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Chorded Keyboard
A keyset or chorded keyboard (also called a chorded keyset, ''chord keyboard'' or ''chording keyboard'') is a computer input device that allows the user to enter characters or commands formed by pressing several keys together, like playing a " chord" on a piano. The large number of combinations available from a small number of keys allows text or commands to be entered with one hand, leaving the other hand free. A secondary advantage is that it can be built into a device (such as a pocket-sized computer or a bicycle handlebar) that is too small to contain a normal-sized keyboard. A chorded keyboard minus the board, typically designed to be used while held in the hand, is called a keyer. Douglas Engelbart introduced the chorded keyset as a computer interface in 1968 at what is often called "The Mother of All Demos". Principles of operation Each key is mapped to a number and then can be mapped to a corresponding letter or command. By pressing two or more keys together the user ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microwriter
The Microwriter is a hand-held portable word-processor with a chording keyboard. First demonstrated in 1978, it was invented by UK-based, US-born film director Cy Endfield and his partner Chris Rainey and was marketed in the early 1980s by Microwriter Ltd, of Mitcham, Surrey, UK. By using a mnemonic alphabet, it was claimed to allow note-taking of up to 8,000 characters at an input rate averaging 1.5 times that of handwriting. The Microwriter MW4 Although there was an earlier unit with an LED display, the MW4 with an LCD was the most common unit. The 23 cm × 12 cm × 5 cm (9" x 5" x 2") device comprises: * A six-button chording keyboard. * A single line LCD. * An 8 bit CDP1802 microprocessor. * Complete Word processing software in ROM. * 16 kilobytes of RAM. * Rechargeable Nickel-cadmium batteries - sufficient to run the device for 30 hours. * Various interfaces (see below). This device is capable of allowing the user to enter and edit several pag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pigeon post is not. Ancient signalling systems, although sometimes quite extensive and sophisticated as in China, were generally not capable of transmitting arbitrary text messages. Possible messages were fixed and predetermined and such systems are thus not true telegraphs. The earliest true telegraph put into widespread use was the optical telegraph of Claude Chappe, invented in the late 18th century. The system was used extensively in France, and European nations occupied by France, during the Napoleonic era. The electric telegraph started to replace the optical telegraph in the mid-19th century. It was first taken up in Britain in the form of the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, initially used mostly as an aid to railway signalli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathaniel Rochester (computer Scientist)
Nathaniel Rochester (January 14, 1919 – June 8, 2001) was the chief architect of the IBM 701, the first mass produced scientific computer, and of the prototype of its first commercial version, the IBM 702. He wrote the first assembler and participated in the founding of the field of artificial intelligence. Early work Rochester received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1941. He stayed on at MIT in the Radiation Laboratory for three years and then moved to Sylvania Electric Products where he was responsible for the design and construction of radar sets and other military equipment. His group built the arithmetic element for the Whirlwind I computer at MIT. IBM 701 computer In 1948, Rochester moved to IBM, where he co-designed, along with Jerrier Haddad, the first mass-produced scientific computer, the IBM 701. He wrote the first symbolic assembler, which allowed programs to be written in short, readable ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM Fellow
An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM's CEO. Typically only four to nine (eleven in 2014) IBM Fellows are appointed each year, in May or June. Fellow is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achieve. Overview The IBM Fellows program was founded in 1962 by Thomas Watson Jr., as a way to promote creativity among the company's "most exceptional" technical professionals and is granted in recognition of outstanding and sustained technical achievements and leadership in engineering, programming, services, science, design and technology. The first appointments were made in 1963. The criteria for appointment are stringent and take into account only the most-significant technical achievements. In addition to a history of extraordinary accomplishments, candidates must also be considered to have the potential to make continued contributions. Francis E. Hamilton is believed to be the first IBM Fellow, appointed in 1963 for amongst other thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sorting Office
A sorting office or processing and distribution center (P&DC; name used by the United States Postal Service (USPS)) is any location where postal operators bring mail after collection for sorting into batches for delivery to the addressee, which may be a direct delivery or sent onwards to another regional or local sorting office, or to another postal administration. Most countries have many sorting offices; the USPS has about 275. Some small territories such as Tahiti have only one. Sorting vans were used at various times; the UK had sorting vans, or carriages, in their Travelling Post Offices but those services were terminated in 2004. while in the USA the Railway Mail Service used a Railway post office for sorting the mail. As of 2017, Germany has about 95–98 sorting offices across the country. The United Kingdom Royal Mail's Mount Pleasant Sorting Office was the world's largest sorting office at the beginning of the 20th century but is now only the largest one in London. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perkins Brailler
