Chorded keyboard
computer input device where the user enters characters or commands by pressing several keys together (like a piano chord); requires only one hand
A keyset or chorded keyboard (also called a chorded keyset, chord keyboard or chording keyboard) is a computer input device that allows the user to enter characters or commands formed by pressing several keys together, like playing a "chord" on a piano. The large number of combinations available from a small number of keys allows text or commands to be entered with one hand, leaving the other hand free. A secondary advantage is that it can be built into a device (such as a pocket-sized computer or a bicycle handlebar) that is too small to contain a normal-sized keyboard.
A chorded keyboard minus the board, typically designed to be used while held in the hand, is called a keyer. Douglas Engelbart introduced the chorded keyset as a computer interface in 1968 at what is often called "The Mother of All Demos".
Principles of operation
Each physical key is mapped to a number and each desired output (letter or command) is also mapped to a number. Each key can generate an output character on its own, but by pressing two or more keys in combination the user can generate more output characters than they are physical keys. Typically, a keypress is not registered until all depressed keys are released - such that all keys do not need to be pressed at once as long as one key remains depressed throughout; when the last key is released the corresponding character is output based on all keys that had been depressed since the last character was registered.
In Engelbart's original mapping, he used five keys: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16. The output characters were mapped as follows: a = 1, b = 2, c = 3, and so on.
“Chorded keyboard” enters the record as computer input device where the user enters characters or commands by pressing several keys together (like a piano chord); requires only one hand. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chorded, keyboard and computer can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chorded keyboard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.