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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer from I Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And you know, not

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Speaker 1: long after the invention of computers, engineers began to lean

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Speaker 1: pretty heavily on an older technology for the purposes of

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Speaker 1: inputting data, in other words, getting information into the computer.

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Speaker 1: And it was to figure out a way to do that,

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Speaker 1: either directly or indirectly into those computational machines. The older

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Speaker 1: technology I'm talking about is, of course, the typewriter, and

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Speaker 1: we gradually saw the evolution of the computer keyboard. And

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Speaker 1: we're about eighty years out from those days where keyboards

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Speaker 1: were starting to become a thing for computers. They didn't

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Speaker 1: always look the way they do today. Some of the

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Speaker 1: keyboards for early computers were just you know, numeral pads

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Speaker 1: and not a full keyboard. But my point is we're

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Speaker 1: eighty years out and the keyboard is still around, whether

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Speaker 1: it's an actual physical keyboard or an on screen one,

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Speaker 1: or even one of those fancy laser ones where it

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Speaker 1: projects it on a on a flat surface and you

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Speaker 1: just move your fingers to the the area on the

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Speaker 1: surface that is designated a key anyway, we've we've stuck

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Speaker 1: with that form factor for decades, nearly a century in fact,

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Speaker 1: if you're talking about typewriters, more than a century. So

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Speaker 1: today I wanted to talk a bit about the history

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Speaker 1: of the keyboard, as well as some alternatives that people

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Speaker 1: have proposed to the old TYPEE TYPEE it's like to

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Speaker 1: call it, and perhaps explore why nothing has really taken

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Speaker 1: its place so far. Now, before I jump in, I

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Speaker 1: do want to acknowledge that there are other user interfaces

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Speaker 1: out there that have become popular. Touch screens have removed

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Speaker 1: some of the need for keyboards, at least for certain applications.

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Speaker 1: Voice commands are popular in some contexts, but not all.

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Speaker 1: You might use voice commands for a hands free experience

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Speaker 1: with your phone or to interact with a smart speaker,

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Speaker 1: But for most of us, I would wager that we

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Speaker 1: don't use voice interaction with our computers. But I also

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Speaker 1: want to acknowledge that while that may be true for

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Speaker 1: most of us, it's certainly not true for all of us.

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Speaker 1: Voice interaction is an important component and provides accessibility options

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Speaker 1: for people who might not otherwise be able to interact

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Speaker 1: with computers using a traditional keyboard, at least not do

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Speaker 1: so easily. So please understand I'm not dismissing alternatives out

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Speaker 1: of hand, but rather exploring why the keyboard form factor

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Speaker 1: these days, also coupled with the computer mouse, has remained

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Speaker 1: constant over multiple generations of computers. So, as I said,

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Speaker 1: the predecessor to the keyboard was the good old typewriter,

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Speaker 1: and the predecessor of that device was the Tarot type,

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Speaker 1: a sort of proto typewriter. That's p T E R

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Speaker 1: O T Y p E. Actually you could just call

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Speaker 1: the Pterot type a typewriter, though the mechanisms and keyboard

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Speaker 1: layout would be different from later devices. A man named

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Speaker 1: John Jonathan Pratt born in eighteen thirty one, invented it.

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Speaker 1: John Pratt was born in South Carolina, and he lived

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Speaker 1: in the South, making him a citizen of the Confederacy

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Speaker 1: during the Civil War. He was also a slave owner

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Speaker 1: until eighteen sixty one, whereupon he sold them in order

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Speaker 1: to travel to the UK, where he would show off

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Speaker 1: his device in an effort to get patents could be

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Speaker 1: He had figured, you know, pretty much on the money

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Speaker 1: that being a citizen of the Confederacy would mean he

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Speaker 1: would see very little support from the U. S. Patent Office,

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Speaker 1: so he thought he would bypass that and go to

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Speaker 1: England instead, so the Tarotype would become the first typewriter

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Speaker 1: device sold to the public, but many scholars referred to

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Speaker 1: him as the grandfather of the typewriter, not the father

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Speaker 1: of it. The keys of the pterotype were laid out

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Speaker 1: very differently than the ones you would find on a

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Speaker 1: modern computer or typewriter keyboard. On the left side, you

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Speaker 1: had a top row of numerals, but it was just

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Speaker 1: two through six, and then you had three rows of

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Speaker 1: letters in alphabetic order A through M. Then you had

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Speaker 1: on the right side, so split from the left side,

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Speaker 1: you had a similar arrangement. You had the top row

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Speaker 1: with numerals seven, eight, and nine, plus a comma and

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Speaker 1: a period. Then you had three rows of letters in

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Speaker 1: through y. You were supposed to use I and oh

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Speaker 1: to represent one in zero. That's why there were no

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Speaker 1: one or zero buttons there. And there was a really

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Speaker 1: big button for spaces to put space between letters. So

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Speaker 1: when you finished one word and we're about to start another,

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Speaker 1: so this is p key time era, that's a pre quirty.

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Speaker 1: If you were to come across. The first commercial typewriter

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Speaker 1: device today, like the first one that was really being sold,

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Speaker 1: the terotype was intended to be, but they're very few

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Speaker 1: that were produced. You would probably think you had encountered

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Speaker 1: some sort of steampunk esque sci fi gadget. A Danish

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Speaker 1: inventor named Rasmus Molling Hansen built a device generally called

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Speaker 1: the writing Ball. He mounted the keys on a semi

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Speaker 1: sphere that, in turn was mounted above the carriage that

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Speaker 1: held the paper. And it makes me think it's a

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Speaker 1: cross between R two D two and Pinhead from the

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Speaker 1: movie Hell Raiser, if Pinhead had typing keys instead of

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Speaker 1: pins stuck out of his noggin. While the writing Ball

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Speaker 1: was the first commercial typewriter device, it wasn't a widespread success,

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Speaker 1: though Hansen apparently sold quite a few in England. These

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Speaker 1: devices today go for a pretty penny or actually a

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Speaker 1: lot of pretty pennies at auction, fetching more than a

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars in some cases princely some. But as

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Speaker 1: much as I would love a globe shaped keyboard for

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Speaker 1: my computer, it's not the form factor that stuck around.

