US 4,042,777 A · One-handed keyboard and its control means

Abstract

A keyboard which has 10 keys controlled by the four fingers and four keys controlled by the thumb of the same hand. On it, the operator forms chords somewhat as a pianist forms chords on a piano. It allows the user to type at normal speed using only one hand and offers the possibility of typing at a faster rate than the conventional two-handed keyboard. The operator presses several keys at once, as when playing a chord on a piano. Each finger or thumb can press one key, or overlap two or four adjacent keys to press the two or four keys. There are 27 such finger positions on the 10 finger keys and 7 thumb positions on the four thumb keys. The thumb position on the thumb keys select the alphabet/case, output order of characters in the chord, a space character preceding the chord, and capitalizing of the first outputted character of a chord. The finger positions on the finger keys select the characters in the alphabet/case selected by the thumb position. The disclosed system describes a mechanical design of the keys, and control circuits that interpret the chords and emit signals representing the strings of characters implied by the chords.

Claims31

Dependent claims

A keyboard for one-handed typing of chords, such chords being formed by the simultaneous pressing of one or more keys on the keyboard to produce one or more characters, the keyboard comprising

an array of keys for being operated by the fingers of one hand, electrical switch means being connected to the keys in the array of keys, an array of finger positions located on the array of keys, a finger position being located on each key and across the boundary of adjacent keys pressable by any one finger, a particular switch combination of closed and open switching paths in the electrical switch means being provided for each chord pressable on the array of keys,
means for interpreting chords, comprising means to generate coded signals representing members of a set of characters, switching and logical circuit means to sense the particular switch combinations of closed and open switching paths of a chord to select character signals that correspond to the finger positions that correspond to a respective chord, and output circuit means to issue the character signals.

A keyboard for one-handed typing of chords, such chords being formed by the simultaneous pressing of one or more keys on the keyboard to produce one or more characters, the keyboard comprising

a row of keys for being operated by the thumb, electrical switch means being connected to the keys in the row of keys, a row of thumb positions located on the row of keys, a thumb position being located on a single key or on the boundary across adjacent keys in the row of keys pressable by the thumb,
a particular switch combination of closed and open switching paths in the electrical switch means being provided for each chord pressable on the row of keys,
means for interpreting chords, comprising first means to generate coded signals representing members of a set of characters, switching and logical circuit means to sense the particular switch combinations of closed and open switching paths for a chord to select one set from among several sets of coded representations of characters, the selected set corresponding to the thumb position,
an array of keys for being operated by the fingers of the same hand having the thumb for operating the row of keys, the electrical switch means also being connected to the keys in the array of keys, an array of finger positions located on the array of keys, a finger position being located on each key and across the boundary of adjacent keys pressable by any one finger on the array of keys, a particular switch combination of closed and open switching paths in the electrical switch means being provided for each chord pressable on the array of keys,
means for interpreting chords, comprising second means to generate coded signals representing members of the set of characters selected by first means, switching and logical circuit means to sense the particular switch combinations of closed and open switching paths of a chord to select the coded representations of the characters that correspond to the finger positions that correspond to the respective chord, and output circuit means to issue the coded representations of characters.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

One-handed keyboard and its control means

Life of this patent

One-handed keyboard and its control means

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims31