press the innermost column can be difficult. You need to spend a lot of time fiddling with the strap to get it hanging exactly right for your hand. I find that holding the Twiddler in a horizontal orientation makes this much easier and more comfortable. Finally, the Twiddler draws its power from the keyboard port, but it has a DS-9 tail for plugging into the port. While it does come with DS-9 to PS/2 adapter cabling, I wish that Handykey had done it the other way around--most PCs these days have PS/2 keyboard ports, and not needing the adapters would have made things considerably more compact and convenient, as well as providing fewer places for things to break. OVERALL: A good product. I look forward to seeing what will change in the rumored version 2, and hopefully some of these comments will be addressed. Dave -- Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" toWear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.blu.org
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