[inanutshellus]

Oh man, Datahand, resurrected!

Datahands are amazing. With mere twitches of the finger you can hit any key on the keyboard.

I saved up for months while in college and bought a used one. 25 yrs ago they were $1,200... minimum wage was like $4/hr... so... it was "intended for insurance companies to pay" level of money.

If you have either RSI or just love experiencing new ways to do things, Datahand is amazing, and Svalboard looks every bit as good...

and... it's cheaper than it was 25 years ago... with two trackballs added on!

Really excited to see this project!

[ilc]

Better IMHO. The integration of pointing devices, especially the trackballs really changes the game.

You really just never take your hands off the keyboard, everything is in nice close range, etc. :)

[inanutshellus]

You don't take your hand off the keyboard for cursor movement on Datahands either but yes, having two embedded trackballs is pretty sweet.

Aside...

Datahand moved RSI pain from my wrist to my knuckles. These keyboards don't magically prevent all RSI, which is ... only obvious if you actually think on it, which i didn't back then.

[ilc]

I wouldn't even compare mouse keys to what is done on Svalboard.

I know I personally found mouse keys unusable for day to day use, and another local DH users thought much the same, we had other pointers we used. (I used a fingerworks trackpad back when, clamped onto the side of the laplander, the other guy used a mouse, if I remember right.)

[stonejag]

I used a combination of left- and right-handed vertical mice, and swapped between them depending on which hand was more painful at the time.

The amount of time wasted moving my hand from one keyboard-half or the other to the mouse and back was very substantial, and it meant compromising on a comfortable position of both.

Svalboard is way more comfortable!