On Dec 7, 2007, at 4:43 PM, cls@truffula.sj.ca.us wrote:
[This message has also been posted to linux.debian.user.]In article <9xwiH-51q-13@gated-at.bofh.it>, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:If you need that amazingly insightful gift for someone (yourself?) this year, check out www.clickykeyboards.com for real IBM keyboards. Mine just arrived and I'm in heaven.=20Also known as the Carpal Tunnel special.
Humbug. If you learned hot to type *properly* on a real IBM Selectric (hint: you never pushed the key down past the "click", certainly never to the stops), using a clicky keyboard today won't cause you carpal tunnel any faster than a squish-box typed on improperly will. The click was meant to simulate the action of the typewriter ball smacking the paper for those of us who learned how to type on typewriters.
Most carpal tunnel is brought on by typing done with angle of the arm and wrist all wrong, etc. Basic ergonomics.
To start with, real speed typists raise their hands off the board (the long "wrist rests" on most modern keyboards, especially laptops, simply didn't exist on typewriters -- people also didn't use them on their laps!). Incorrect technique is far more "risky" than using a "clicky" keyboard.
Learning how to type properly isn't an activity undertaken by many people anymore. Heck, taking a basic computer operation course with the basics of input/output, files, and how computers work isn't done either -- and look how confused the average untrained user is by simple tasks on a computer. We point them at a complex device with no training and expect results. Ridiculous.
Look up some old typist-training books sometime and research how typists on typewriters got above 80 WPM. You'll find the techniques to avoid carpal tunnel in most of them.
Some people are also simply more prone to it, but seriously -- the keyboard's always far less "at fault" (since our society always wants to blame something on externalities than on one's own behavior) than the typist's technique.
Blaming carpal tunnel on a particular type of keyboard smells funny to me. I'm not buying. I'm surprised many people have. Of course, there's a fiscal reason -- carpal tunnel claims and legal cases are quite lucrative.
-- Nate Duehr nate@natetech.com