XO-2

[Walter Bender]

Not having seen the display, it is not obvious that "intricate glyphs"
will be very easy to fit "legibly" on a virtual keycap.

-walter

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 4:53 PM, C. Scott Ananian <cscott at cscott.net> wrote:
> On 5/22/08, Andres Salomon <dilinger at queued.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, 22 May 2008 13:33:10 -0700 (PDT)
>>  david at lang.hm wrote:
>>  > a touchscreen based keyboard is far inferior to a real keyboard. it's
>>  would be fine.  A USB keyboard gives far more flexibility than XO-1
>>  currently has in terms of languages, layout, cost, and manufacturers.
>
> I should point out that a touchscreen keyboard is far superior to our
> current keyboards for a number of languages: there are only so many
> intricate glyphs you can fit legibly on a keycap.  Further, a
> touchscreen keyboard can actually show you both the uppercase *and*
> lowercase glyphs (depending on your shift setting), which is far
> better for language learners, who can get confused when the letter on
> the screen doesn't look like the one they typed.
>
> A touchscreen keyboard also allows far easier customization for
> non-Roman-script languages.  See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_writing_system
>
> Currently we have to manufacture a custom keyboard overlay for each
> writing system supported.  Regions where there is more than one
> dominant writing system have no easy way to change their keyboards
> when they shift languages.
>
> All this is just to say that "ease of typing English" and "keyfeel
> like a Remington typewriter" are not the only items on our list of
> desired keyboard features.
>  --scott
>
> --
>                         ( http://cscott.net/ )
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