A USB Interface to the "Mother of All Demos" Keyset

Fascinating read as always Ken. It seems that the concept of a “Chorded Keyboard” from Douglas then spawned several relatively successful successors later on:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Chorded_keyboard" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Chorded_keyboard</a><p>Growing up in the Netherlands in the 80s it was hard to not be aware of the “Velotype”: it had more keys and supposedly made it easier to learn the “chords”.<p>Your reference to the book Nerds 2.0.1 is great, the book is a companion to the excelent PBS 3-part series from 1998<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;movies?tab=collection&amp;query=Nerds+2.0.1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;movies?tab=collection&amp;query=Nerd...</a>

The original chording keyboard was from Baudot, around 1897.[1] The original plan was for the sender to send 5-bit teletype characters with a 5-bit keyboard. This was deployed, not just a prototype.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk&#x2F;objects&#x2F;co33197&#x2F;baudot-five-key-keyboard-1897-1926" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk&#x2F;objects&#x2F;co33197...</a>

Author here if there are any questions...

Custom mechanical keyboard firmware like QMK [1] and ZMK [2] support custom chords called &quot;combos&quot;. Basically if the combo&#x27;s set of keys is hit (within some timeout which defaults to 50 ms) then a specific keycode is sent. You then get a fun game of identifying low probability combos and mapping then to useful keycodes. You also start realizing there&#x27;s some prime real estate to take advantage of. Two-key combos require some thought cause bigrams can be surprisingly common. Three-key combos are basically open though.<p>In migrating from the ZSA Voyager to a 36-key keyboard (Chocofi) I&#x27;ve relied on combos as I don&#x27;t like overloading keys with tap-versus-hold behavior as I can never get the timing down. For example my left index, middle, and ring finger mashed down on the home row (resting position) is escape in my current layout (Colemak mod DK which means keys R, S, and T). It&#x27;s three fingers but hardly any extra effort. I&#x27;ve managed to do away with a symbol layer and have been quite happy with the result. If anyone is curious here is my &quot;36-key training layout&quot; for the ZSA Voyager [3] and my current Chocofi layout [4].<p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.qmk.fm&#x2F;features&#x2F;combo" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.qmk.fm&#x2F;features&#x2F;combo</a><p>2: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;zmk.dev&#x2F;docs&#x2F;keymaps&#x2F;combos" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;zmk.dev&#x2F;docs&#x2F;keymaps&#x2F;combos</a><p>3: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;configure.zsa.io&#x2F;voyager&#x2F;layouts&#x2F;d7L0v&#x2F;latest&#x2F;0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;configure.zsa.io&#x2F;voyager&#x2F;layouts&#x2F;d7L0v&#x2F;latest&#x2F;0</a><p>4: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;vietjtnguyen&#x2F;zmk-chocofi&#x2F;blob&#x2F;main&#x2F;config&#x2F;corne.keymap" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;vietjtnguyen&#x2F;zmk-chocofi&#x2F;blob&#x2F;main&#x2F;config...</a>

&gt; <i>Engelbart&#x27;s demo also featured an input device known as the keyset, but unlike his other innovations, the keyset failed to catch on.</i><p>Chording keyboards were popular among the &quot;wearable computing&quot; researchers (who then went on to work on things like Google Glass). For example, the Twiddler.<p>One advantage of them is that you only need one hand to operate it.<p>And some designs mean you can simultaneously hold it with that same hand, without a steady surface.

I&#x27;ve recently been reading lots of books about 50&#x2F;60&#x2F;70s computing &amp; especially the San Francisco element of it, so I&#x27;ve been watching Engelbart&#x27;s demo myself on and off for the last few weeks. It really is amazing being &quot;close&quot; to all this time of history, even if the only way we can interact with it is over USB nowadays!<p>Tiniest footnote correction but not only were the desk &amp; offices designed by Herman Miller; the chair Engelbart is sitting on during the demo was also specially designed by Herman Miller!

