User friendly keyboard

• US 6,084,576 A
• Filed: 03/04/1998
• Issued: 07/04/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Leu, William, Neng-Chyang Leu
• Original Assignee: Leu, William, Neng-Chyang Leu
• Inventors: Leu, William, Leu, Neng-Chyang
• Primary Examiner(s): Hjerpe, Richard A.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Laneau, Ronald
• Application Number:
  US09/034,373
• Time in Patent Office: 853 Days
• Field of Search: 345/168, 341/22
• US Class Current: 345/168
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0213 Arrangements providing an integrated pointing device in a keyboard, e.g. trackball, mini-joystick for pointing devices integrated in a laptop computer G06F1/169; joysticks G05G9/047; constructional details of pointing devices G06F3/033
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0219 Special purpose keyboards

Abstract

A ergonomic keyboard that is suitable for all devices interfacing with a keyboard; and that is able to transmit on an unlimited amount of information including the more than 50 alphabets of the world, numbers, other symbols, programming, and operational information. The keyboard is ergonomically designed to take maximum advantage of the shape, dexterity, and strength of the hands and fingers so that the majority of the fingers on both hands are always naturally positioned on the home keys, and so the reaching to the other keys is natural and effortless. The ergonomic design and optimum distribution of the information bits on the keys makes the transfer of information on this keyboard the fastest possible with the least amount of effort and the least amount of errors, and it also makes the learning the fastest and easiest possible. A palm rest, thumb-activated trackball, one-hand typing option, palm keys, and an integrated joystick with a circular motion sensor around the palm rest offer the user unheralded ease of use.

Claims

1. An ergonomic keyboard comprising:

a left quadrant having an angle ranging from 25°

to 35°

from a user'"'"'s body centerline;

a right quadrant having an angle ranging from 25°

to 35°

from a user'"'"'s body centerline; and

said left and right quadrants each having a curved home row of keys located to conform to a user'"'"'s index, middle, ring, and pinkie fingers when bent in a slightly flexed position; and

each quadrant having a curved adjacent upper row of keys above the home row and a curved adjacent middle row of keys below the home row and a curved adjacent lower row of keys below the middle row and a curved adjacent bottom row of keys below the lower row, said keys forming four columns, each comprising a domain and each having an alignment with a centerline of a user'"'"'s index, middle, ring, and pinkie fingers; and

each quadrant having a fifth column of four keys inboard from a user'"'"'s index finger and a column of at least two keys outboard from a user'"'"'s pinkie finger defining a pinkie-domain area; and

each quadrant having a plurality of keys located in a thumb-domain area defined by a reach of a user'"'"'s thumb; and

each quadrant having a palm support to enable a user to touch every key without lifting his palm from the palm support.

2. The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the thumb-domain area further comprises a cursor controller for controlling a cursorial indicator.

3. The keyboard of claim 1, wherein said pinkie-domain area of each quadrant further comprises numeric designations and diacritic symbols.

4. The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the character assignment of the home, upper, middle, and bottom row of keys on the left quadrant are designated A through L and Y, and the home, upper, middle, and bottom row of keys on the right quadrant are designated M through X and Z.

5. The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the palm support further comprises a joypad controller.

6. The keyboard of claim 1, wherein each quadrant further comprises a power-reach row of keys located above the upper row.

7. The keyboard of claim 1, wherein each quadrant further comprises a palm key row comprising three keys below the bottom row of keys, wherein the palm keys can be actuated individually or synchronously by combination of any two or all three palm keys.

8. The keyboard of claim 6, wherein each quadrant further comprises a key designation flip/flop key to change each key to a key on the opposite quadrant keyboard, and an upper-case key adjustment to the flip/flop key thereby enabling one-handed typing on either keyboard.

9. The keyboard of claim 6, wherein the palm support further comprises a forward and backward moving mechanism to enable a user to reach the power-reach row of keys without moving his palm off the palm support.

10. The keyboard of claim 2, wherein the thumb-domain area further comprises circular array keys concentric with the cursor controller to enable a user to touch these keys without lifting this thumb, said circular array of keys further comprises an inward home row and an outward home row.

11. The keyboard of claim 3, wherein the pinkie-domain area further comprises a function key to enable a user to hold the function key down with his pinkie finger while touching a number key with his ring finger.

12. The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the thumb-domain area further comprises a thumb curved key cluster.

13. The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the palm support is fixedly adjustable forward and backward to enable ease of use by a plurality of users having different hand sizes.

14. The keyboard of claim 5, wherein the joypad controller further comprises a circular motion sensor and an X-axis and a Y-axis controller.

15. The keyboard of claim 10, wherein the character assignment of the said circular array keys are:

shift-hand key adjacent to said cursor controller on the inward home row of the thumb domain;

space key adjacent to said cursor controller on the outward home row of the thumb domain;

shift-case key placed adjacent to the shift-hand key, whereby the shift-hand key and shift-case key can be actuated simultaneously by a user'"'"'s thumb.

