On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 4:08 AM, Michael Wood <esiot...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 25 March 2011 07:15, Ken Wesson <kwess...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 12:36 AM, ultranewb <pineapple.l...@yahoo.com> wrote: > [...] >>> One other difference with APL is that they removed the old complaint >>> of "special characters and keyboards" by changing it to pure standard >>> ascii characters. Thing is, I don't particularly like this aspect. I >>> much prefer old APL symbols to the new string of plain ascii >>> characters which I find ugly. The irony in all of this is that >>> Iverson was before his time in creating a language with special >>> symbols - some people didn't "get it," you needed special equipment >>> and character sets and fonts, etc. So they removed this old complaint >>> with J... just with the advent of unicode, which actually allows for >>> such things quite easily. >> >> Er ... not exactly. It may allow representing the special characters >> in disk files and network traffic in a manner that will survive being >> passed through tool chains and among web users, but I'm aware of no >> magic Unicode floppy disc I can stick into my machine, run "make >> install" (or "setup.exe") off, and wind up able to *type* the special >> characters by simply looking down at my keyboard, finding one of them, >> and pushing it. :) >> >> So it'd mean a lot of annoying alt+numpad foolery, copy-paste, or >> memorizing arcane emacs-style chords. >> >> Maybe in another ten years keyboards will have become multitouch >> screens that can serve various other purposes, and when used as >> keyboards can have the glyphs changed in software; then maybe you can >> just task switch to your J IDE and watch your keyboard F-key and >> numpad symbols change as determined by the keymaps defined for the >> application with the input focus, or something; and this won't all >> cost a ridiculous amount of money. > > Well, except for the part about not costing a "ridiculous amount of > money", this might be what you're looking for :) > > http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/ > >> But that day has not yet arrived. And besides, a touch-screen keyboard >> can't be typed on by feel, unless they add software-controlled shape >> shifting or something. > > or unless a separate little screen is embedded in each real key as in > the optimus maximus.
I considered that, but knew it would make the manufacturing and design so complex as to be very expensive, and it was. Over $2000? Unless that can be brought down to $20, it's a non-starter if you want to see widespread use. (And isn't making it a *color* display overkill? Black-on-white or white-on-black should suffice. In fact, a Kindle-style e-ink display technology would consume the least power, could continue to "look normal" during power-down, and would suffice for this use.) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