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Speaker 1: An American feller by the name of Christopher Latham Shoals

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Speaker 1: gets the credit for being the father of the proper

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Speaker 1: modern typewriter. Shoals was born in eighteen nineteen in Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: He apprenticed to a printer to learn a trade, and

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Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty seven he and his older brothers moved

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Speaker 1: out to Green Bay, Wisconsin. The brothers published a newspaper

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Speaker 1: out in Green Bay. Christopher landed a job as the

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Speaker 1: editor of the Wisconsin Inquirer in Madison, and after being

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Speaker 1: editor of a couple of other newspapers, he decided to

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Speaker 1: try his hand at politics and was elected to the

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Speaker 1: state legislature. By the eighteen sixties, Shoals was inventing devices

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Speaker 1: to make life easier for those who work with paper

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Speaker 1: and inc In eighteen sixty four, he and his friend

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Speaker 1: Samuel W. So Leigh received a patent for a machine

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Speaker 1: that would number pages. After inventing that, a colleague suggested

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Speaker 1: that he might make a device similar to Pratt's Tarot type,

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Speaker 1: something that could print not just numbers, but letters onto paper.

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Speaker 1: Pratt had already worked on mechanical systems that would advance

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Speaker 1: the position of a piece of paper so that you

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Speaker 1: could type a series of symbols on the paper without

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Speaker 1: them all being piled on top of each other. In

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Speaker 1: other words, he created these these mechanical devices that would

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Speaker 1: advance the papers position and that way, if you were

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Speaker 1: to type T, the paper would advance by one spot.

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Speaker 1: You could type TEA again and it would be, you know,

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Speaker 1: one spot to the right of the first one. So

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Speaker 1: Shoal set out to create an evolved version of this technology.

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Speaker 1: He took a slightly different approach when it came to

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Speaker 1: the actual layout of keys. So first of all, he

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Speaker 1: didn't have a split keyboard the way the parotype did.

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Speaker 1: He grouped them all into four rows of keys, plus

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Speaker 1: a space bar at the bottom of the rows. So

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Speaker 1: the top row had the numerals two through nine, plus

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Speaker 1: a dash. Like the pterotype, you were supposed to use

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Speaker 1: I and O to stand in for one and zero.

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Speaker 1: The second row had the vowels A, E, and I.

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Speaker 1: Then you had a period, then you had a question mark,

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Speaker 1: then you had why you oh, and the comma. The

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Speaker 1: third row was B through M in alphabetical order, and

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Speaker 1: the fourth row was Z through in in reverse alphabetical order.

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Speaker 1: So if you were following along on row three, you

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Speaker 1: would just go down at the far right and then

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Speaker 1: move right to left to continue the alphabet, which I

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Speaker 1: admit sounds really strange to us, but if you take

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Speaker 1: a look at the modern keyboard, you realize that these

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Speaker 1: letters are all in one crazy kind of order. Him

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Speaker 1: A right. When Remington's bought the rights to Shulz typewriter

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy three, the company made a couple of changes,

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Speaker 1: getting a little closer to the order that we're familiar

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Speaker 1: with today with the quirty letters. That's Q W, E

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Speaker 1: R T Y in the second row, the first letters

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Speaker 1: in the second row beneath numbers two through nine, a dash,

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Speaker 1: a common an underscore, and the layout of the letters

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Speaker 1: is pretty similar to what you would see in a

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Speaker 1: modern keyboard today, though the M was in a different place,

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Speaker 1: as it would be found to the right of the

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Speaker 1: L key and next to the N key at the

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Speaker 1: bottom row. Where the M is on modern keyboards was

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Speaker 1: actually a question mark, like where did the M go? Oh,

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Speaker 1: it's up there. The quirty keyboard became a standard around two,

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Speaker 1: fittingly with the Remington's standard typewriter number two. The story

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Speaker 1: I hear is that the reason for the changes, we're

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Speaker 1: moving the M key down to the last row all

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. That wasn't to make the keyboard

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Speaker 1: more efficient or to avoid issues with typewriters jamming. It was,

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Speaker 1: according to the story, an effort to avoid having to

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Speaker 1: pay royalties too Shoals After all, the keyboard was laid

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Speaker 1: out in different way, so it can't be Shoals design.

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Speaker 1: Now I should add that while I have heard this story,

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Speaker 1: I've never seen any definitive proof that this was actually

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Speaker 1: the reason why the Remington's Standard Number two keyboard was

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Speaker 1: slightly different from shoals Is design. May have turned out

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Speaker 1: that the folks at Remington's were just continuing to tweak

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Speaker 1: the key layout to get the best arrangement. Anyway, as

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Speaker 1: I said, this is when the M key migrated down

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Speaker 1: to be next to the N key. As for the

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Speaker 1: reason of the layout, well, that's one of those stories

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Speaker 1: that has a lot of mythology behind it. But the

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Speaker 1: commonly told story is that old typewriters, which were purely

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Speaker 1: mechanical inventions, had issues with type bars jamming. Once type

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Speaker 1: has got pretty fast, it typing the most common letters.

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Speaker 1: Then if those letters were too close together, or if

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Speaker 1: type has got too fast, then the bars would collide

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Speaker 1: with one another and jam up the machine. Because you

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Speaker 1: have to remember these were purely mechanical systems. The keys

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Speaker 1: were essentially connected to levers that would power a type

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Speaker 1: bar to strike the you know, usually an inked ribbon

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Speaker 1: and then print a letter onto a piece of paper.

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Speaker 1: So with that in mind, if you were typing super

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Speaker 1: fast and a bunch of these type bars were coming

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Speaker 1: up to that center spot at once, they could get

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Speaker 1: caught in each other and then the machine jams. So

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Speaker 1: that's the story that goes that that the reason the

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Speaker 1: keyboard was laid out was purposefully to slow people down

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Speaker 1: and to make sure that very uh frequently used letters

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be in positions that would cause jams. However, there

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Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be any definitive support for that theory.

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Speaker 1: Now it may have been coincidentally true, but generally the

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Speaker 1: thinking is that Shoals and the folks at Remington's got

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Speaker 1: feedback from various users, many of them telegraph operators, and

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Speaker 1: the tweaks they made were based on that feedback. And

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Speaker 1: this was before anyone had developed a touch typing method.

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Speaker 1: So maybe it was because of jamming. Maybe it was

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Speaker 1: just that typists were discovering that certain keys were just

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Speaker 1: not an ideal position for typing. It doesn't stop numerous

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Speaker 1: sites and videos and even this podcast once upon a

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Speaker 1: time from repeating that the real answer was because type

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Speaker 1: is typists were jamming machines, and that's why we have

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Speaker 1: a quarty keyboard and it's completely outdated and we should

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Speaker 1: change it. We just don't know that that's actually true.