16. The keyboard of claim 10, wherein the character assignment of the said circular array keys from the shift-hand key immediately adjacent to the left of the cursor controller in clockwise order further comprises a comma (,) key, period (.) key, back-space key, space key, return key, enter key, and shift-case key.

17. The keyboard of claim 10, further comprising a row of keys comprising a top, home, and lower row adjacent to said outward home row of keys.

18. The keyboard of claim 17, wherein the character assignment of the said outward home row of keys further comprises:

a page-up key on the top row;

a home key on the home row;

a page-down key on the lower row;

which keys are single-finger synchronous keys whereby the page-up key and home key may be actuated simultaneously with the thumb so the user can move the cursorial indicator to the beginning of a program or document; and

whereby a user may actuate the page-down key and home key with the thumb simultaneously to move the cursorial indicator to the end of a program or document.

19. The keyboard of claim 1, wherein the keys of the home row and the upper and lower rows further comprise a high-frequency block assigned to the most frequently used characters of a specific program or language.

20. The keyboard of claim 19, wherein:

said high-frequency block further comprises alphabet characters;

said small-finger domains further comprise numeric characters;

said left-quadrant lower row and bottom row further comprises punctuation characters;

said right-quadrant lower row and bottom row further comprises symbolic characters;

said power-reach rows further comprise basic computer function keys;

said thumb domains further comprise basic word process function keys; and

said palm key domain further comprise toggle-switch function keys.

21. The keyboard of claim 12, wherein the thumb-curved key cluster further comprises:

a cursor controller at a user'"'"'s thumb tip;

an upper row of thumb keys arranged above a curved line alone an arc described by a user'"'"'s thumb through the center of said cursor controller;

a middle row of thumb keys arranged below said upper row; and

a lower row of thumb keys arranged below said middle row.

22. The keyboard of claim 21, wherein said thumb-curved key cluster further comprises:

a shift-case key at a 10 o'"'"'clock position relative to a centerline from said palm domain through said cursor controller;

a backspace key immediately clockwise from said shift-case key;

a space key immediately clockwise from said backspace key; and

a shift-hand key immediately clockwise from said space key, wherein all of said keys are in a circular arrangement about said cursor controller.

23. The keyboard of claim 21, wherein the key assignments of the thumb domain further comprise:

the upper row of keys progressing from the inward to the outward are;

, (comma), shift-case key, backspace key, page-up key;

the middle row of keys progressing from the inward to the outward are;

, (period), shift-hand key, space key, home key; and

the lower row of keys progressing from the inward to the outward are;

jump key, enter key, return key, page-down key.

24. The keyboard of claim 1, wherein:

the pinkie-finger domain comprises the color red;

the ring-finger domain comprises the color orange;

the middle-finger domain comprises the color yellow;

the index-finger domain comprises the color green;

the thumb domain comprises the color blue;

the joy pad controller comprises the color indigo; and

the palm-key domain outline color comprises the color violet.

25. The keyboard of claim 4, wherein the characters further have an outline comprising a variable line thickness.

26. The keyboard of claim 24 further comprising:

an inlay color for vowel characters which is red;

an inlay color for consonants which is blue; and

an inlay color for numeric characters which is green.

27. The keyboard of claim 18 wherein the synchronous keys comprise the same color.

28. The keyboard of claim 1, further comprising a detachable connection between the left quadrant and right quadrant whereby said quadrants may be separated by a user.

29. The keyboard of claim 1 wherein the height of each key is in the range of 0.7 to 1.2cm.

30. The keyboard of claim 1 wherein the cursor controller further comprises a mouseball.

31. A method of illustrating use of the user-friendly keyboard to a typist on a monitor comprising the steps of:

rendering a graphic depiction of a keyboard;

dividing the rendering into sections comprising;

left- and right-hand high-frequency blocks;

a punctuation block;

a symbolic block;

left- and right-hand pinkie-finger blocks;

a number function block;

left- and right-hand thumb blocks;

left- and right-hand palm-key blocks;

placing each section onto a monitor frame for viewing by a user in an arrangement comprising;

said left- and right-hand high-frequency blocks located at the top of a monitor frame on the left and right side respectively;

said punctuation block located at the top of a monitor frame adjacent to said left-hand high-frequency block;

said symbolic section located at the top of a monitor frame adjacent to said right-hand high-frequency block;

said left- and right-hand pinkie-finger blocks located at the ton of a monitor frame at the left and right corners respectively;

said number-function block located on the left side of a monitor frame;

said left- and right-hand thumb blocks located on the bottom of a monitor frame at the left and right side respectively;

said left- and right-hand palm-key blocks located on the bottom of the frame of a monitor adjacent to said thumb blocks; and

whereby a user may refer to said blocks for keyboard layout for entry of data on a computer while a user is viewing a monitor.