Re: [stella] Keyboard Controller layout

Subject: Re: [stella] Keyboard Controller layout
From: kurt.woloch@xxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 07:52:19 +0100
John K. Harvey wrote:

>If I were to use 1 keypad controller for text purposes, how would you
>recommend I do it?
>
>ABC, DEF, GHI, JKL, MNO, PRS, TUV, WYZ, QX = 9 options
>And then have a 1, 2, or 3 button (i.e. press ABC, then 2, get 'B')
>
>This works, but what if I wanted more characters?
>
>Say I wanted a space, a period, a hyphen, or something.
>
>Then: 9 letter options
>2 keys for punctuation
>
>1 'Send' key, i.e. press ABC 3x, press send, 'C' is sent.
>
>The problems with this scheme involve:
>1) What if send is pressed with no input?
>2) What if ABC is pressed 4 times, then send is pressed?
>
>See, it's messy.  Any other ideas?
>What about using 2 buttons pressed at once or something?

Er... you don't have a mobilephone, do you?
On nearly every mobilephone today, you can type in SMS's, also just using
the 12 keys (or slightly more).
I don't have a mobilephone either, but I just asked a collegue and at his
one, it works the following way:

Each of the 9 upper keys has got 2 or 3 letters. If you press one quickly
and repeatedly, it will give you the according letter. If you start to press
another one, the letter will be taken and the next one will be generated. If
you leave a pause before hitting the same button again, it will accept the
last letter taken and start a new one. With the lower left button, you can
toggle between upper and lower case, you could also implement punctuation
characters as a third set (as it's done on MiniDisc recorders). The
remaining two buttons could be used for, say, the "delete" option (deletes
the last character entered) and the "finish" option (tells the 2600 that the
text is finished).

If you want to do it with the "send" button as described above, I'd solve
the problems you gave as follows:

1) If send is pressed with no input, it will generate a space.
2) If ABC is pressed 4 times, it will toggle back to A (A on the first
press, B on the second, C on the third, A again on the fourth) and thus
generate an A.

With love (and many keys to press)
Kurt Woloch

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