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Anyone know about how keyboard & #pad keymapping works?

Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 3:58 pm
by mathias
I got this idea for a set of ergonomic typing devices that i'd like to try out: a belkin nostromo n52 in one hand together with something else in the other. The best idea I have for the second thing is a numeric keypad rotated 90 degrees. That would give me 18 keys in the left hand, including the d-pad, and 12 letter keys, space and enter in the right hand.

Right now I'm trying to see if this is possible, so first I need to figure out if I can set two keyboards to different layouts in linux and if those seperate numeric keypads are generaly linux compatible. I'm also curious about whether this would be possible in windows.

Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 8:05 pm
by mathias
If anyone by chance has an idea for something I could use for the right half instead of a rotated keypad, that would be good too.

Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 11:05 pm
by Slaugh

Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 2:26 pm
by mathias
I guess switching layouts with a key combination would be acceptable.

I briefly noticed one potential alternative for the right hand, the frogpad. Very briefly. It looks terrible, the pinky finger row is right in line with all the others and it has three keys, I dotn't see how you could keep that finger in line with the other three instead of about one row lower. Not to mention how absurdly expensive that thing is.

Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 8:31 pm
by Slaugh
This site might be useful...

One Handed Keyboards and One Hand Typing Options

On this site, you'll find keyboards like the FrogPad and this half-keyboard that was already mentioned in another thread:

Image

Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:55 am
by mathias
At the price they're charging for those, it would make far more sense to just get a contoured kinesys ergonomic keyboard.

The right half of a normal keyboard doesn't look too bad(it's the left half that's horrible), the top row seems to be lined up fine, the bottom row not so much. If I was to use the right side of a keyboard with an n52, I'd reassign m to the dpad instead of r, even though it occurs less frequently (in addition to reassigning l, f and b).

They really should have realligned the rows in that left hand only keyboard.

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 6:41 am
by Mar.
If you were savvy enough with a soldering iron, you could probably find an old keyboard and cut it in half, and then run some wires to reconnect what you've cut.