As many of you have doubless noticed, I spell badly. Beyond that I also make many typos. Most ot these are due to hitting a letter adjacent to the intended one. For the later there is, I believe, a good reason. At 6’5" tall, and long of limb, my hands are maybe 25% larger than average. Yet I must type on a keyboard that is scaled for a 50th percentile human.
Web searches show oversized keyboards made for toddlers, and handicapped folks, but nothing you could actually touch-type upon.
I learned to type prior to the availability of PCs. Actually, when I learned to type, most typewriters were not electric. Old manual typewriters had a much more terraced keyboard than electrics, and PCs do. This made for a lot fewer typos on my part due to the verticle spacing between rows…so maybe I just need a more terraced keyboard.
Anybody know where I might be able to purchase such?
These flexible keyboards seem to have normal sized keys that are spaced apart more than a standard keyboard. I played with one yesterday at Microcenter but couldn’t get over the rubbery feel of the keys and they way they depress at random angles. That might lead to more typos, not less.
And an over sized ‘backspace’ key. I have had keyboards with them but all the new ones seem to have the small ‘backspace’ key.
I tip my keyboards up more than normal which gives the feel of more vertical space between the key rows.
I am helpless on a laptop sitting flat on a desk surface and I can’t use one in my lap.
I wonder what the demand would be for a plain ‘104’ style keyboard with 50% more vertical space between key rows and 25% bigger keys for those of us with big hands?
When typing a letter, post or whatever, do you prefer to correct spelling as you go or wait and go back over the whole thing after you get it rough drafted?
For me it depends some on what I am using, a message board window will be done totally and then put into some program like ‘Word™’ to spell check.
If I am writing in ‘Word™’, I seem to want to correct as I go along.
I think I get a better result if I wait for then I seem to not only correct spelling but I see grammar mistakes and wording and punctuation mistakes more easily.
Although I never catch it all until I post or send it and it is too late. ::: sigh :::
Gus, why don’t you get a spellcheck plugin for your browser? I’m using Firefox and I have the Spellbound development version, which features an inline spell check capability–it underlines mistakes in red as you type.
An alternative: try a keyboard with keys that are harder to press. I recommend an old IBM Model M keyboard, which you might be able to find on eBay for around $20. They’re built to last forever. A warning, though - they’re LOUD.
I think larger keys would automatically make the space farther apart.
I’ve often wondered how big people can cope with keyboards. I see big guys typing and their fingers totally eclipse the key (and some surrounding keys)! I would think this would be a huge market for someone to tap into. Bigger keys would also help the visually impaired.
[Yep, Kalhoun, I’m built like a brick shithouse, and it’s a problem for me. But keyboards, ain’t nuffin’. Don’t get me startet on cellphones Each year, they announce new advances in miniaturisation, and each year I scream, “For the love of Og, Noooooooooooo!!!”. Let alone the fact that with the phone on my ear, the mouthpiece is up near the back corner of my jawbone somewhere miles from my mouth, the keypads year by year look more and more like something designed for a canary to peck at. A quick check of my cellphone as I type this, and my fingertip completely eclipses four entire keys.
It’s funny - I’m rather particular about mice / alternative pointing devices, and have had a very large number of them over the years. But I don’t seem to be particular about keyboards. The keyboard is the oldest thing on my desktop system, and I’ve been wondering when it’s going to crap out, forcing me to get a new one. It’s labeled “Logitech Deluxe 104”, and it has survived a new case, several motherboard / processor upgrades, transition from CRT to flat screen, and God knows how many mice, trackballs, and gyroscopic pointing dinguses. I might have to get a new one just because this one is so visibly filthy it’s even disgusting me. How it is managing to still function after years of having crapped spilled on it and crumbs dropped between the keys I just don’t know.
Now that I look at my Eurotech (home computer) the keys aren’t really any bigger than the ones on my MS keyboard. I guess it’s just the key layout and the tactile feedback I like. There is more ‘action’ in this keyboard than my MS one at work.
