[9fans] The utility of a chording pad

[john@csplan9.rit.edu]

So I've spent a lot of time today watching recordings of Engelbart's
1968 demonstration (http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html),
and I really like the chording pad he has over on the left of his keyboard.
It's the same type of thing that shows up again in the Xerox Alto.
I'm just wondering, as Plan 9 users and developers, what would you do
with such a thing in the environment? Engelbart's device apparently
let you input 31 different chords, which I'd say isn't sufficient to replace
a keyboard but is still pretty impressive; with such a thing, would you perhaps
bind the chords to perform acme commands, for instance? We've already
got mouse chording, and it's pretty slick; add some more chording in,
say hit the first two keys in order to delete the current frame in acme.
Of course, if we were to get a chord pad that could produce enough
combinations for all alphanumeric characters, it could be used to replace
the keyboard.

I'd just like to get some opinions, see what you think of chording devices
and what potential utility they could have in Plan 9.



John