Re: introduction and some initial questions

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Date: Tue, 7 Sep 93 13:22:04 -0700
From: starnet!apple!netcom.com!bookwyrm (Kim Q. Liu)
Message-id: <9309072022.AA08494@netcom.netcom.com>
To: zoomer-list-1993@grot.starconn.com
Subject: Re:  introduction and some initial questions
Status: OR

>- Is it just me, or does anyone else hate to use a pen?  Has anyone thought
>  of hooking some kind of chord keyboard (maybe a glove?) to the Zoomer?

I have.  There is one chording keyboard out there that uses a serial
port instead of a keyboard port.  One of them is handheld, called
the Twiddler.  I bought one while I was suffering wrist problems.  (It is
also a mouse.)  My main complaint with it is that the buttons are too
hard to press which slows things down, but it does work.  The company,
Handykey, provided pretty complete specification on how everything is
connected, and I managed to cobble together a driver for X, and a battery
power supply for it without much trouble.

The main problem will be writing the drivers for it.  It looks like if
the driver is done right, all applications will be able to use it, just
like the pen.  If the SDK is reasonable, I will probably look at the
Z-PDA a lot closer.  

Building a chording keyboard on a serial line does not look like it
would be too difficult.  (I hope to find some time to work on one at
some point.)

Kim
bookwyrm@netcom.com