Excessive-speed textual content entry specialist StenoKeyboards has designed a low-cost stenography keyboard “for learners,” although claiming it is nonetheless able to 200+ phrases per minute in expert fingers — regardless of being based mostly on capacitive switches and thus as tactile as a block of wooden.
“The Asterisk keyboard is a keyboard that sorts sooner. If you wish to sort quick and effectively, study stenography utilizing the Asterisk,” firm founder Peter Park says of StenoKeyboards newest design. “You will have 10 fingers. Why not use all of it—on the similar time? The Asterisk makes use of all of your fingers, with much less motion and bodily effort.”
Utilizing the Asterisk, StenoKeyboards claims, it is attainable to write down at as much as and past 200 phrases per minute — utilizing stenography, acquainted to most as the tactic used to document court docket transcripts. Designed to be used with the open-source Plover stenography software program, the Asterisk requires you to press a number of keys directly with the intention to sort phrases in chunks slightly than letter-by-letter — dramatically dashing textual content entry, as soon as you’ve got picked up the knack.
As the corporate’s title implies, this is not the primary time StenoKeyboards has designed an answer for stenography at house. Again in November 2022 the corporate unveiled the Polyglot, a compact mechanical keyboard powered by a Raspberry Pi RP2040 and designed to tug double responsibility as a steno or customary keyboard.
Like its costlier stablemates, the Asterisk permits for speedy textual content entry in expert fingers. (📹: StenoKeyboards)
The Asterisk, although, is designed to be extra reasonably priced for learners — and that begins with ditching shifting elements. As an alternative of mechanical switches or the rubber domes of normal keyboards, the Asterisk is a flat PCB with 26 touch-sensitive keys which react on the contact of a fingertip. It is a intelligent means of retaining the price down, however removes all tactile suggestions — offering even much less tactility than the notorious membrane keyboards of the Timex/Sinclair ZX80 and Z81 microcomputers of the Nineteen Eighties.
For the stenographer on a funds, although, the Asterisk could be the proper entry to the artwork — and replaceable sooner or later with one of many firm’s extra tactile choices. For these , the Asterisk is at present funding on Kickstarter with bodily rewards beginning at $50 for a single Asterisk board and USB cable; all {hardware} is predicted to ship in June this 12 months.