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Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

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Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#51

Post by fsckboy »

tambourine_man wrote: post #19
umvi wrote: post #7

The "500 WPM" video is a little suspect. He types literally one memorized sentence and extrapolates a WPM from that one 10 word sentence. I'd like to see him actually type 500 meaningful words in under 60 seconds. Anyway, this is cool but basically just a modern stenography device. Steno has a learning curve problem that makes it so most people won't use it.

QWERTY has a steep learning curve as well, it’s just that it’s so ubiquitous that most people don’t question or remember the work that was put into.

> has a steep learning curve

just to make the pedantic point, learning curves show skill improvement plotted against time spent/experience, and therefore a steep learning curve means you learn quickly. A shallow learning curve is the difficult one. /pedantry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#52

Post by nosianu »

derefr wrote: post #11
prirun wrote: post #2

"he did win another typing competition using the CharaChorder to hit 267 WPM with 76% accuracy." 76% accuracy doesn't sound so great to me, no matter how fast I can type on it.

If software used for typing competitions is anything like a typing test in a typing tutor program (which give similar WPM + accuracy measures at the end), then it would track the number of incorrect inputs you make, but also wouldn't let you proceed (i.e. would ignore all further input) while any incorrect input remains in the buffer. With such software, you're expected to correct each word you type before moving on…

In addition to the other reply, if they did that the test would be so far from real world typing to be meaningless and nothing but an inconsequential curiosity.

Only in tests is there an option to check against what is expected. In the real world you could at most apply some dictionary and grammar checks, and we know those can go either way. Those tools don't know what you actually wanted to write after all, and still suggest without comprehension.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#53

Post by jcrawfordor »

tambourine_man wrote: post #19
umvi wrote: post #7

The "500 WPM" video is a little suspect. He types literally one memorized sentence and extrapolates a WPM from that one 10 word sentence. I'd like to see him actually type 500 meaningful words in under 60 seconds. Anyway, this is cool but basically just a modern stenography device. Steno has a learning curve problem that makes it so most people won't use it.

QWERTY has a steep learning curve as well, it’s just that it’s so ubiquitous that most people don’t question or remember the work that was put into.

A significant difference between a conventional keyboard and steno is that a conventional keyboard is capable of producing all the of the text we normally type, and a steno machine is not. A necessary part of stenotype is a combination of pre-work (dictionary development for e.g. proper names) and post-work (editing the steno transcript to produce a "real English" document instead of one that may only have the generally correct sounds). Modern steno software helps a lot by partially automating these steps but steno is still inherently not capable of producing correct spelling without manual assistance - the basic architecture of steno is that you type the phonemes and (in modern usage) software guesses the correct spelling based on a dictionary. Much of the speed advantage of steno comes from the basic fact that it is a "lossy" process in the information-theoretic sense, that is, the "text" that you enter does not contain spelling information, only pronunciation... and even pronunciation is sometimes a simplified or substitute form as the American steno machine can't represent all of the phonemes that see use in English (mostly due to borrow words).

In the end, steno itself is probably not a lot harder to learn than QWERTY (although I think more frustrating because the "hunt and peck" option for steno is less intuitive and often slower). But it requires sort of a "supporting ecosystem" of skills and tools that is more complex and not amenable to use cases other than natural language. That makes it much less attractive for general use.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#54

Post by xondono »

nikanj wrote: post #27
umvi wrote: post #7

The "500 WPM" video is a little suspect. He types literally one memorized sentence and extrapolates a WPM from that one 10 word sentence. I'd like to see him actually type 500 meaningful words in under 60 seconds. Anyway, this is cool but basically just a modern stenography device. Steno has a learning curve problem that makes it so most people won't use it.

Based on that video, it's more of a macro keyboard. Assign each of the ~10 words to a button, click buttons in order, claim 500WPM

No it’s not, there’s another video explaining, the keys are “2d joysticks” type switches, so typing doesn’t involve removing the fingers at all.

I would think it takes a lot of time to get used, but seems like a smart approach for speed.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#56

Post by rappatic »

tombert wrote: post #40

Has anyone tried this with coding? It looks like this is very focused towards writing English, which is fine, but as someone who spends a good chunk of my day around code editors, a keyboard that is crap for code editing is a non-starter. However, if it's good for that, I will probably be buying one.

He posted an earlier video on his TikTok account showcasing the device's coding capabilities. I don't know if the videos he posts are entirely reliable (eg. as another commenter mentioned, he claimed a 500 wpm typing speed by typing one memorized sentence). I do know that it needs autocorrect (built-in) to work at high WPM which doesn't seem great for coding which might use nontraditional words and spellings. Personally it seems like it would be too great a learning curve for not enough benefit, given that no software is designed for devices like these. Maybe if this somehow takes off in the future.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#57

Post by cafard »

bombcar wrote: post #8
prirun wrote: post #2

"he did win another typing competition using the CharaChorder to hit 267 WPM with 76% accuracy." 76% accuracy doesn't sound so great to me, no matter how fast I can type on it.

Interviewer: "I heard you were extremely quick at math" Me: "yes, as a matter of fact I am" Interviewer: "Whats 14x27" Me: "49" Interviewer: "that's not even close" me: "yeah, but it was fast" Shamelessly stolen, but yeah, 76% accuracy is only 3/4s of characters typed correctly; if that "works" you could probably just train yourself to not even type the lesser used parts of the alphabet ...

Back in the manual typewriter days, every typo subtracted 10 WPM from your score. (Source: my junior-high typing class.) It seems to me that 76% accuracy would put you into negative WPM by that reckoning.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#58

Post by jamamp »

wly_cdgr wrote: post #14

Cool but who needs this? I'd rather see a keyboard that limits you to 10 WPM so you are forced to think before you type

Transcribers would probably appreciate it. But then again, there are other regular stenographic keyboards out there.

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#59

Post by xondono »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #42

That thing isn't really a keyboard is it? It doesn't have keys and it isn't a board. It's more a joystick controller.

Those joysticks do have switches at the ends (that click) though…

I don’t know, it’s a very philosophical question

Re: Keyboard lets people type so fast it’s banned from typing competitions

#60

Post by snuxoll »

globuous wrote: post #32
tambourine_man wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QWERTY has a steep learning curve as well, it’s just that it’s so ubiquitous that most people don’t question or remember the work that was put into.

Yeah, I switched to Dvorak a few years back, it was the worst experience in the world. Granted I had to fight against my qwerty reflexes

I was lucky to never have properly learned to touch type on QWERTY in the first place, I had key positions memorized but I always used my index fingers - it actually hindered me from touch typing as the bad habit would always creep back up. Thus I forced myself to learn from square one with Dvorak, not having the keycaps on my keyboard to fall back on - it was painful, but I'm glad I did it.

Now 15 years later I really enjoy the flow of the layout, a majority of the time when typing you alternate between sides of the keyboard when typing and it just feels good.

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