Stenomod and Soft/Hruf quick review

[Ellis Pratt]

I asked my wife if she wanted me to waste my money on fast cars, fast women or fast keyboards, and, after she'd rolled her eyes, she said keyboards. This is my made up excuse for both a Soft/Hruf and a Stenomod arriving in the post the day before yesterday and yesterday. 

tl;dr They are both good. 

My purchase history has been 1. a Corsair 65 mechanical keyboard and some cut up credit cards for key toppers, then Mirabai's laser cut key toppers. 2. A StenoBoard 3. A Stenograph 800 I've never managed to connect to a PC correctly 4. The Soft/Hruf and Stenomod. The Corsair proved steno was fun, but I didn't like the key travel, and I often hit more than one key at the wrong time. The StenoBoard was good. I didn't mind the short stabby presses, but I left it near a window over the summer in strong sunlight and the number bar became mishaped and needs some replacement parts.

Soft/Hruf

It's light at around 255 grams. It's compact - it will fit into a A5 plastic storage box. The keys have a nice travel down and up, and I really like that they are shaped like traditional steno keys. The left and right sides are angled away from you, and I like that. The vowels are below the main keys. 

I understand Scott will be changing the angle and the vowel height in version 2, but the current design works ok with me. I'm used to that with the StenoBoard. 

The USB cable is nice and long. 

There is a homemade feeling to it - the logo is a bit smudged, and it looks like there is a fossil shape on the base. It does feel different touching ABS keys rather than the normal plastic you find on standard keyboards. Not that those things matter a huge deal. 

It's really enjoyable to use. Its size means it's something you could probably sling in a rucksack and use on your travels. 

Stenomod

The Stenomod comes attached (by screws) to a wooden board, which makes it weigh in at around 450 grams. The keys are at about the same height as my Corsair keyboard. It's about 1cm less high than the Soft/Hruf. It would be even lower on a thinner board.

You could easily replace the wood. The board is slightly bigger than the area for the keys on a 13" Macbook, and this means you can place the Stenoboard over the laptop's keyboard. 

The key travel feels lighter than the Soft/Hruf, and have a nice travel up and down. The key caps are very slightly rounded at the edges. You can still easily press two keys at the same time; to me it feels like your finger sink slightly into the gap. They feel like a high quality plastic - a bit like the number pads that came with mini computers. The vowel keys are level with the other keys. 

The keyboard is split (like the StenoBoard), which means it has a really nice ergonomic position. You could unscrew and change the position if you wished, as the Stenomod comes with a longer connecting cable in the box. Having used it for a short while, I wonder if the Planck keyboard might have been too narrow for my tastes. 

The Stenomod uses the TXBolt protocol. I've no idea what the benefit of this over the NKRO keyboard protocol.

The Stenomod got a far bigger reaction from my family. It reminds me of the Apple One, which also was partially made out of wood. It's not quite a steampunk look, I guess more of a retro 1970s vibe. I like the diodes and I/O board being on view. I'll probably need to create a lid or find a box if I want to travel with it. 

It's really enjoyable to use. Really light. 

Which one will I use?

I think I'll use both.I ever get to the speed to be able to steno at conferences (not as a professional stenographer I must add), then I'd take the Soft/Rhuf as it's smaller and lighter. For long writing sessions, I suspect the Stenomod might be my weapon of choice. At the moment, they do feel different to each other, but I reckon that will go. They are both good. They are slightly different from each other, and I'm not able to say one is better than the other. 

Would I recommend them?

Yes, they are both much, much better than a mechanical keyboard. I am not sure you'd get much of a benefit from paying the thousands needed for a professional machine, apart from maybe the Ergo Infinity. 

Get both - who really need fast cars or fast women? ;-)

[Ellis Pratt]

Just to clarify re "You can still easily press two keys at the same time on the Stenomod." I meant when you want to write a D, B, L etc.

[Charles Shattuck]

Nice Ellis! Thanks.

In my opinion the main advantage of TX Bolt over NKRO, other than being easier for me to program, is that I can use my regular keyboard at the same time without switching modes. Not a big deal for an experienced stenographer, but nice for a beginner.

[Ted Morin]

And on OSX you can steno into password fields when using a serial machine. Not so with NKRO

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[Ty Griffin]

Nice review.  I've had a similar conversation with my significant other.  She recently comment that I have an unusually large number of keyboards. I told her that it was better than the alternative.  

I very much enjoy both the Soft/Hruf and the StenoMod.  

Ty 

[Gina Cordova]

Hi Ted, 

Can you refer me to a Plover user or consultant in NYC that can help me get my setup running? I recently downloaded Plover onto my Lenovo laptop. And purchased a SOFT/HRUF keyboard online. I can't seem to get any further as I cannot figure out what the next step is. I can't find documentation online to help me setup my new keyboard through my laptop running Plover for Windows. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I would be happy to pay a consulting fee and/or make a donation on the Plover website to the cause. I will be using Plover to learn stenography with the hopes of eventually getting a job as a court report or ideally, a closed captioner.

Thank you very much for your time.

Gina

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[Glen Warner]

Hi, Gina. 

Unfortunately, I am not in New York, nor do I have a SOFT/HRUF keyboard, but I'm going to try and point you in the right direction. 

I am going to have to assume that you have connected your new keyboard to your Lenovo, most likely via USB.  If you don't have one, you'll need to get one, so pack up your SOFT/HRUF and head over to your (fairly) friendly neighborhood Best Buy or similar store, and have one of the techs point you in the right direction. 

Once you have the cable, connect your writer, then open the Device Manager to see which COM port your writer appears on. 

