Patent TW-200825851-A (TW)
Title: Input device keyboard new key in method and new device design
Inventor: WANG KEH-HONG
IPC: G06F3/02
Filed: 2006-12-04
Abstract: For a long time, almost no change has been made on the input method, input type, and number of keys of the universal standard computer keyboard currently being used. There are 104 keys and 3 indicators (including Cap Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock). On a dual-purpose Chinese/English keyboard, no more than 4 letters, symbols, numbers, or functions are shown on the four corners or top/bottom of each key. However, since there is only one input method, i.e. direct input method, for the letters, symbols, and functions, a large number of keys is required for the existing keyboard. Although it is convenient to use, no significant size reduction can be made on the keyboard due to the standard input method. Besides, since the size of a finger cannot be changed, a keyboard is inconvenient to use if the size of each key is reduced along with the size reduction of the keyboard. Therefore, a new input method is the only solution to significantly reduce the number of keys (there are too many letter, symbol, and number keys on the existing keyboard, especially bilingual keyboard) without having to reduce the key size. Hence, by applying the polar coordinate input method of the mathematic coordinate concept, a new input method and a new design are presented and a patent is applied, where a coordinate input method is disclosed for overcoming the foregoing problems. Normally, the coordinates of a polar point are represented by (r, theta), where r is the distance between the polar point and the origin and theta is the acute angle between the X-axis and the line connecting the polar point and the origin, and two numbers or symbols are used for defining a polar point. If each letter, symbol, number, and function on a standard keyboard is regarded as a polar point, two numbers or symbols can be used for representing a letter, symbol, number, and function on the keyboard. In the view of polar coordinate concept and by considering actual requirements, r can be transformed into a number of circles. For a single circle, r can represent the number of positionings of secondary groups at a certain position on the circle and theta can represent the angle of a rotating disk for positioning. Since a circle is 360 degrees, the range of number of positionings on a circle is wider and more flexible. Therefore, r can be one or more set of numbers from 0 to 9 and theta can be one or more set of numbers from 0 to 359 and 10x360=3600 letters, symbols, numbers, or functions can be defined. However, in the view of actual application, it is more appropriate to use 4 to 10 numbers for representing r and 10 to 36 numbers for representing theta. Then, it is decided that, if 10 numbers are used for representing r, approximately 12 numbers are used for representing theta and, if 4 numbers are used for representing r, 36 numbers are used for representing theta and, therefore, approximately 120 to 144 letters, symbols, numbers, or functions can be defined. This means that only n=(r)x(theta) numbers or codes are necessary for defining n letter, symbol, number, or function keys. Based on the foregoing concepts, a new keyboard having very few keys other than some reserved function keys is designed. Besides, since most of the users are familiar with the polar coordinate concept applied in the new input method, the new input method can easily be remembered and the design of the new keyboard is easy.