The Format Wars in retrospect.

[Gulliver]

I had a Palm Pilot in the early 2000s before I had a smartphone. It was useful for organising my diary, playing games on the rail commute and storing some favourite photos to show people in the days before social media. I recall it used a strange input interface called "Grafiti" whereby you used a stylus to draw characters that were not quite like actual letters. I eventually got used to it but found texting with the 10 digit keypad much easier, I was world class at that.

I much prefer a landscape screen. Not only does it better mimic the human field of vision, when I am typing I can have 75% of the screen taken up by the "paper" area with useful tools on the other 25% to the left or right.

But "the kids" do like their portrait format videos. I try not to criticise those younger than me, but that's one I just cannot fathom.

[G6Tanuki]

Another dead-end, anyone remember the Microwriter, an 1980s rework of the chording keyboard where characters were generated from simultaneously depressing a range of 5 buttons on a hand-shaped thing that looked like a large mouse?

Problem was that with only 5 'bits' available to press, it got in a mess similar to the likes of ITA5 teleprinters and six bit BCD when required to do shifts to deliver upper and lower case text intermixed with numeric and punctuation characters.

[Dave Moll]

I have a Quinkey (see below), which I believe is the same thing under a different name.

[Dave Moll]

Incidentally, regarding portrait and landscape, I feel it's a matter of "horses for courses" as each has its uses - and the above image would have been better in portrait mode, but my camera produces landscape by default and I didn't feel it worth the hassle of rotating it.

[Richard_FM]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

Another dead-end, anyone remember the Microwriter, an 1980s rework of the chording keyboard where characters were generated from simultaneously depressing a range of 5 buttons on a hand-shaped thing that looked like a large mouse?

Problem was that with only 5 'bits' available to press, it got in a mess similar to the likes of ITA5 teleprinters and six bit BCD when required to do shifts to deliver upper and lower case text intermixed with numeric and punctuation characters.

I have a Computer Training Video which demonstrates one, I can remember Tomorrow's World in the late 1980s featuring one as a "Whatever Happened To..." feature.

[TonyDuell]

David's Quinkey looks like the case and buttons from a Microwriter MW4 but I suspect is a different device. The cable coming out the top end suggests it's a peripheral for a desktop computer, to be used as an alternative keyboard.

The MW4 can be used as a standalone device. It has a 1-line LCD display, you can type in text on the chording buttons and store it in the internal memory. Later you can upload that text to another machine.

There was also the Microwriter Agenda, a smaller device about the size of many other organisers. It has normal alphanumeric keys (for some odd reason the letters are in alphabetical, not QWERTY order) and the chording buttons.

I have the MW4 and the Agenda here.

[Dave Moll]

What I didn't show was the plug at the far end of the cable, which is a three-way 3.5mm co-axial (as used for stereo audio).

Dave.

[Station X]

Originally Posted by Dave Moll

the above image would have been better in portrait mode.

I've rotated it.

[TonyDuell]

There's a little information on the Quinkey here :

https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/42141/Microwriter-Quinkey/

As I suspected it's not complete in itself (The MW4 is). It's a peripheral for, as it turns out, the BBC micro, and connected to the analogue port (!). The fact that you could connect 4 of them to one Beeb suggests each went to one channel of the ADC. Perhaps it's some kind of resistor chain inside, the keys thus changing the output voltage.

Have you opened it up? If so, what's inside?

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by Dave Moll

Incidentally, regarding portrait and landscape, I feel it's a matter of "horses for courses" as each has its uses.

Absolutely right, and just as I (gently) rebuke people for taking all their pictutes and video in portrait orientation, when those same people were using conventional cameras, whether film or digital I used to do the exact opposite and rebuke them for never turning the camera 90 deg when taking a portrait.

The Blackberry I had sported a small rectangular screen above a real tangible keyboard, so when you held it vertical, the camera sensor was landscape.

Like half-frame 35mm!

[cmjones01]

The father of a schoolfriend of mine was involved in the Microwriter's development, and we had a few prototypes to play with. The one I had used a 14-segment alphanumeric LED screen instead of the production devices' LCD. I found the chord keyboard very fast and easy to use and can still remember a lot of the letters, but the machine was bulky and rather heavy (and the knackered old NiCd batteries didn't last long!). I would be a fan of the chord keyboard still today, but the need to make it fit a human hand makes it a bit impractical for today's world of mobile devices in every pocket.

The prototype I had, I donated to the Cambridge Museum of Technology some years back, long before the Centre for Computing History existed. I hope they've preserved it.

Chris

[avocollector]

I have just thrown out about 80% of our VHS and Betamax tapes thanks to mould getting in them despite being stored inside in our living room on shelves above waist height. Most annoying as we still have the players and they still work although not been used in decades. Will try to convert the remainder to DVD's

[G6Tanuki]

As an interesting summary of how technologies emerge, peak and then age-out, I refer to this blog post by my friends at the Adam Smith Institute.

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/the-gadgets-of-memory-lane

Also of relevance is the Gartner consultancy group's "Hype cycle"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle

of emerging/sustaining technologies. Quite a few hyped technologies never climb out of the "Trough of disillusionment".