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Speaker 1: It might be, but we can't say for certain. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: we can say that the modern keyboard layout can trace

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Speaker 1: its origins to around eight two, so the keys haven't

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Speaker 1: really changed in nearly a century and a half for

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Speaker 1: quarity keyboards for the English speaking world, which is pretty wild,

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Speaker 1: isn't it. And now we have all sorts of different

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Speaker 1: versions of the keyboard, from the physical keyboard that I

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Speaker 1: typed my notes on for these shows, two on screen

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Speaker 1: keyboards for stuff like smartphone. Now let's skip ahead a

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Speaker 1: little bit. The typewriter became a popular type of technology,

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Speaker 1: with several companies popping up to compete against each other.

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Speaker 1: You had Remington's, you had Underwood, Oliver, Corona Royal, and

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Speaker 1: many more. If you want to learn more about those,

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Speaker 1: just ask Tom Hanks. I understand he collects old typewriters. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: we're going to jump ahead to the nineteen tens. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, that's when a man named James Smathers decided

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Speaker 1: to advance typewriter technology. While it was possible to type

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Speaker 1: up a message in much less time than it took

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Speaker 1: to write things out by hand, presuming that you are

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Speaker 1: a fairly accomplished typist, that is, the experience could be exhausting,

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Speaker 1: particularly if you were typing all day, because you would

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Speaker 1: feel it. Because again, to to create the impression on

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Speaker 1: the paper, to stamp that letter onto a piece of paper,

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Speaker 1: you had to strike the keys with enough force to

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Speaker 1: move the type bar up to hit that inked ribbon

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Speaker 1: and leave a letter on the paper. So if you've

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Speaker 1: ever used an old like mechanical typewriter, you know what

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about. I used to have an old underwood

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Speaker 1: and typing on that thing was exhausting after a couple

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Speaker 1: of pages. But hey, what if we turned to technology

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Speaker 1: to do some of that work for us? What if

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Speaker 1: striking a key didn't connect to a mechanical system but

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Speaker 1: an electronic one. That was Smather's idea. He was working

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Speaker 1: on one in the early nineteen tens and he got

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Speaker 1: a patent for his invention By nineteen twelve. Now we're

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Speaker 1: reaching the point where the keys don't connect to a

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Speaker 1: mechanical lever that strikes the page, but are rather electronic switches,

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Speaker 1: and this transition would carry over to computer keyboards. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six, we got a serious challenge to the

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Speaker 1: quirty keyboard. August Dvorak and his brother in law, William Deely,

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Speaker 1: received a patent for a new layout of keys. At

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Speaker 1: this point, quirty was widely adopted throughout the industry, though

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Speaker 1: you would occasionally find keyboards that had some slight differences

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Speaker 1: in a few of the keys, but for the majority

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Speaker 1: of the keys, the layout was pretty much established. Dvorak

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Speaker 1: wanted to increase typing efficiency, which would mean reducing what

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Speaker 1: he called hurdling or jumping over a key for common

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Speaker 1: two letter combinations. In his mind, you know, very common

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Speaker 1: two letter combinations should either be split up between right

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Speaker 1: and left fingers, or they should be right next to

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Speaker 1: each other. But you shouldn't have to hurdle over and

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Speaker 1: jump across a different key in order to get to

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Speaker 1: the second letter of a two letter combination. Something that's

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Speaker 1: really common in English so uh. In the Dvorak keyboard,

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Speaker 1: he lays out the vowels of A, O, E, U,

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Speaker 1: and I in that order, from left to right on

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Speaker 1: the third row of keys, So the top row remains

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Speaker 1: the numbers and symbols, the second row is P, Y, F, G,

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Speaker 1: C R, L, and then some other symbols and so on,

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Speaker 1: and you can get Divorat keyboards to this day. You

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Speaker 1: can even remap keys in various programs and use a

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Speaker 1: standard quirty keyboard, but use the Divorac layout within the computer.

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Speaker 1: Now that means you might want to put some stickers

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Speaker 1: and all your keys to relabel them so you can

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Speaker 1: actually learn the Divorac system. Early claims about divor X

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Speaker 1: keyboard said the system was easier to learn and master

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Speaker 1: than the quirty keyboard, and that typists could reach and

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Speaker 1: surpass the speeds that they could hit with Quirty after

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Speaker 1: just a few days practice. Subsequent investigation found that these

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Speaker 1: early claims may have been at best exaggerated, but there

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Speaker 1: are people who strongly prefer the Divorac layout, and that

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Speaker 1: includes some people who absolutely swear that the original Divorax

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Speaker 1: study the Navy's studies were perfectly cromulent, and that these

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Speaker 1: subsequent studies that seemed to debunk the original one were

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Speaker 1: flawed and possibly fueled by some sort of big Corty

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Speaker 1: slush fund or something. I'm not really clear on the details. Now.

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Speaker 1: I've never used a Dvorak keyboard, having learned on the

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Speaker 1: puirty and never really tried anything else, so I can't

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Speaker 1: really comment on it. I can say that there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of anecdotes. I don't know about any actual,

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Speaker 1: like evidence based accounts, but there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: anecdotes that say that the divorate keyboard results in less

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Speaker 1: exhaustion and and fewer repetitive stress injuries and that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing, like it's arguably healthier to type on a

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Speaker 1: divorate keyboard than a quirty keyboard. But I haven't found

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Speaker 1: anything that definitively says that. It's all, like I said, anecdotal.

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Speaker 1: And of course I'm focusing on keyboards for English speaking

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Speaker 1: countries here. Keyboards for other countries can look quite a

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Speaker 1: bit different, with different numbers of keys and key combinations

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Speaker 1: to make various characters, but at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: they're all keyboards. When we come back, I'll talk about

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Speaker 1: some of the different styles of keyboards and what makes

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Speaker 1: them tick, or really, in some cases at least click.

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Speaker 1: But first, let's take a quick break. For most, but

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Speaker 1: not all keyboards, there exists underneath the keys a grid

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Speaker 1: of circuits called the key matrix. This is where keyboard

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Speaker 1: Neo and Morpheus and Trinity fight. Keyboard agent Smith. Hang on,

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Speaker 1: wait now, I'm being told off Mike that I got

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Speaker 1: that wrong. Apparently the key matrix is a grid of circuits,

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Speaker 1: and if you aren't pressing down on any keys, all

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Speaker 1: the circuits are open. I mean there's no signal flowing

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Speaker 1: through them because there's a break in the circuit. Right,

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Speaker 1: there's not a complete circuit, so a current cannot flow

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Speaker 1: through it. Pressing down on a key activates a switch

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Speaker 1: that closes the circuit and allows a weak signal to

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Speaker 1: pass through. That signal travels to a processor within the

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Speaker 1: keyboard itself, which registers which key or keys were pressed.