Open Plover and click the Configure tab.  It appears that the SOFT/HRUF uses the TX Bolt protocol, so select that, and then select the appropriate port. 

Next, open WordPad or something you can write in, and tap a few keys.  If you see anything in WordPad or whatever you picked, great! It's working!

If not, I might have left out something in the instructions, or perhaps your USB port went to sleep ... which you'll have to fix within Windows. 

Good luck ... and hope that helps!

--gdw

[Ted Morin]

I was writing a reply when I saw Glen's response, so I may repeat something!

Setting up Plover for the SOFT/HRUF should be easy. By default, the HRUF acts like a keyboard, and opening Plover and configuring the machine type to "keyboard" should work. Ensure Plover has output: enabled.

This will stop you from using a keyboard while Plover is running though. I'm assuming it would be better for you while learning to use your HRUF next to a functional keyboard. For this, you can emulate a real steno machine. While the HRUF is running, you can press key combos to change the mode. I believe it's the same as the steno board:

Fn1 + PH-PB     NKRO Keyboard emulation mode (default)
Fn1 + PH-G     Gemini PR protocol mode
Fn1 + PH-B     TX Bolt protocol mode

You'd want TX Bolt mode, then you configure Plover to the TX Bolt machine.

Here is a diagram of which keys to hit on the HRUF to get it in TX mode:

​

I don't own a HRUF so I'm not 100% confident. Someone else will surely correct me if I'm wrong.

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[Ellis Pratt]

Hi Gina

I have mine set up as a NKRO keyboard in Plover. This means my laptop's keyboard still works, as well as the SOFT/HRUF. 

Here is how I worked out how to do it:

1. Press and hold the "blue" key ("A" vowel key), and then press the furthest left key on the third row.

Then the Plover layout will work, with the S on the bottom row located on the second key on the left (not the furthest left key on the third row).

 

The layout is

# # # # # # # # # # #

S S T P H * F P L T D

  S K W R * R B G S Z 

Confusingly, in the middle row, the S works on the furthest left and the second key on the left. 

I'm in London, but if you really get stuck there's always Skype. I'm sure others on your tim zone would be happy to try to solve this over Skype. Both the Stenomod and the SOFT/RHUF are developed by individuals, so there isn't the traditional levels of documentation and support. The Plover community is larger, volunteer based, and friendly.

[Ellis Pratt]

Here is a picture of what I meant by the blue key:

[Andy Dwelly]

On the basis of the review - I've just grabbed the last of the current SOFT/HRUF keyboards - also now bound for the UK. This is the third plover friendly keyboard I'be bought. Oh dear - there was no warning about addiction....

[Scott Urueta]

This would be correct if the keyboard was using StenoFW. However, I abandoned StenoFW due to a keybounce bug that I did not want to figure out how to fix when other options were available. The new softhruf firmware uses this layout:

Someone recently posted a comment on one of my blog posts:

"Scott and Charles,

I’m also using the Stenoboard StenoFW with a homemade keyboard. For my second build I switched to a Teensy LC from a Teensy 2++ and saw much greater amounts of multiple keystrokes. Looking at the debounce code I spotted what appears to be an error in the line: if (debouncingKeys[i][j] == true && micros() – debouncingMicros[i][j])/ 1000 > debounceMillis)
— there need to be parens around the subtraction:
if (debouncingKeys[i][j] == true && (micros() – debouncingMicros[i][j]) / 1000 > debounceMillis)
if this is to make sense. I put them in and all multiple-keypresses went away.

Interestingly, two switches were much more prone to bounce than others — I’m using Matias Quiet Linear switches. I can’t explain why some switches would be more likely to bounce but it does seem to be the case. Once the debounce code was fixed, though, it was no longer an issue so I guess it’s nothing to worry about. Given the per-switch differences it may be that the change from the Teensy 2++ to the LC really had nothing to do with observing the problem and that it is all due to differences between switches in the two builds."

and the same user placed a pull request so StenoFW should be viable again.

[Charles Shattuck]

About debouncing the key switches. I don't understand why individual keys need to be debounced. It seems to me you need to debounce the first key pressed, then accumulate keys until all are released. The time it takes to send the stroke to the computer should take care of the any bounce on release. It's been working for me for several years now.

[Richard East]

Has anyone had luck turning on TX Bolt mode with the Soft/Hruf?
I tried following the instructions here:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ploversteno/iraOYarRbdg/bYK3XCLQAQAJ
But Plover warns TX: Bolt is disconnected.
It also fails for Gemini PR
I'm not sure if I'm pressing the correct keys to set the protocol mode. I'm
pressing the keys when I'm in Plover mode on the Soft/Hruf keyboard.

I have the dvorak version of Soft/Hruf on Windows 7 and using Plover 3.0.0

[Terry Waltz]

Not a technical help in any way, but a word about how wonderful the SOFT/HRUF was on my recent 1-month trip to Asia carrying only a backpack (yeah, I'm geeky enough that even with a single backpack, I had to have a steno keyboard in there...)

I just kept it in the box in which it was shipped. Attracted quite a little attention in coffee shops despite my notable lack of blistering speed. Easy to carry, light, and I didn't have to suffer another month of "steno-drop". Have to keep that hard-fought 40 wpm, LOL.

The only thing that was even a little concerning was the way the cable attaches to the back of the keyboard. It always seemed that when packing the unit up, you had to be very careful not to get it the wrong way. I could wish that the cord stuck straight out the back at a 90 degree angle and the socket was more firmly held in place. But having said that, there has been no issue with it, so it could just be me being overprotective of my lovely keyboard.

[Gabriel Holmes]