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New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard

bloomberg.com

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Re: New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard

#81

Post by stzup7 »

coliveira wrote: post #54
omarish wrote: post #34

The majority of complaints here: - Ergonomics sucks! - I can't re-map caps lock to be escape, what trash! - This is so old! - Too expensive! - Dell makes cheaper monitors! - Fingerprint authentication can be hacked. But what everybody is not considering is: 1. You have to have a Bloomberg keyboard to work in finance. It's not even a question. It's a COGS for anybody who wants to work in finance or trading. 2. Bloombe…

Bloomberg software is certainly important because of the large ecosystem they created over the years. The keyboard and hardware around is not so. It's just Bloomberg way to advertise themselves using physical presence in every trading desk. It is a disrespect to customers, because if I had to pay I would require that a proper keyboard and hardware be used. By the way, I have used Bloomberg terminals before with a tra…

They made one thing annoying: without a bloomberg keyboard you have to bring your B-Unit in front of your screen for 2fa instead of plugging it in the keyboard. Except for that, I fully agree with you. I find the bloomberg keyboard to be very heavy and frustrating to use. I returned it when it was delivered to my desk.

Re: New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard

#82

Post by whatok »

stzup7 wrote: post #81
coliveira wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bloomberg software is certainly important because of the large ecosystem they created over the years. The keyboard and hardware around is not so. It's just Bloomberg way to advertise themselves using physical presence in every trading desk. It is a disrespect to customers, because if I had to pay I would require that a proper keyboard and hardware be used. By the way, I have used Bloomberg terminals before with a tra…

They made one thing annoying: without a bloomberg keyboard you have to bring your B-Unit in front of your screen for 2fa instead of plugging it in the keyboard. Except for that, I fully agree with you. I find the bloomberg keyboard to be very heavy and frustrating to use. I returned it when it was delivered to my desk.

Isn't there a standalone USB version of the B-Unit?

Re: New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard

#83

Post by Trillinon »

davegauer wrote: post #24

I've often found it very peculiar that while many industries have specialized input hardware, it is still the norm for developers to type awkward key combinations* for common programming symbols such as (,),{,},[,],=, etc. which are be used in mass quantities all day, every day. I understand how we got where we are, but it's nevertheless surprising that something like a modernized space-cadet keyboard isn't standard…

Programming languages have evolved around the keys present on the QWERTY keyboard. It would be interesting to develop a programmers keyboard geared at providing more useful symbols for programming, and then write languages around the new keyboard.

When not programming, many of the symbols on the QWERTY keyboard are useless, and it's missing a lot of typographic symbols that I end up having to use shortcuts, character maps, or unicode for. It doesn't even have a real apostrophe or left and right quotes, let alone en and em dashes, bullets, or various space widths.

Re: New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard

#84

Post by jacobolus »

xemdetia wrote: post #35
jacobolus wrote: post #7

These keyboards are ergonomically awful: an undifferentiated mass of completely flat buttons, with crappy keyswitches. Makes them slow and error prone. You can tell no one involved in the design process spent any time thinking about human hand anatomy. On the upside, production costs should be pretty cheap. People making devices for “professionals” should take inspiration from keyboards produced in the 1970s–80s, whi…

Have you used them? I used one for a day of fairly intense work at their site and it was quite a good and comfortable keyboard.

Yes, I have tried typing on these. As keyboards, they’re garbage. (Caveat: I have high standards for keyboards.)

Re: New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard

#85

Post by stepvhen »

davegauer wrote: post #24

I've often found it very peculiar that while many industries have specialized input hardware, it is still the norm for developers to type awkward key combinations* for common programming symbols such as (,),{,},[,],=, etc. which are be used in mass quantities all day, every day. I understand how we got where we are, but it's nevertheless surprising that something like a modernized space-cadet keyboard isn't standard…

If you are savvy and feel its worth the cost, there are keyboards available that are fully programmable, depending on how much customization you need. A Poker 3 would be probably be the best option for something off the shelf, featuring 3 separate fully programmable layers. If you go diy, you can do literally anything.

Re: New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard

#86

Post by jerf »

davegauer wrote: post #24

I've often found it very peculiar that while many industries have specialized input hardware, it is still the norm for developers to type awkward key combinations* for common programming symbols such as (,),{,},[,],=, etc. which are be used in mass quantities all day, every day. I understand how we got where we are, but it's nevertheless surprising that something like a modernized space-cadet keyboard isn't standard…

Take control of your keyboard. At least Windows and Linux let you remap pretty freely. You probably have more than enough keys to do everything you want already, start remapping! A common path in is to remap Caps Lock to do something useful. (I favor Backspace, one of the keys that never shows up on the list of keystrokes if you just analyze text, but YMMV.)

However, it is still the case that even programmers will likely have the symbols off the beaten path a bit. Programmers still do a lot of not-programming, so it's hard for a symbol to displace even unpopular letters from the most convenient spaces. Your local written language will still end up dominating the keyspace.

Re: New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard

#87

Post by xixi77 »

vegabook wrote: post #33

Oh puhleeze. I have been a subscriber to the Bloomberg terminal for a full 17 years, the keyboard has been changed literally 4 times in that period, and I have yet to see one that is not a regression from the one that went before. Today you get a plasticky, flexy, Asia-made, chicklets device with capacitor touches whereas the original was a monstrous, metallic, mechanical beast, IBM-style. It would have made the mass…

The original was nice, but this one is definitely a big step up from the one that came before, which (while still heavy and monstrous) was one of the worst keyboards I've ever used, with complete lack of feedback. This one is actually quite decent, better than most desktop keyboards.

Re: New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard

#88

Post by snuxoll »

davegauer wrote: post #24

I've often found it very peculiar that while many industries have specialized input hardware, it is still the norm for developers to type awkward key combinations* for common programming symbols such as (,),{,},[,],=, etc. which are be used in mass quantities all day, every day. I understand how we got where we are, but it's nevertheless surprising that something like a modernized space-cadet keyboard isn't standard…

There has been some effort to make a keyboard layout better for programming, namely Programmer Dvorak. It's certainly not amazing by any means, as the reordering of the numerical keys really stinks, which is why I stick with the traditional dvorak layout (which actually has some disadvantages in curly-brace languages since the {} keys are right next to backspace and require moving my entire right hand off the home row to reach comfortably, whereas the traditional QWERTY locations can easily be hit by my little finger).

As much as neat devices like the data hand and other input devices make waves on HN every now and then, I feel most programmers are just like the rest of the world, they just use QWERTY because that's what they learned and never saw anything wrong with it.

Re: New Bloomberg Terminal Keyboard

#89

Post by snuxoll »

Sanddancer wrote: post #78
davegauer wrote: post #24

I've often found it very peculiar that while many industries have specialized input hardware, it is still the norm for developers to type awkward key combinations* for common programming symbols such as (,),{,},[,],=, etc. which are be used in mass quantities all day, every day. I understand how we got where we are, but it's nevertheless surprising that something like a modernized space-cadet keyboard isn't standard…

I actually use a gaming keyboard for that very reason. It's got a set of thumb-activated macro keys that I've programmed for common things. There's even a part of me that wants to pick up a piece of Midi->HID software so I can use a DJ controller as a debugger tool for stepping through code, etc.

You just gave me a mental image of scratching a record to scroll through a stack trace, now there is absolutely no way I can end my day without a smile on my face.
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