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Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

stavros.io

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Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#111

Wouldn’t a T9 keyboard work better for people who texted before the smartphones? I imagine it’s like riding a bike: I’d probably be able to type blindly with one thumb again after a bit.

T9 suffers from slow input speeds. In the worst case you are required to click the same button four times for a single character.

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#112
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Douglas Englebart is the proof to me that even if you could go back in time, it isn't necessarily true that you could leverage your knowledge of future technology. Poor guy messed up the timeline so much that even his stock market knowledge was useless!

>Poor guy messed up the timeline so much that even his stock market knowledge was useless! -- Without the time available to go down the Englebart rabbit hole can you distill the story down some and share?

Watch the aforementioned Mother of all Demos and compare it to what you're watching it on.

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you telling me that I have four fingers in English but five Finger in German? I'm confused, but Collins dictionary agrees with you: "Your fingers are the four long thin parts at the end of each hand." https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/finger

One of those pointless little distinctions that English language makes but many other European languages don't. Another example is "velocity" vs "speed"—what other vector quantity has two distinct names, one for the vector, another for the vector's magnitude? The acceleration doesn't, for example; and distance and displacement are two slightly different concepts that deserve two distinct names.

Weight and mass comes to mind.

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you'd very much want to see a video of me failing to type character after character for five minutes :P

60~90wpm is out of the question? congratulations!

There will be no question because I didn't include a question mark.

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#115
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the reference, but it seems like either a non-sequitur or a joke I'm not getting.

It’s not a non-sequitor nor a joke, the point is to highlight the danger of linguistic relativism. If we dismiss the idea that words must follow some standard meanings, things we value can be gradually shifted into weapons of oppression.

And who decides what these standard meanings are?

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#117
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the reference, but it seems like either a non-sequitur or a joke I'm not getting.

It’s not a non-sequitor nor a joke, the point is to highlight the danger of linguistic relativism. If we dismiss the idea that words must follow some standard meanings, things we value can be gradually shifted into weapons of oppression.

You're seriously overthinking this. Descriptivism isn't some plot to twist our cherished language, it just describes the language as it is currently used by speakers.

Re: Show HN: I made a 5-key keyboard

#119
post #111

Wouldn’t a T9 keyboard work better for people who texted before the smartphones? I imagine it’s like riding a bike: I’d probably be able to type blindly with one thumb again after a bit.

T9 suffers from slow input speeds. In the worst case you are required to click the same button four times for a single character.

That's not what T9 is. T9 is predictive text - you hit a combination of keys and it guesses what word you meant.

Here is an emulator: https://www.sainsmograf.com/labs/t9-emulator/

Type `422537` to receive `hacker`. You hit `2` twice to get `ac`, not `b` - and it picks `ac` given the context.

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