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Speaker 1: If you hold the key down, the processor will detect

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Speaker 1: that as pressing the key repeatedly. At least with most keyboards,

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Speaker 1: this is essentially a mechanical keyboard, but there are several

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Speaker 1: subtypes of mechanical keyboards, and the thing they have in

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Speaker 1: common is that they all activate a switch to complete

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Speaker 1: a circuit. So let's tackle these in turn. You've got

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Speaker 1: your rubber dome keyboards. Underneath the keys, there's a pattern

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Speaker 1: of small rubber domes that are flexible, but they have

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Speaker 1: a hard center made out of carbon typically, and it

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00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:32,720
Speaker 1: looks a little bit like bubble wrap. When you push

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Speaker 1: down on a key, the key pushes down on the dome,

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Speaker 1: causing it to squish, and the carbon center presses down

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Speaker 1: to complete the circuit. So every single letter, every single number,

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Speaker 1: every single symbol has one of these little domes over

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Speaker 1: its individual little switch. When you let go of the

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Speaker 1: key causes the dome to move back to its original

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Speaker 1: dome shape and the key moves back up. The keyboards

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00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:00,920
Speaker 1: are pretty cheap. They also do it fairly decent job

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00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:04,679
Speaker 1: at protecting keyboards from spills because there's effectively a rubber

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00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:07,880
Speaker 1: sheet covering the circuitry. But I think most folks don't

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Speaker 1: really imagine these when they think of a mechanical keyboard.

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Speaker 1: Some of the dome based keyboards have a mechanism called

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00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:17,760
Speaker 1: a scissor switch. This is a pair of plastic pieces

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00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:21,840
Speaker 1: on either side of the key that look like scissors,

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00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:25,159
Speaker 1: thus the name. They act as sort of a spring.

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00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:30,119
Speaker 1: So the scissor switch style keyboards require less distance to

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Speaker 1: go from the key being up to being depressed as

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Speaker 1: it pushed down, not as in Feeling Blue. They tend

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Speaker 1: to be a little more quiet than other types of keyboards,

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00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:43,120
Speaker 1: and they have a lower profile, you know, they don't

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00:20:43,119 --> 00:20:45,680
Speaker 1: have to be raised up as high. So these are

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Speaker 1: the types of keyboards you find in laptops pretty frequently.

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Speaker 1: The laptop that I have in front of me, the

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Speaker 1: one I typed my notes on for this show, has

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Speaker 1: this type of keyboard. There's still a dome under the keys,

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00:20:58,280 --> 00:21:01,480
Speaker 1: but the keys don't require much worse to press down,

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00:21:01,520 --> 00:21:04,359
Speaker 1: nor do they go as far from a pure dome

356
00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:09,120
Speaker 1: based mechanical keyboard perspective. Similar to that type of keyboard

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00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:13,600
Speaker 1: our membrane keyboards. These have a membrane that on the underside,

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Speaker 1: the side that's facing the circuitry has a pattern printed

359
00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:19,840
Speaker 1: on it, and pressing on a key pushes the membrane

360
00:21:19,840 --> 00:21:23,439
Speaker 1: against the circuitry, which completes the circuit at that point

361
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:27,760
Speaker 1: or points. There are membrane keyboards that are totally flexible,

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Speaker 1: the kind that often come with stuff like tablet computers,

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00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:33,880
Speaker 1: you know, like the rollable keyboards and stuff. They don't

364
00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:37,720
Speaker 1: have the clicky tactile response you get with other mechanical keyboards.

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00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:40,479
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons I don't really like this

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Speaker 1: kind of keyboard because it's hard to tell from touch

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Speaker 1: if the computer has registered the key press, and if

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Speaker 1: you're not looking at, you know, the screen where the

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00:21:49,760 --> 00:21:52,440
Speaker 1: text is appearing, that can be a problem. Like I

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Speaker 1: can sometimes be typing notes while looking at a source

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Speaker 1: so I'm not looking directly at my document. I'm looking

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Speaker 1: at the source material and I'm making sure I'm getting

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Speaker 1: like dates, write and stuff. But that means that if

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Speaker 1: I'm typing by touch and I can't tell if the

375
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Speaker 1: key strike I just did was registered or not, i

376
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Speaker 1: might look at my notes and see that I've got

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00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:17,560
Speaker 1: a ton of typos there because some of my key

378
00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:21,719
Speaker 1: strokes just didn't get registered. That's something that's irritating to me.

379
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,520
Speaker 1: That's why I don't like membrane keyboards. However, they are

380
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:28,280
Speaker 1: super cheap, so they are incredibly affordable. The other two

381
00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:32,360
Speaker 1: major types of mechanical keyboards are similar and that they

382
00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:36,640
Speaker 1: both have spring loaded keys, so a spring holds them

383
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Speaker 1: in position. That you have metal contact keys, which as

384
00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:44,840
Speaker 1: the name suggests, have a metal contact on the underside

385
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:48,920
Speaker 1: of the key itself, so pressing the key compresses the spring.

386
00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:53,879
Speaker 1: It brings the metal contact into you know, contact with

387
00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 1: the circuit, thus completing it at that point and letting

388
00:22:57,280 --> 00:22:59,439
Speaker 1: go of the key lets the spring expand back to

389
00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:02,760
Speaker 1: its normal size. Uh. Those tend to be really clicky

390
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:05,679
Speaker 1: kind of keys. It's what I think most people associate

391
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Speaker 1: with mechanical keyboards, that clicky, clacky kind of thing. Then

392
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 1: you've got foam element keys, which are really pretty much

393
00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 1: the same as the middle contacts, but of course instead

394
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:17,879
Speaker 1: of having a metal contact under the key, there's a

395
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:21,160
Speaker 1: piece of spongey foam that pushes down on the medal

396
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:25,000
Speaker 1: strip that then makes contact with the circuit. Like I said,

397
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 1: these keyboards have the real mechanical clickiness to them, and

398
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:31,000
Speaker 1: a lot of gamers like these types of keyboards. They

399
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:34,479
Speaker 1: feel that that tactle response gives them the confidence they

400
00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:37,000
Speaker 1: need when they're making a lot of quick moves and games.

