Posted on: Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Portable FrogPad keyboard perfect for one-hand typists
By Craig Crossman
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
In the search to design a better keyboard, many alternative keyboards are available. Some use different key layouts, different key positions and other creative methods that try and find a more elegant solution to the standard QWERTY keyboard.
Another ongoing endeavor is designing ways to make keyboards more portable. Some fold up making them easy to carry around, but they still must be opened when used. When you make a keyboard smaller, so are the keys and there's the rub. Most of these keyboards have keys that are way too small for most adult fingers.
One way to get around the "small keyboard with keys that are too small" paradox is to make a keyboard with fewer keys. Some of these smaller keyboards use a chording method where more than one key is pressed at the same time to produce alternative characters.
One keyboard maker has come up with a small keyboard that has full-sized keys, requires no chording, and as an added bonus, it only requires one hand to type anything.
The FrogPad looks much like a numeric keypad but only uses 15 character and five function keys. The five function keys are placed along the FrogPad's bottom perimeter. These are Space, Number, Symbol, Enter and Shift.
By combining the pressing of these function keys with your thumb and pressing any of the other 15 keys with your fingers, you can produce any character you can with a standard 101-key keyboard. The fifteen letters featured at the center of FrogPad's keyboard includes the letters "A," "E," "T" and "H", which are the keys most used during average English keyboard activity. All of the vowels can be pressed with the index finger. Hitting the Shift key at the bottom of the keyboard in conjunction with one of the 15 central keys, for example, leads to the rest of the alphabet. Similarly, pressing the Number key allows a person to type in numbers, and the Symbol key lets users type in punctuation marks.
Indicator lights indicate which function key is selected as well as special and alternative modes that can be selected. According to the company, you will never have to simultaneously press more than two keys at any time.
The FrogPad connects to your PC or Macintosh via a USB connection. A Japanese version is also available. A new cordless version that works with Bluetooth has just been announced. The corded model sells for $149.99 The price for the Bluetooth model is $199.99.
