Who would buy MacBook Wheel?

[999cop]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA

idk, I'd imagine you type very slowly on this thing, just like how dopey the iphone(3g) was

[GreyGhost]

I'd expect no less from the people who gave us the one-button mouse. :D

Nice parody - very well done.

[Planky]

The Onion does video clips now? Oh well, not like I need sleep anyway and have work in a couple hours.

[Maes]

The sad thing is how thin the line between parody and reality is with Apple stuff.

*is waiting for flaming hordes of ban-evading DW Apple fanboys to show up*

[The Ultimate DooMer]

This one also rocks.

[Csonicgo]

The Ultimate DooMer said:

This one also rocks.

The device they are parodying is Sony's new DTV tuner device. it really is that complicated. Fuck Sony with a rake, already.

[Lord_Z]

Wow, what a horrid piece of technology.

[Pure Hellspawn]

It would take me at least 5 minutes just to write this sentence using that thing.

[fraggle]

Please tell me that you realised this was a parody.

[Pure Hellspawn]

fraggle said:

Please tell me that you realised this was a parody.

I knew that this was a parody. But I wouldn't be surprised if such a device was released within my lifetime.

[fraggle]

Pure Hellspawn said:

I knew that this was a parody. But I wouldn't be surprised if such a device was released within my lifetime.

I meant 999cop who started the thread.

[999cop]

fraggle said:

I meant 999cop who started the thread.

Yes, it IS a parody. It's just for fun, though I'm curious to know how they were able to come up with all these materials so real to film

[Georgef551]

I'm glad that's a joke, because if it wasn't, it's the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
Lessee, what is the easiest way to create text.

Letter T: Hit "T", and hold SHIFT if you want it capital.
Letter T/Wheel: Circle to "T", Click it, then select upper or lower case.

I'll take the keyboard.
I think for multimedia electronics, ala the iPOD, that wheel concept would work well.
----------------------

I also loved the Sony one. That was great, and it's true to Sony TV-stuff: crap. (Looks good, bad worksmanship)

[fraggle]

Georgef551 said:

I'm glad that's a joke, because if it wasn't, it's the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
Lessee, what is the easiest way to create text.

Letter T: Hit "T", and hold SHIFT if you want it capital.
Letter T/Wheel: Circle to "T", Click it, then select upper or lower case.

I'll take the keyboard.

Yeah, that was kind of the point of the joke.

[40oz]

I doubt anything will replace the keyboard, the keyboard is roughly the same size as my desired screen size so there's no need to replace it. Not to mention that us Americans still refuse to switch the the metric system, I doubt we'll ever drop keyboards either.

[Snarboo]

JohnnyRancid said:

Not to mention that us Americans still refuse to switch the the metric system, I doubt we'll ever drop keyboards either.

It has less to do with the stubborness of the United States and more to do with the fact that the keyboard is a universal data entry system that has been around since the days of the typewriter. However, there are alternative keyboard layouts to QWERTY, namely Dvorak.

[Maes]

Can you play Doom with said "MacWheel"? No? Then GTFO :-P

Seriously, the keyboard is the most versatile gaming controller for computers ever invented: the keys have the right amount of mass, ideal size, and assuming that you don't use broken software with fixed key layouts, it's customizable to the max.

I personally know a fighter game player that is literally invincible with a keyboard, being able to pull out extremely complex combos without the use of macros. I myself find the keyboard much more precise for fighter games than any gamepad I've tried (surpassed only by arcade joysticks/levers, if they have a usable button layout).

[Georgef551]

The QWERTY keyboard replaced the original ABCDEFG one, because typists were typing way too fast, and typewriter heads constantly jammed up. To slow people down, the QWERTY layout was introduced. Sure, people type fast now, but it is slow compared to the old ABCDEFG keyboard.

[exp(x)]

Georgef551 said:

The QWERTY keyboard replaced the original ABCDEFG one, because typists were typing way too fast, and typewriter heads constantly jammed up. To slow people down, the QWERTY layout was introduced. Sure, people type fast now, but it is slow compared to the old ABCDEFG keyboard.

Circular bicycle tires replaced the original square ones, because cyclists were going too fast, and police officers couldn't catch them. To slow them down, circular tires were introduced. Sure people bike fast now, but it is slow compared to the old square tires.

[Prince of Darkness]

999cop said:

though I'm curious to know how they were able to come up with all these materials so real to film

1. take box
2. color silver/white
3. add disc
4. color disc.

Fucking Done.

[GreyGhost]

Georgef551 said:

The QWERTY keyboard replaced the original ABCDEFG one, because typists were typing way too fast, and typewriter heads constantly jammed up. To slow people down, the QWERTY layout was introduced. Sure, people type fast now, but it is slow compared to the old ABCDEFG keyboard.

Citation needed


The MacBook Wheel is vaguely reminiscent of another invention that didn't catch on - William Burt's "Typographer"

Even in the hands of its inventor, it was slower than handwriting. Burt and his promoter John D. Sheldon never found a buyer for the patent, and it was never commercially produced. Because it used a dial to select each character rather than keys, it was called an "index typewriter" rather than a "keyboard typewriter"

[printz]

The MacBook Wheel may not be so bad if it can do advanced smart things depending on how you circle your finger on that wheelpad. It can already guess sentences.