401
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: You know, their eyes are on the screen, so they

402
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 1: need to feel confident that when they've pressed a key

403
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:44,399
Speaker 1: that it means something. So that click is kind of

404
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:46,639
Speaker 1: a confirmation that, yeah, you did hit that button to

405
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 1: open the door or pick up an inventory item or

406
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. Now, there is one other type

407
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:55,200
Speaker 1: of keyboard I need to mention that is different from

408
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:59,120
Speaker 1: these others that I've talked about, and those are capacitive keyboards.

409
00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:02,400
Speaker 1: So and the or keyboards, pushing a key completes a circuit,

410
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 1: but with capacitive keyboards there's already a complete circuit. So

411
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 1: pushing down on a key brings a tiny conductive plate

412
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 1: into close contact with another tiny conductive plate that's actually

413
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: attached to the circuit itself. So when these two plates

414
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:22,560
Speaker 1: get really close to each other, it changes the amount

415
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,560
Speaker 1: of current that's flowing through that part of the circuit

416
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 1: just slightly, and the keyboards processor detects that change in

417
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:33,000
Speaker 1: current and registers that as a keystroke. I just think

418
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:35,960
Speaker 1: that it's neat in the way that most keyboards detective

419
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 1: touch is kind of but not really the opposite. Now,

420
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:43,200
Speaker 1: the processor's job is to detect keypresses and then to

421
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 1: relay which key presses were made and in what order

422
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 1: to the computer. The detection requires the processor to do

423
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: a little clean up work first, because pressing a key

424
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: creates an oscillating effect, meaning that while you might press

425
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:02,920
Speaker 1: one key one time, there will be tiny oscillations that

426
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:06,240
Speaker 1: will make it seem like that key had been pressed many, many,

427
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 1: many times per second. The processor can detect the changes

428
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 1: in current and then it kind of weeds out these

429
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 1: oscillations and determines the actual keystroke. This is sometimes called

430
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: de bouncing, as the processors essentially filtering out those oscillations

431
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: or bounces. The processor actually has a small memory buffer

432
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 1: to store data before sending it on, and then on

433
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: the computer side, you've got the keyboard controller, which receives

434
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 1: and processes data sent from the keyboard. This information then

435
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,399
Speaker 1: goes on to the operating system. The computer can have

436
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:46,119
Speaker 1: another filter that maps keystrokes to specific outcomes, including for

437
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:48,639
Speaker 1: those times when you might be using, say an English

438
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 1: keyboard to type in a non English language that has

439
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:55,880
Speaker 1: characters that English just doesn't have, or if you were

440
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 1: to say, use a quirty keyboard but use a divorac

441
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 1: layout within a computer program. Computer keyboards and video displays

442
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: have been a thing since nineteen sixties, and a thing

443
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 1: in consumer computers since the late nineteen seventies. Something that

444
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:15,199
Speaker 1: hit the consumer market a little bit later was the

445
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: computer mouse, but these days, it's pretty much a standard

446
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: component of computer setups, at least desktop ones. There are alternatives, obviously,

447
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:27,880
Speaker 1: like track pads and then the little racers style controllers

448
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 1: that laptops have, but we're going to focus on the

449
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:35,440
Speaker 1: standard traditional computer mouse. The computer mouse is actually an

450
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:41,680
Speaker 1: invention that emerged from two different efforts, independent efforts. Now

451
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: the one that most computer geeks know about is Doug Ingelbart,

452
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 1: who was an engineer who worked at the Stanford Research Institute.

453
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:53,400
Speaker 1: These days we call that s r I International, and

454
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: at Stanford, Ingelbart came up with this idea for a

455
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 1: device that could act as a pointer for computer so stems,

456
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 1: allowing the user to indicate a specific point on a

457
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 1: computer screen where they wished to do something such as

458
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 1: move a cursor so that they could input text at

459
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: that point. There were other devices that did that sort

460
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 1: of thing, like track balls and light pins, but ingle

461
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 1: Bart wanted something that was precise and after maybe a

462
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,199
Speaker 1: little bit of practice, very easy to use. So his

463
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: solution was a computer mouse. But it was a little

464
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 1: different from most early computer mouse gadgets we had back

465
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 1: in the eighties. Ingle Bart's design had two wheels on

466
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: the bottom, one was aligned for the x axis of

467
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 1: movement and one was aligned for the y axis. So

468
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: if you're looking from above at a computer mouse pad,

469
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: you would say one of them was for left right movement,

470
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:49,320
Speaker 1: one was for up down movement. So essentially you had

471
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: two wheels mounted at ninety degrees from one another. Users

472
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 1: would see their movements with this device represented on screen.

473
00:27:57,800 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: So if you were making motions with your hand on

474
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:03,359
Speaker 1: one plane that was approximately ninety degrees off from the

475
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 1: plane of a computer monitor, uh, you could do that. Now,

476
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: this is something that folks pick up pretty darn fast.

477
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: I'm sure all of you have had experience working with

478
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: a computer mouse, and before long it becomes totally natural.

479
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 1: That still blows my mind. It shows the amazing plasticity

480
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: of the human brain that we can see what we

481
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:25,120
Speaker 1: need to do on a screen and then make the

482
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: appropriate movements with a device connected to our hand that's

483
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 1: in a totally different plane, a plane that's off by

484
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: ninety degrees from what we're looking at. That's just neat

485
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 1: to me. I guess I'm easily impressed. Inglebart spoke about

486
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,360
Speaker 1: this computer mouse idea at a lecture in the early

487
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. Within s r I. He and an engineer

488
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 1: named Bill English worked on making a prototype device. So

489
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: the first computer mouse from the pair was made out

490
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: of wood. At least the main body of the mouse

491
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: was made out of wood, and it had a small

492
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: red button on the top that acted as your mouse button.

493
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 1: And Inglebart didn't call it a mouse at that point.

494
00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 1: That was a term that would arise later, and the

495
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 1: actual origins for it are kind of lost to history.

496
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: Inglebart said, I don't know who said it first. People

497
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 1: just said it kind of looks like a mouse with

498
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 1: a tail, and it kind of got the name that way.