The Perkins Brailler is a "braille typewriter" with a key corresponding to each of the six dots of the braille code, a space key, a backspace key, and a line space key. Like a manual typewriter, it has two side knobs to advance paper through the machine and a carriage return lever above the keys. The rollers that hold and advance the paper have grooves designed to avoid crushing the raised dots the brailler creates. Although braille notation was designed for people who are blind or visually impaired to read, prior to the introduction of the Perkins Brailler, writing braille was a cumbersome process. Braille writers created braille characters with a stylus and slate (as developed by Louis Braille) or by using one of the complex, expensive, and fragile braille writing machines available at the time. History The first Braille writer machine was presented by Frank Haven Hall in 1892. The original Perkins Brailler was produced in 1951 by David Abraham (1896–1978), a woodworki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Haven Hall
Frank Haven Hall (February 9, 1841 – January 3, 1911) was an American inventor and essayist who is credited with inventing the Hall braille writer and the stereographer machine. He also invented the first successful mechanical point writer and developed major functions of modern day typography with kerning and tracking. Born in Mechanic Falls, Maine he served in the Union Army's Maine Volunteers during the American Civil War. After the war he attended Bates College in Lewiston before initiating a teaching career. From 1862 to 1867, he taught at private and public schools throughout the greater Illinois area. While in Illinois, he held the political offices of postmaster, township treasurer, and clerk. He also owned and operated a general store, a lumberyard, and a creamery. In between his teaching and business interests he began to pursue a career in invention. Hall focused on experimental typefaces, typesetting, type design, and display configurations with ink on pape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Braille
Louis Braille (; ; 4 January 1809 – 6 January 1852) was a French educator and the inventor of a reading and writing system, named braille after him, intended for use by visually impaired people. His system is used worldwide and remains virtually unchanged to this day. Braille was blinded at the age of three in one eye as a result of an accident with a stitching awl in his father's harness making shop. Consequently, an infection set in and spread to both eyes, resulting in total blindness. At that time there were not many resources in place for the blind, but he nevertheless excelled in his education and received a scholarship to France's Royal Institute for Blind Youth. While still a student there, he began developing a system of tactile code that could allow blind people to read and write quickly and efficiently. Inspired by a system invented by Charles Barbier, Braille's new method was more compact and lent itself to a range of uses, including music. He presented his wor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Braille
Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displays that connect to computers and smartphone devices. Braille can be written using a slate and stylus, a braille writer, an electronic braille notetaker or with the use of a computer connected to a braille embosser. Braille is named after its creator, Louis Braille, a Frenchman who lost his sight as a result of a childhood accident. In 1824, at the age of fifteen, he developed the braille code based on the French alphabet as an improvement on night writing. He published his system, which subsequently included musical notation, in 1829. The second revision, published in 1837, was the first binary form of writing developed in the modern era. Braille characters are formed using a combination of six raised dots arranged in a 3 ×&nb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Braille Writer
Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displays that connect to computers and smartphone devices. Braille can be written using a slate and stylus, a braille writer, an electronic braille notetaker or with the use of a computer connected to a braille embosser. Braille is named after its creator, Louis Braille, a Frenchman who lost his sight as a result of a childhood accident. In 1824, at the age of fifteen, he developed the braille code based on the French alphabet as an improvement on night writing. He published his system, which subsequently included musical notation, in 1829. The second revision, published in 1837, was the first binary form of writing developed in the modern era. Braille characters are formed using a combination of six raised dots arranged in a 3 ×& ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keypunch
A keypunch is a device for precisely punching holes into stiff paper cards at specific locations as determined by keys struck by a human operator. Other devices included here for that same function include the gang punch, the pantograph punch, and the stamp. The term was also used for similar machines used by humans to transcribe data onto punched tape media. For Jacquard looms, the resulting punched cards were joined together to form a paper tape, called a "chain", containing a program that, when read by a loom, directed its operation.Bell, T.F. (1895) '' Jacquard Weaving and Designing'', Longmans, Green And Co. For Hollerith machines and other unit record machines the resulting punched cards contained data to be processed by those machines. For computers equipped with a punched card input/output device the resulting punched cards were either data or programs directing the computer's operation. Early Hollerith keypunches were manual devices. Later keypunches were electrom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