[Maes]

GreyGhost said:

Citation needed

(about QWERTY layout )

the classical counter-intuitive explanation that it was adopted to slow down typists is still ubiquitous, but it clashes with the also widespread one that it's the most optimized layout for typing speed. According to wikipedia, both explanations are bullshit.

Yeah, there were technical reasons for choosing this layout (reducing the amount of typebar clashes) but typing speed alone didn't enter into it (in fact, any reference to intentionally affecting typing speed has been removed due to factual inaccuracy).

A cited reason that I never noticed is that you can write "TYPEWRITER" just with the top row of keys.

[GreyGhost]

Why would anyone want to slow down a typist? In business - time is money. It's the ABCDEFG layout I'm curious about - anyone know of a mechanical typewriter using that layout which went into commercial production?

[Prince of Darkness]

GreyGhost said:

It's the ABCDEFG layout I'm curious about - anyone know of a mechanical typewriter using that layout which went into commercial production?

The closest thing I have seen to that would be the Dvorak style of keyboards.

[Georgef551]

exp(x) said:

Circular bicycle tires replaced the original square ones, because cyclists were going too fast, and police officers couldn't catch them. To slow them down, circular tires were introduced. Sure people bike fast now, but it is slow compared to the old square tires.

Uhh....seriously, the first keyboards were alphabetical, and the QWERTY ones were introduced to slow down typing, so typewriter heads wouldn't jam agianst each other.

Check, and MATE: Citation:

Look at the keyboard of any standard typewriter or computer. "Q,W,E,R,T and Y" are the first six letters. Who decided on this arrangement of the letters? And why?
The first practical typewriter was patented in the United States in 1868 by Christopher Latham Sholes. His machine was known as the type-writer. It had a movable carriage, a lever for turning paper from line to line, and a keyboard on which the letters were arranged in alphabetical order.

But Sholes had a problem. On his first model, his "ABC" key arrangement caused the keys to jam when the typist worked quickly. Sholes didn't know how to keep the keys from sticking, so his solution was to keep the typist from typing too fast.

The new arrangement was the "QWERTY" arrangement that typists use today. Of course, Sholes claimed that the new arrangement was scientific and would add speed and efficiency. The only efficiency it added was to slow the typist down, since almost any word in the English language required the typist's fingers to cover more distance on the keyboard.

Here's the actual page:
http://www.ask.com/bar?q=qwerty+keyboard+inventor&page=1&qsrc=178&zoom=History+%3CKW%3EQwerty+Keyboard%3C%2FKW%3E%7CWho+Designed+the+%3CKW%3EQwerty+Keyboard%3C%2FKW%3E%7CWho+%3CKW%3EInvented%3C%2FKW%3E+the+%3CKW%3EQwerty+Keyboard%3C%2FKW%3E&ab=0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ideafinder.com%2Fhistory%2Finventions%2Fqwerty.htm

[Sharessa]

I remember looking at some chart once that had all the keyboard layouts and their speeds that they did in a study. DVORAK was at the top, narrowly beating QWERTY by like .2 WPM or something (which means it's really pointless to switch). So I still don't see the validity of that claim.

[Maes]

The "intentional slowing down" thing is almost surely complete bullshit, check wikipedia and what I wrote a few posts above. I mean the "goose's quack doesn't echo" kind of bullshit. The kind of bullshit you'd see debunked on Mythbusters.

The only fact about the QWERTY layout is that it was optimized so that typebar clashes would be minimized in mechanical typewriters, affecting typing speed in any way was never one of the design goals (wikipedia doesn't have one instance of typing speed mentioned, and in the Talk Page about QWERTY, adding it will result in immediate removal as factually inaccurate).

[exp(x)]

Ask.com? Get the fuck out of here.

[GreyGhost]

Georgef551 said:

Uhh....seriously, the first keyboards were alphabetical, and the QWERTY ones were introduced to slow down typing, so typewriter heads wouldn't jam agianst each other.

Check, and MATE: Citation:

OK - I'm prepared to concede that Scoles' early prototypes had the keys laid out in alpabetical order BUT not that the layout was changed to slow typists down. One of the attractions of the typewriter was it's potential to produce legible text quickly, maybe not as fast as a stenographer but faster than a writer. That may have been possible using an ABC layout but it was a less than ideal typebar design forced the adoption of QWERTY.

From Wikipedia:
The problem of typebar clashes could be circumvented completely: examples include Thomas Edison's 1872 electric print-wheel device which later became the basis for Teletype machines; Lucien Stephen Crandall's typewriter (the second to come on to the American market) whose type was arranged on a cylindrical sleeve; the Hammond typewriter of 1884 which used a semi-circular "type-shuttle" of hardened rubber (later light metal); and the Blickensderfer typewriter of 1893 which used a type wheel.

And if I may lift a quote from that Ask.com page -

QWERTY's effect, by reducing those annoying clashes, was to speed up typing rather than slow it down.