499
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 1: But we don't have like a definitive date where we

500
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 1: can say this was when the term was coined. But

501
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: I did say the computer mouse emerged from a couple

502
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 1: of different places. The other place was Germany at Telefunken,

503
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 1: which was a TV and radio component company, and I'll

504
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: have to do a full episode about that company. At

505
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 1: some point engineers came up with a similar idea to

506
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: Inglebart's device. While Inglebart had already spoken about the computer

507
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: mouse and applied for a patent for it in nineteen

508
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: sixty seven, his invention was not widely known outside of

509
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: some fairly small circles. At the same time, the German

510
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 1: engineers were creating their own version, and it was much

511
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: closer to the computer mouse that we had from the

512
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. So these engineers used a rolling ball rather

513
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:08,200
Speaker 1: than a pair of wheels for their mouse. So the

514
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: computer mouse was in effect a track ball, but upside down.

515
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: So while you would use your hand to roll a

516
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: track ball which would otherwise stay stationary, and it would

517
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 1: activate sensors that would measure the movement and translate that

518
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: into cursor movements on the screen, the German mouse did

519
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: this with you moving the mouse around and the roller

520
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: ball would roll across you know, your desk surface. The

521
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: ball meant you only needed one rolling component because the

522
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 1: ball could roll along either the X or the y

523
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: axis and technically all the stuff in between as well.

524
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 1: Inglebart's invention gets the most attention, largely because it played

525
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 1: a part in a famous demonstration in nineteen sixty eight,

526
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:54,200
Speaker 1: often called the Mother of all demos. This was a

527
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 1: presentation to the Association for Computing Machinery and Institute of

528
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 1: Electrical and Electronics Engineer Years. The demo was essentially a

529
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 1: laundry list of all the types of stuff we would

530
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 1: consider standard in computers. Decades later, Inglebart showed off stuff

531
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 1: like hypertext, that is text within a document that links

532
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: to another document or a section of a document. He

533
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: showed off collaborative simultaneous editing software, video conferencing. He showed

534
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 1: off the computer mouse obviously, and also the g u

535
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 1: I or graphical user interface like Windows or the Mac

536
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: operating system. Some members of Inglebart's team would in following

537
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 1: years migrate over to work at the Xerox Palo Alto

538
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: Research Center or Park. This group produced a computer that

539
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 1: was never sold commercially, but it did feature a window

540
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: to operating system and a computer mouse as a navigational

541
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: tool for the machine. A certain Steve Jobs visited Park

542
00:31:57,080 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 1: and saw a demonstration of this device and mysterio see

543
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 1: The Apple Macintosh line of computers began to take on

544
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: some of those characteristics a few years later. Similarly, Microsoft

545
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 1: would get to work on its own g u I

546
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: that would require the use of a mouse. The Macintosh

547
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: debuted in nineteen eighty four, and it didn't take very

548
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: long for the computer mouse to become standard equipment on

549
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: computers after that. Microsoft Windows first launched in night five,

550
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 1: though the first version didn't get much traction, and so

551
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:30,480
Speaker 1: most PC users were still sticking with DOSS. It wasn't

552
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: until nineteen nineties Windows three point oh that the operating

553
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: system really started to gain ground. And of course, these days,

554
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: a lot of computer mousees mices my my anyway, a

555
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: lot of them are optical. So gone are the roller

556
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: balls that you would occasionally have to pop out of

557
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: the mouse and then clean. Those are pretty much gone now.

558
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 1: Most of the ones we used today are effectively a

559
00:32:56,720 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 1: very small sled that we push around on the surface

560
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: and underneath there's an optical sensor that detects motion. Um.

561
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 1: But it's obviously the same general concept, it's just a

562
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: different way of accomplishing it. Now. When we come back,

563
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 1: I'll talk about a few other types of input devices

564
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,160
Speaker 1: that we currently use for computers, and then chat about

565
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 1: why we haven't migrated from the keyboard and mouse, even

566
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: though it's been around for decades. But first let's take

567
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 1: another quick break. So one of the input devices I've

568
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 1: already mentioned is the track ball, which is like the

569
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 1: old rollerball mouse gadget turned upside down. We're gonna skip

570
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 1: over that one, but you get the point. Then you

571
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: have other input devices like we had light pens those

572
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: predate the computer mouse. This was another way to control

573
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 1: cursor placement. The earliest light pens were tethered to computers

574
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: with cables, and while it was a bit more efficient

575
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: than trying to maneuver a cursor using keyboard keys, it

576
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:05,800
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly convenient. Essentially, a light pin is a kind

577
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:09,799
Speaker 1: of specialized optical sensor. It picks up the changes of

578
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: brightness for a small group of pixels. This was in

579
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: the day of cathode ray tube or CRT computer monitors,

580
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 1: and the way CRT monitors work is that you have

581
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 1: an electron gun that's on the inside of the monitor,

582
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:28,719
Speaker 1: so it's behind the screen, and it's effectively painting the

583
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 1: screen pixel by pixel, crossing the screen and horizontal lines

584
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,279
Speaker 1: from top to bottom. So the light pen would pick

585
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:39,320
Speaker 1: up the timing of when a specific group of pixels

586
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 1: would change in brightness. And because it's connected directly to

587
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: the computer, the computer could interpret where the light pen

588
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:49,320
Speaker 1: was in relation to the overall screen because the computer

589
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 1: knows quote unquote where the electron beam is at any

590
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 1: given moment. This created an incredibly precise method for interacting

591
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: with text on screen. But just as find it inconvenient

592
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: to use touch screen displays for desktop computers, so do

593
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 1: people find light pens a bit tiresome to use. It

594
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: can also lead to repetitive stress injuries. The computer mouse

595
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:13,840
Speaker 1: would end up being much more comfortable, and so in

596
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 1: many but not all applications, the mouse would replace the

597
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:21,759
Speaker 1: light pen. Then we have graphic tablets, which see a

598
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 1: lot of use today for various purposes, including creating digital art.

599
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 1: Uh those are not terribly different from light pens. It

600
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:32,359
Speaker 1: works on a different principle, but like the idea of

601
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 1: using a physical pen device or stylus to create a

602
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 1: digital representation of something, that is what is not new.

603
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:44,360
Speaker 1: Of course, we also have touch screens, which allow us

604
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 1: to interface with computer devices through touch. There are a

605
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:50,359
Speaker 1: couple of different versions of that. Capacitive touch screens are

606
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: usually those are like the most common these days. And

607
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 1: then we also had software designed to detect and interpret handwriting,

608
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 1: which had a pretty rough start in the early days.

