#chording

Engelbart's demo also featured an input device known as the keyset, but unlike his other innovations, the keyset failed to catch on. The 5-finger keyset lets you type without moving your hand, entering characters by pressing multiple keys simultaneously as a chord. Christina Englebart, his daughter, loaned one of Engelbart's keysets to me. I constructed an interface to connect the keyset to USB, so that it can be used with a modern computer. The video below shows me typing with the keyset, using the mouse buttons to select upper case and special characters.

As designers, we all know that on-screen soft keyboards are cumbersome and rather slow to use due to their lack of physical texture and haptic feedback. And with the continual rise of touch screens on phones, tablets, and laptops, we got excited about giving the chorded keyboard another chance!