[clug] Could this be done today? 1968: Doug Englebart's NLS (oNLine System)

Alex Osborne ato at meshy.org
Wed Sep 17 07:57:55 GMT 2008


On 17/09/2008, at 10:43 AM, Jason wrote:

> My immediate thought when I saw his cool keyboard, 'this would be  
> perfect for a moko sized device', but then I realised no one over  
> the age of 5 could get 5 figures comfortably across the screen,  
> maybe a 4 key option would work with a row of sticky keys above the  
> 4 binary keys.

Ooooh, doing it actually on the device itself never occurred to me!   
With the moko in my left palm,  four fingers on the screen, plus  
thumb on the AUX key sort of works.  You'd probably need something to  
strap it onto your hand though as it's a little tricky to hold it at  
the same time.

> Does the Neo Freerunner have a multi touch screen or am I going to  
> have to develop this on an iphone :P

Unfortunately, it's a bog standard capacitive touch screen if I  
remember correctly.  I think I read somewhere that it's possible to  
detect two presses (but rather inaccurately) with a bit of magic  
(possibly by making use of the pressure value).  This might be the  
trick that the touchpad on the Macbooks use to allow you right click  
by tapping two fingers on the touchpad instead of one.

But actually, glueing a set of switches down the side of the moko and  
figuring out some way to keep it your hand might work.  Perhaps a  
semi-elastic strap on the back that you put your fingers through  
would keep you from straining your fingers trying to hold the device  
and type at the same time.

Cheers,

Alex


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