You may be asking “why not just buy a chorded keyboard?”. The answer is simple: They are super duper expensive, and lack the features I desire. Here is a rundown of what is out there:
from the cykey website
Infrared control with a huge dongle, for the low low price of only 74 pounds (112 USD). This is a low cost chorded keyboard, by any means. The annoying thing is the receiver- it is big, and it is infrared, so you need line of sight. I don’t need wireless capability, but if I am going to have it, it will be in the gigahertz.
From infogrips website
Possibly only available on ebay, Totally still available, new this is almost the thing I am going to re-create. It is a 7-key chorded keyboard, which goes for somewhere between 150-200 on ebay. To make it more complicated, they are “handed”, so I would have to wait for a lefty (on ebay).
the twiddler 2, from the twiddler website
Nothing about this looks comfortable, and it is 200 CAD! It is also a thumb-mouse, but I already have a nice mouse, thankyouverymuch. Not that integrating a mouse is a bad idea.
Well, that sums it up for things that you can buy. There might be a few more out there, (frogpad is one of them), but I can’t find them for sale. So the solution is to build one! Plus, I just bought a 3d printer, so I can get some experience using it for prototyping.
AyLo 