🚀 go-pugleaf

heathh@cco.caltech.edu (Heath Ian Hunnicutt) writes:

>	It sure seems like a lot of the products mentioned in the FAQ
>are "beta" or "coming real soon now."  Is this an indication that the
>RSI-avoidance industry is newborn, or are there a lot of here today,
>gone tomorrow companies in this business?

From my research, it seems that funky keyboards are a relatively new
industry, thus you don't see much for sale.  The only guy who's been
around a while is Tony (!) Hodges, but he's not currently shipping a
product, either.  Maltron's been around for a few years, and they're
shipping.  Today, you can buy an InfoGrip Bat or a Handikey Twiddler.  The
Kinesis, and the Health Care should be shipping in October, I believe.
The DataHand (which was recently reviewed, here) should be shipping in
volume some time next year, maybe.  The Tony! Keysystem might also be
shipping by the end of the year.

From my limited phone calls, I would venture to say that none of these
keyboard vendors are here-today-gone-tomorrow companies.  Most of the
vendors I've spoken to have been running crazy to get their products
done and out the door, and most have even crazier ideas for future
products.  No.  No fly-by-night's, here.  Now, slipped schedules, on
the other hand, seem epidemic.

(Of course, I haven't seen anybody's financial statements, and no
company is going to tell me that they're running out of money...)

Generally speaking, if you want one of these things, now is the time to
get in your order, as all the vendors seem to be deluged with backlogged
orders (although, I wonder how many people have ordered one of each, with
plans to return the rest once they find one they like? -- hedging their
bets, huh?).  You don't pay until you have a product on your desk, anyway.

>	I'd be awfully interested in solutions that people are
>actually using right now, as opposed to next year.

Of course, there are all kinds of companies that will sell you wrist
pads, cool chairs, and nice furniture.  I don't bother to list these,
since you can generally get all this stuff locally, or through whomever
your company buys its normal chairs/furniture...  There's more to solving
an RSI problem than buying a new keyboard.  I went out and spent $300 on
a nice chair for home.  It's a major improvement over my old folding metal
card-table chair.


Of course, the latest copies of the FAQ, the aforementioned review of
the DataHand, xdvorak, and tons of other goodies are freely available
for your anonymous ftp-ing pleasure on soda.berkeley.edu:pub/typing-injury
(128.32.131.179).

Enjoy!

--
Dan Wallach              "One of the most attractive features of a Connection
dwallach@nas.nasa.gov    Machine is the array of blinking lights on the faces
                         of its cabinet." -- CM Paris Ref. Manual, v6.0, p48.