609
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,320
Speaker 1: It was a main selling point for the infamous Apple

610
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: Newton line of devices, but the early versions of the

611
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 1: Newton had finnicky handwriting recognition capabilities, which resulted in a

612
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 1: lot of errors to me, I think it's funny that

613
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:18,839
Speaker 1: the Newton and then later you know, personal digital assistance

614
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 1: like the Palm pilots, they were effectively looking for a

615
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:25,840
Speaker 1: way to let people use handwriting to take notes on

616
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: a digital device. Now, the reason I find it funny

617
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:31,840
Speaker 1: is that one of the big reasons folks like Shoals

618
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: way back in the eighteen hundreds were working on creating

619
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 1: typewriters in the first place was to let people quote

620
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: unquote write faster than they would if they were to

621
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 1: do it by hand. So, in other words, we went

622
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 1: from creating the keyboard form factor in order to make

623
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:52,319
Speaker 1: it easier and faster to write by uh, you know,

624
00:36:52,520 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 1: using these keys, to creating handwriting recognition software and a

625
00:36:56,760 --> 00:37:00,160
Speaker 1: stylus interface in order to move away from keyboards him

626
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 1: back to writing now. To be fair, the foreign factor

627
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:07,240
Speaker 1: for handheld devices means that incorporating keyboards that are easy

628
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 1: to use is challenging. If it's a physical keyboard that

629
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:14,399
Speaker 1: impacts the size of the device, including its thickness. If

630
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 1: it's an on screen keyboard, you have to be, you know,

631
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 1: really good at touch detection and error correction to avoid

632
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:25,279
Speaker 1: creating a frustrating user experience, so I get why developers

633
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: were doing this. It's just funny to me that you

634
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,480
Speaker 1: had people like Schul saying, we need a better way

635
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:32,719
Speaker 1: to write. How about we take the pens out of

636
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 1: people's hands and replace it with keys, And then you

637
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 1: had a couple of generations later engineers saying we need

638
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: a better way to write. We need to take the

639
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 1: keys away and put a pen back in people's hands.

640
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 1: Just kind of cyclical, I guess. For decades, one of

641
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:50,720
Speaker 1: the sci fi visions of the future is a world

642
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: in which we interact with computers through voice commands, and

643
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 1: we definitely have laid the groundwork with this. Voice recognition

644
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 1: is a complicated discipline. It's a subset of artificial and eligence,

645
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 1: and it took a long time to get it to

646
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 1: a level of precision that's, you know, mostly reliable. So

647
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: today we've got various smartphones, smart speakers, smart watches, computer

648
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:16,399
Speaker 1: systems that can accept voice commands. However, despite all that,

649
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:20,360
Speaker 1: some of our more involved tasks with computers tend to

650
00:38:20,400 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 1: be best reserved for a keyboard and mouse. For example,

651
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: when I type up my notes for episodes, I definitely

652
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:31,360
Speaker 1: type them up I could I guess dictate notes to

653
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: my computer. But the process of thinking what I need

654
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:38,320
Speaker 1: to type and then typing it is a little different

655
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 1: from the experience of thinking what I want to say

656
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: and then speaking it. My composition would change, the nature

657
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: of my notes would change. Uh, it's just you know,

658
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: a different approach to creating and then processing and recording thoughts.

659
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 1: I guess I could write down my notes and then

660
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 1: dictate it, but then I'm just doubling my work. Actually

661
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: I'm tripling it because then have to record it again

662
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: for you guys. So maybe one day I'll give it

663
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 1: a shot and just see if I can, you know,

664
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:12,759
Speaker 1: extemporaneously speak into a microphone and take notes that way

665
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:16,440
Speaker 1: for an episode, you know, researching stuff and then speaking

666
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 1: in and just wing it from there. That would be

667
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: an interesting experiment. I don't know that it would be

668
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: a good episode, but it would be an experimental one. Um.

669
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 1: But voice recognition voice to text it tends to be

670
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: a little clunky, which is not helped by the fact

671
00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 1: that if you want to add punctuation, typically you have

672
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:39,240
Speaker 1: to say it period. That's kind of a joke. Then

673
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 1: we have just your control systems. Video game consoles have

674
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: tried pushing this a lot. You've got gadgets like the

675
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 1: Nintendo we which allowed for emotion controls while players were

676
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 1: holding various controllers and then making physical motions with them.

677
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:59,240
Speaker 1: PlayStation and Xbox have both experimented with cameras and optical

678
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:04,240
Speaker 1: sensor basis stems, as well as voice activation for alternative controls,

679
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:07,840
Speaker 1: but even in these specific implementations, the technologies have seen

680
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 1: limited success. Then you've got eye tracking solutions. These can

681
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: be incredibly important from an accessibility standpoint. They can allow

682
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: people who might not otherwise be able to work a

683
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 1: keyboard or use voice activation, be able to you know,

684
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: interact with a computer system and they direct their eyes

685
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:28,240
Speaker 1: to specific points on a screen, which the system tracks.

686
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:31,879
Speaker 1: Eye tracking can be used in combination of multiple other

687
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:35,439
Speaker 1: input devices in order to augment the experience. But there's

688
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 1: also a privacy concern with this approach, as it means

689
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: that the computer can track where you're looking, and it

690
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: can record how long you're looking there. So for a

691
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 1: company that you know, makes this money through advertising, like

692
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 1: Facebook or Google, that could be incredibly valuable information that

693
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: starts to feel a little invasive. However, that doesn't mean

694
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 1: that eye tracking technology is inherently bad, It just depends

695
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: upon the implement mevation of the tech. For certain applications

696
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:05,960
Speaker 1: such as VR and a R, it would be useful

697
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:10,720
Speaker 1: to have alternatives to keyboards and computer mouse, and many

698
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 1: of these use cases the user might not have a

699
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: clear view of a keyboarder mouse, so something that doesn't

700
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 1: depend upon you know, being able to to see and

701
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:24,920
Speaker 1: then touch keyboard or mouse would be really handy. You

702
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 1: can use specialized controllers to get around some of this,

703
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 1: but again, if you were going to engage in any

704
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 1: task that's more involved than the relatively narrow range of

705
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: commands you would use for say a video game, you

706
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 1: would start to hit some challenges. Now that's not to

707
00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 1: say that various engineers and inventors haven't tried to create

708
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 1: alternatives to the classic keyboard. There are several different incarnations

709
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:50,719
Speaker 1: of one handed keyboards out there. Those are meant to

710
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 1: allow someone to type with one hand and then they

711
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: can use their other hand to control a mouse and

712
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 1: never have to switch. And from what I understand, the

713
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,880
Speaker 1: learning experience on these devices is somewhat challenging because you know,

714
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:07,440
Speaker 1: you can't typically have a full sized keyboard and expect

715
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 1: someone to type on it with one hand. They tend

716
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:13,439
Speaker 1: to be smaller keyboards. That also means that creating every

717
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 1: single character means you're gonna be using some combined keystrokes.

