@brennen @th the Italian steno keyboard system uses a piano like keyboard!
http://www.copisteriasassaro.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Stenotipia.jpg
I believe there are ways to use MIDI keyboards for training.
@th I love this so much.
@th don't forget to stop by
https://www.chassenature.org/
while you're out there!
@th To me, these look more like (artsy) „key arrangements“…
@th@social.v.st dvorak disagrees
@th are these from the Musée des Arts et Métiers? https://www.crummy.com/2016/05/17/0
@th @brainwane That first one looks like something the QMK folks would’ve built in the 19th century.
@th that last one bwahaha
@th Took me a moment to stop laughing and realize that key didn't say "Grosse Buche", which means "huge log" in French. I couldn't stop laughing at the notion that long before email and google docs there was once a one-keystroke way to say "I want to drop a huge log on this document."
@th and then there is ETAOIN SHRDLU 🙃
@th im going to have nightmares
@th those writing ball style keyboards, they do have a Look
@th I only own one of these four but desperately need the other 3. I’ve had ebay alerts for an affordable Hammond for 5+ years.
@th In case you want another peculiar keyboard layout, this is the one used by Emily Dickinson. Taken at the Emily Dickinson house/museum in Amherst, MA.
@th I don’t think they’re sounds in the third one? There are just two characters per key. What I find weird tho is that I don’t know for which language it’s made. «GROSSE BUCHST.» seems to be German, but then there’s no umlaut; it looks a lot more like the letters to write Portuguese.
(also first one is weird but not less logical than qwerty)
@melunaka you're right -- I had misinterpreted the shape as a stenography keyboard and assumed they were sounds. According to the sign it is the Hammond #2 typewriter from 1893.
@th the fourth is blessed. a gentle strike of the key produces a lowercase letter ;)
@th That first one is so nearly ETAOIN SHRDLU but not quite.
@th Still better than traditional QWERTY.
@th Oh dear! I was just thinking the musical-keyboard one at least would be familiar to musicians -- and then I realized.
@th and what, pray tell, is cursed about stenography
(the first two, 100% agree. The musical one I want to try for myself before I decide it's cursed.)
Are these pictures taken at the Musée des Arts et Metiers?
That musical keyboard really blew my mind. As the need for a keyboard became clear, the inventors first tried a format they knew.
Now, of course, people play their computer keyboards into ableton as virtual MIDI controllers...
@th And I thought they were crazy when they put the ? Next to the M instead of the shift key.
@th I...
Yeah. Those are cursed.
@th Technisches Museum Wien?
@th that last one with the piano keys gets better and better the longer i stare at it