A Search for Foot-Keyboards
Mike Whitmarsh
[Note from Bill McGarry: See the next article]
In my eight years of being an amputee, I've kept my eyes
open -maybe not focused, but open- for aids to typing.
It has occurred that it would be *very* nice to have the ability
to at least control the shift, alt, ctrl, and Enter keys from the ground.
Has anyone out there heard of such a device?
My thought has been to have something that sits under the desk, plugs
in to my keyboard, and my computer, has four "buttons", and is configurable
enough to set up the keys I mentioned above.
I've got some pretty good ideas on the design, but alas am just a sowftware
weenie, no ME blood here.
Any references or related products would be appreciated.
I was also talking to a fellow engineer here that has been having problems
with Carpel Tunnel (sp?) - and she is interested in getting 'Enter' control
by foot.
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Bill McGarry
Mike Whitmarsh writes:
>It has occurred that it would be *very* nice to have the ability
>to at least control the shift, alt, ctrl, and Enter keys from the ground.
>
>Has anyone out there heard of such a device?
This information is from the IBM National Support Center for
Persons with Disabilities. Their address is:
IBM National Support Center for Persons with Disabilities
P. O. Box 2150
Atlanta, GA 30055
(800) 426-2133
(404) 238-4806
(800) 284-9482 (TDD)
Hope this helps.
PRODUCT: FOOTMOUSE
VENDOR: Versatron Corp.
103 Plaza St.
Healdsburg, CA 95488
(707) 433-8244
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION: Footmouse is a cursor control device operated by
foot movement. The base of the Footmouse remains on the floor, and the
cursor is moved by sliding the foot over the base in an up, down, left
or right motion. Footmouse performs all the functions of the standard
keyboard cursor keys, including auto-repeat if held down. Footmouse
plugs in between the keyboard and the computer; it does not interfere
with normal keyboard operations when in use.
PRODUCT: PC-PEDAL
VENDOR: Brown & Co. Inc.
P.O. Box 2443
So. Hamilton, MA 01982
(508) 468-7464
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION: PC-Pedal is a single foot-pedal switch that acts
as any of several keys to permit one-hand computing. Two versions are
available: Standard - to control the SHIFT, ALT, CONTROL keys; Enhanced
- to control any key. The Standard version redefines the space bar as a
backspace-delete key so the user does not need to move from the home
position to perform this function. To choose which key the pedal
emulates, the user presses the pedal with the desired special key. When
the pedal is subsequently pressed, it acts as the defined key until
redefined. Any simple switch may be substituted for the pedal. All
setup software is included; PC-Pedal plugs into the standard parallel
port of the computer. A printer may be plugged into the PC-Pedal plug,
and the two will not interfere with each other.
PRODUCT: ABLE-2 PRODUCT FAMILY
VENDOR: Automated Business & Services Inc.
6715 Kenilworth Ave.
Riverdale, MD 20737-9960
(301) 454-8200
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION: The ABLE-2 Product Family supports computer users
with special needs in a systematic program in four parts: needs
assessment, workstation family, focused training, life cycle support.
Needs assessment focuses on vision-impaired/blind, hearing-impaired/deaf
and neuromuscular impairment or para/quadriplegic. Computer users with
visual impairments are provided with optical character readers, voice
synthesizers, screen readers, tactile output displays and Braille
devices. The workstation family may be configured with voice input,
mouse, foot pedal, joystick and headpointer.