One handed UNIX, Emacs for disabled person?

[Adrian Godwin]

In article <2643 at sun13.scri.fsu.edu> pepke at gw.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke) writes:
>I remember from the early days of microcomputers, when real programmers 
>used toggle switches and keyboards were outrageously expensive, there was 
>a one-handed ASCII keyboard.  It was a sphere with four finger buttons and 
>eight thumb buttons.  One was supposed to play a chord with the fingers, 
>giving eight bits, and then press one of the thumb buttons, giving three 
>more.  It was attractive to a lot of people because the small number of 
>moving parts made it cheap.  You might be able to find one used.  It would 
>take a lot of training to use, and it might be very hard to get any amount 
>of speed, but it's worth investigating.

There's still a commercially-produced keyboard of this form, known as the
MicroWriter. It was - probably still is - quite popular among blind/disabled/
special needs users in this country, though that isn't its primary market.

First incarnation was a hand-sized device with 6 keys (only the thumb had to 
move) with about 8K of RAM and an 1802 processor. It was intended for use as 
a portable word-processor. The same mechanics and case were used as an auxiliary 
keyboard for the BBC Micro (using a resistor network on the switches, fed to an 
analogue input port on the micro).

Current version is known as the 'Agenda' (no relation to the Lotus PC package)
and is very much modernised. It supports similar WP facilities to the original,
as well as diary, calculator and other 'pocketbook' features. It also has a
serial port that is used to provide keyboard emulation and file access facilities
on a PC - this might be adaptable to your use.

The manufacturers, MicroWriter Systems PLC, are on (+44) 81-685-0300 or
2, Wandle Way, Willow Lane, Mitcham, Surrey, CR4 4NA, United Kingdom.

I have no personal connection with this company, but follow their products with
interest - it's a pleasure to see somebody breaking the QWERTY mould, especially
in the handheld market where multi-key keyboards are inappropriate.

-adrian

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Adrian Godwin                                        (agodwin at acorn.co.uk)