I regularly use my Twiddler with my Android phone. It allows me to fully operate all the applications I use on my desktop computer, e.g. Emacs. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mytwiddler.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mytwiddler.com&#x2F;</a>

I urge you to consider using an RC network with a hex inverter to debounce your switch input without resorting to a 100ms delay. I&#x27;ve wasted enough hours to know that the best kind of software debounce is a few resistors and capacitors.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mayaposch.wordpress.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2018&#x2F;06&#x2F;debounce_rc.png?w=640" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mayaposch.wordpress.com&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2018&#x2F;06&#x2F;d...</a>

I sometimes wonder if chorded keyboard would be better for controlling the computer and keeping better posture against RSI issues. Not to mention more compact space compared to full keyboard. I seem to remember from a recording of the demo (and few writings on subject) that the keyset and mouse were used together for more powerful effect than either one alone.<p>What I haven&#x27;t found out is how well a multilingual writer could use these. Do the chords rely on properties of particular language, like English. Does the chord order follow from how often you write letter a instead of x. Would another language be adaptable to same chords, or do you need to make an optimized version?

Chorded keyboards always seemed like an ergonomic nightmare - every keystroke is now multiple fingers having to move. You&#x27;re multiplying the repetitive action...

It&#x27;s cool. But it&#x27;s missing the 411&#x2F;305Hz sawtooth. Last year I tried to setup my vim to play these beeps in normal&#x2F;edit modes and on some key presses. It was quite fun but I wasn&#x27;t able to play a long lasting sound like in the demo.

Obligatory mention of the Plover stenography engine: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.openstenoproject.org&#x2F;plover&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.openstenoproject.org&#x2F;plover&#x2F;</a><p>So far most boards seem to be made in the US. Anyone making them in Europe or elsewhere?

Doug Engelbart&#x27;s advice to a young software developer [video] (youtube.com)<p>183 points by DonHopkins on May 21, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 39 comments<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17121629">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17121629</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=62ig8ecXlrA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=62ig8ecXlrA</a><p>Valerie Landau interviewed by Martin Wasserman<p>DonHopkins on May 21, 2018 | prev | next [–]<p>I found this incredibly interesting stuff on Valerie Landau&#x27;s youtube channel of Douglass Engelbart, her mentor. The videos have apparently been viewed only a few times, but they deserve much more attention, because the ideas presented are so important and relevant today!<p>She was a long time friend and collaborator with Doug Engelbart, and she was responsible for transferring the 1968 film of The Mother of All Demos from film to video so it could be preserved. She tracked him down and interviewed him, and after airing the interview, he asked her to help him articulate his vision to share with the world, which she&#x27;s been working on since then.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;user&#x2F;islandeweller&#x2F;videos" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;user&#x2F;islandeweller&#x2F;videos</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Valerie_Landau" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Valerie_Landau</a><p>Valerie Landau is an American designer, author and educator. She serves as Director of Assessment at Samuel Merritt University where she designed a software application that facilitates analysis and assessment of how effectively an organization is meeting their goals and objectives at course, program and institutional levels.<p>She has filed two patents along with her colleague and mentor Douglas Engelbart. Their most recent patent (filed April 2010) describes multitouch interface for chorded text entry. The new patent is inspired by Engelbart&#x27;s early work developing the Chorded keyboard. They also released an application for the iPhone for chorded texting called &quot;TipTapSpeech&quot;.<p>Engelbart and Landau also collaborated on writing the book &quot;The Engelbart Hypothesis: Dialogs with Douglas Engelbart&quot; along with co-author Eileen Clegg.<p>Landau is also a co-founder of Program for the Future, a non-profit organization that promotes Engelbart&#x27;s vision of Collective Intelligence. She also is author of the seminal book on online education &quot;Developing an Effective Online Course&quot; and earned the &quot;Online Pioneer&quot; award.<p>Landau, also known for her work in multimedia at Round World Media and for her work mentoring students in a three-year project studying and applying the Engelbart Hypothesis. and created an online archive of Engelbart related events and videos.<p>She is an instructional and interaction designer and has worked on many award-winning projects, educational games and online courses.<p>In addition, she leads high level research delegations to Cuba.<p>Valerie Landau interviewed by Martin Wasserman<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=62ig8ecXlrA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=62ig8ecXlrA</a><p>----<p>Engelbart Explains Binary Text Input. Douglas Engelbart explains to co-inventor, Valerie Landau, and some blogger how binary can be used for text input.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=DB_dLeEasL8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=DB_dLeEasL8</a><p>Engelbart: Think about if you took each finger, and wrote a one on this one, a two on this one, a four on this one, and a sixteen on this one. And every combination would lead clear up to sixty three.<p>And so writing here like this the alphabet: A... B... C... D. E. F. G, H, I, JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ!<p>----<p>Engelbart Using HandWriter. Douglas Engelbart demonstrates early prototype of The HandWriter with Valerie Landau.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=s5wAD2aji3Q" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=s5wAD2aji3Q</a><p>Q: So whose ideas was the glove?<p>Engelbart: I invented actually a separate keyset with the five keys, and her idea, you can make a glove to do that.<p>Q: And what&#x27;s the advantage of using a five key chording system?<p>Engelbart: Well, when you&#x27;re doing things with the mouse, you can be in parallel, doing things that take character input.<p>And then the system we had, it actually gave you commands with characters, too.<p>Like you had a D and a W, and it says, &quot;you want to delete a word&quot;, and pick on which word, and click, it goes. M W would be move a word.<p>Click on this one, click on that one, that one could move over there. Replace character, replace word, transpose words.<p>All those things you could do with your left hand giving commands, and right hand doing it.<p>----<p>iChord: Clips from video of Eric Matsuno &amp; Valerie Landau showing their new iPhone app to Douglas Engelbart. To Douglas C Engelbart and Bill English, and to Karen Engelbart, Roberta English and Mary Coppernoll. Present in spirit but not in molecules were: Evan Schaffer and Dr. Robert Stephenson.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=-XXdnu5n9vI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=-XXdnu5n9vI</a><p>So we&#x27;re going to be able to be configurable for whoever&#x27;s hand. [...] Go ahead and give it a try: so swiping it down puts it in the history, and swiping it left takes the last ...<p>----<p>Andres Types His Name<p>Andres writing his name on TipTap late on a Saturday night. I arrived home after a party and found him typing on TipTapSpeech.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=9WI88q7coEY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=9WI88q7coEY</a><p>----<p>This final silent video is chock full of photos and memories of Douglass Engelbart&#x27;s friends and family, drawings, whiteboards, posters and brainstorming sessions!<p>Memories with Douglas Engelbart: Photos from my work with Douglas Engelbart creating a Educational Networked Improvement Community Engelbart and working with Eileen Clegg on the writing of the book the Engelbart Hypothesis: Diaglogs with Douglas Engelbart.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=dPnsWKikS_w" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=dPnsWKikS_w</a>

this is such a great read!

I&#x27;m sure there&#x27;s a (mythical at the moment) device just waiting to &quot;disrupt they keyboard industry&quot;<p>It&#x27;s crazy that most of us are effectively using a fancy typewriter. Qwerty layout dates 1874, clocking in at just over 150 years of age.

The site is infected with CloudFlare.

Mandatory XKCD.[1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;1234&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;1234&#x2F;</a>

It’s amazing to me not only how much things haven’t changed (many still use mouse, joystick, keyboard) but how much things <i>have</i> changed.<p>A dedicated keyset for frequent functions like this is certainly cool, and there was a time where it was cool to have num pad and function keys, but then most users started to use modifier keys (shift, ctrl, option, later added cmd) on their keyboards. We started with joysticks, then mice, then some trackballs, haptic joystick, light pen, touchpad, then haptic touch screen. And we have some voice interaction, then some immersive VR and augmented reality, then interaction with AI that can hear and see things, and we have some movement in brain interfacing over the years.<p>What is next?<p>(I apologize for leaving many things out and getting them in the wrong order. Just going on memory.)