718
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: For certain characters, there's just not you know, not enough

719
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: keys to go around to represent all of them. That

720
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 1: means you're using at least two fingers to create a

721
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:29,320
Speaker 1: single letter or number, depending upon the layout and design.

722
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,799
Speaker 1: There's also a one handed typing solution that gets rid

723
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:35,920
Speaker 1: of the keyboard entirely. There's a company called Tap that

724
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:41,480
Speaker 1: created a wearable keyboard and mouse substitute. So, okay, imagine

725
00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 1: you've got a glove. Let's say it's the right handed glove.

726
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:47,960
Speaker 1: Now imagine that you cut the fingers off the glove

727
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 1: a little above the base at each finger, so you

728
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 1: know you've got a little ring there. Now imagine that

729
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:56,920
Speaker 1: you cut away most of the rest of the glove.

730
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:00,120
Speaker 1: You only leave a bit of connected fabric betwe in

731
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:03,839
Speaker 1: each of the digits, including your thumb. Now you have

732
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 1: these loops, these connected loops that you can fit over

733
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,400
Speaker 1: your thumb and fingers. Now imagine that you attach some

734
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,759
Speaker 1: sensors to each of those little rings of fabric, and

735
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:16,399
Speaker 1: you kind of have what the tap system is. So

736
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:20,359
Speaker 1: what TAP does is register finger taps against any other

737
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: surface like a desk or a table, or your leg

738
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:29,160
Speaker 1: or whatever, and different finger combinations will produce different characters.

739
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 1: So the typical human hand has five fingers, right, and

740
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: we've got twenty six letters in the English alphabet, Plus

741
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:38,720
Speaker 1: we have numerals zero through nine, so ten of those,

742
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: plus numerous punctuation symbols and other symbols. So to be

743
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 1: able to type each of those using a device that

744
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: registers motion from a maximum of five digits means you've

745
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:52,120
Speaker 1: got to rely on a lot of finger combinations to

746
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:55,760
Speaker 1: make that happen. For example, if you wanted to type

747
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 1: the letter C, you would have to type your thumb

748
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:03,360
Speaker 1: plus your last three fingers, leaving your index finger alone.

749
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 1: That would be a C. If you wanted to do

750
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: an H, it would be your four fingers but not

751
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 1: your thumb that you would tap, and A would be

752
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 1: just your index fingers. So, as you might imagine, the

753
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 1: learning curve on this is a little steep because it

754
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:20,520
Speaker 1: requires a lot of pattern memorization. I'll say the videos

755
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 1: of this thing are kind of neat, but I'm not

756
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: sure that it's a better way to input information than

757
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: a keyboard, but it could be a useful alternative input

758
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: device for specific use cases. Now in the future, we're

759
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 1: likely to see more brain computer interfaces. In fact, there

760
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:39,719
Speaker 1: are lots of companies working on this. Elon musk is

761
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 1: gaga over it. We already have examples of these today,

762
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 1: but in most cases they require invasive transcranial surgery in

763
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 1: order to implant electrodes into the user's brain. Obviously, anytime

764
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 1: you're talking about surgery there are medical risks, and when

765
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:58,239
Speaker 1: it comes to the blood brain barrier, the risks are

766
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 1: super high. Infection would be deadly. So the test cases

767
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:06,279
Speaker 1: involving these interfaces have been restricted to people who are

768
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:10,360
Speaker 1: paraplegic but otherwise have few ways to interact with the

769
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:13,600
Speaker 1: world around them and tend to be heavily or entirely

770
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:18,840
Speaker 1: dependent upon caretakers. Brain computer interfaces have the potential to

771
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 1: return some independence to people who have lives like that,

772
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 1: which is incredible and much further down the road, such

773
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:30,240
Speaker 1: interfaces might change the way the rest of us interact

774
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: with our devices. But to get there, we're likely going

775
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: to need to have technologies that can accurately read brain

776
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 1: waves safely without the need for surgery to make it happen.

777
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:43,840
Speaker 1: And we'll need applications that can work seamlessly with that

778
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 1: sort of technology. And even then, we might still be

779
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:49,800
Speaker 1: using a keyboard and mouse for certain stuff like typing

780
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:52,319
Speaker 1: up a novel or whatever, so that we don't have

781
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 1: some extraneous thoughts just intrude upon our narration. Something like

782
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,920
Speaker 1: this could happen. So imagine that I have written a novel.

783
00:46:02,480 --> 00:46:05,120
Speaker 1: I warned you it will not be a good one,

784
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: but here we go. So here's my novel, as if

785
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 1: I were using a brain computer interface to type it.

786
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 1: Jane's hand froze just before touching the door knob. What

787
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: if she were wrong? Doubt seeped into her mind, taking

788
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:21,239
Speaker 1: hold and make sure you buy milk today because you're

789
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:23,640
Speaker 1: out of it. Plus I think the dog needs to

790
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:28,640
Speaker 1: go out. Wait did I type that? Am I still typing? Stop? Thinking?

791
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:35,480
Speaker 1: Stop and seen? So why do we still have the

792
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: keyboard and mouse? Well, they've proven to be useful interface devices.

793
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 1: I mean, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There

794
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 1: are certain tasks that keyboards tend to be the best

795
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 1: tool for the job, at least so far. Now that

796
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 1: does not mean it will always be that way. Maybe

797
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:58,759
Speaker 1: someone will come up with an input method that's more efficient,

798
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 1: more accurate, and easier to use than a keyboard, but

799
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:08,360
Speaker 1: it hasn't happened yet, at least not for intense uses

800
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 1: like typing out a novel or the notes to a podcast.

801
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: I'm interested to hear what you think about various interfaces,

802
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 1: whether or not we will ever abandon the keyboard and mouse,

803
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:23,279
Speaker 1: or if they're just here to stay. Maybe that's just

804
00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: gonna be a legacy technology that remains useful for as

805
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 1: long as we're using computers the way we do. Or

806
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:33,880
Speaker 1: maybe you have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff.

807
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with me,

808
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 1: the best way to do that is over on Twitter.

809
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 1: Drop me a line. The handle we use for the

810
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 1: show is tech Stuff hs W, and I'll talk to

811
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:53,160
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an I Heart

812
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit

813
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 1: the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

814
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.