All the basic commands on individual keys so lazy me doesnt need to type them
-- GadgetMaster, Jul 11 2002

HTML Tag Keyboard http://www.halfbake...ML_20Tag_20Keyboard
Note category ----- computer: keyboard keys [reensure, Jul 11 2002]

BAKED http://66.240.157.6...images/MVC00461.JPG
Man, where were you folks in the 80's ? (approx. 177K image of the TIMEX SINCLAIR 1000) I own a keyboard with all the basic commands on it. [bear, Jul 12 2002, last modified Oct 17 2004]

I'm voting for this on principle, although I think when you get into more complicated structures it gets increasingly difficult to quantify programs on a keypad. Kroissant for now- please clarify or the pastry gets it.
-- polartomato, Jul 11 2002


Of course its only for beginners.

I am new to programming and I suffer from RSI

The amount of times I type "PRINT" is painful.

If there was a keyboard with the most commonly used commands on seperate keys then life would be easiser.

A "PRINT" key wouldn't go amiss.
-- GadgetMaster, Jul 11 2002


Maybe you just need to update your programming skills. You ever considered Visual Basic, Delphi, Turbo Pascal, C++, or the ilk?
-- [ sctld ], Jul 11 2002


Macros. Learn how to use them.
-- bookworm, Jul 11 2002


I am looking into Delphi but I wanted to start with something simple and I dont want only use a top down approach. I want to be able to use the conventional methods. I can get compilers that fit on a floppy that I could boot up anywhere and start coding away.

I wanted to start with a simple language and would like to move up to C then C++

I will learn the Visual IDEs after mastering these. Anything to make it easier to get through the initial stages would help.

Anyone else think this is a good approach?
-- GadgetMaster, Jul 11 2002


Visual Basic is easier. BASIC follows the top down approach. C++ is easier to learn than C, and most modern languages follow the syntax of C/C++. All programming languages follow the same principles. It just the syntax thats different.
-- [ sctld ], Jul 11 2002


Baked. The Sinclair ZX80, ZX81 and Spectrum computers had BASIC keywords on the character keys so that they could be entered with one keystroke.
In fact you *had* to enter keywords this way on the ZX80 as a word like "THEN" if entered as a single keystroke would be stored in memory as a 1-byte code (as opposed to the 4-byte "T" "H" "E" "N" sequence) and thus have a different interpretation. This was done to save memory - essential when you've only got 1k of RAM.
-- hippo, Jul 11 2002


I've used plenty of programming languages and/or packages which fill in the rest of the word for you. Just don't remember which ones. (Been a long day.)

Besides, if you're any kind fo a programmer, you should be able to map appropriate keyboard combinations to the strings you want.

If you have carpal tunnels (or whatever RSI indicates), get a voice recognition program. Should work very well with the limited number of words in the average programming language.
-- DrCurry, Jul 11 2002


Maybe they can start with a COBOL version.
-- hexadecimal, Jul 11 2002


RSI = Repetative Strain Injury.

I am going to look into the various voice recognition packages. Which is the best one ?
-- GadgetMaster, Jul 11 2002


The downside of the alleged 'single-key entry' on the Sinclair machines was that you often needed <shift>, <ctrl>, <escape> or some other key in sequence. There were some commands which needed more keystrokes than would have been used to spell them out conventionally.
Delphi (based on Pascal) is getting to be a bit of a dead-end now, so I'm told. VB might be a better option. (The .net version is fairly horrid, btw; not advisable for entry-level, but version 6 is excellent.)
Re voice recognition, you might give IBM's 'Via Voice' a try.
-- angel, Jul 12 2002


[angel] - yup, you're right about the "Klingon grip" method of entering keywords on the Sinclair machines (although, remember, doing this was no harder than typing on those crappy keyboards) - It was probably done more as a memory-saving measure.
-- hippo, Jul 12 2002


And how big is this keyboard going to be, exactly?
-- PeterSilly, Jul 12 2002


I was thinking just now it could just be an extra device you plug in with a USB cable or something. There could be a board for every language, say. For BASIC, there could be a PRINT key that you press and then a window comes up and says "Please type your string" and then you type it and it inserts the text in the line of code with quotes around it... stuff like that maybe... huh?
-- polartomato, Jul 12 2002


Some toy languages like in Flash let you choose commands from a series of menus, so you can do your programming using the mouse.

But if you're worried about the large number of keywords, C only has about 30, of which you need less than 20 for most programs (you really only need about 9 for many small projects). Failing that you could use a joke language like brainfuck, with its 8 keywords, or the infamous Single Instruction Set Computer, with only one keyword.

I think BASIC's a reasonable language to start with, though. Less limiting than Pascal, and less easy to mess up badly than C or C++; and OO languages like Java add an extra level of complexity. The first thing to learn in programming is how to put a few instructions together; considerations of program structure come after that, and the need for more advanced languages will be apparent after using Basic for too long.
-- pottedstu, Jul 12 2002



random, halfbakery