Human beings learn hand-eye co-ordination when there is a clear reward structure. At the moment, learning to type involves no reward, other than getting the right letters on the screen.

It would be more fun if keyboards were musical. Rather than the piano-fashioned keyboard as previously suggested, this version has each key representing a note. Realising the positions of the keys would be a breeze if, for instance, typing 'The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over The Lazy Dog' generated a passable rendition of Hotel California.

You can advance your typing skills with faster tunes, until you reach a level where you are able to comfortably knock out Flight Of The Bumblebee and an essay on Proust simultaneously.
-- kpx, Dec 25 2002

Smart Type Assistant http://www.blazingtools.com/sta.html
At bottom... Music keyboard - You can assign an individual sound for each key to the keyboard. [thumbwax, Oct 04 2004]

Piano Keyboard in a PC Keyboard http://images.creat...dikeyspcmidiusb.jpg
This has nothing to do with the idea, but it's incredibly cool. [Amos Kito, Oct 04 2004, last modified May 07 2013]

MIDI keyboard mapping.
-- futurebird, Dec 26 2002


One for one mapping of key to note? Not likely to produce a good tune while typing real words, but keystroke to next note of selected song...
-- Shz, Dec 26 2002


Sounds like a fun idea! I've used software that converts 2 lines of keys to a simple keyboard. Seems possible to map all the letters & numbers to cover a piano's range without repeating a tone, not including capital letters. But, you may not be able to play chords -- just one key at a time. Also holding a note of some killer guitar riff may cause unexpected results........................... ................................... ...................................
-- Amos Kito, Dec 26 2002


"the quick brown fos jumped over the lazy dos."

I justn typed that without looking at the keyboard and I've been typing on computers for about 23 years.

The first line of your idea, about the reward structure, made me think of Guitar Hero. As it's a game there is a very definate reward structure and I've been playing that for about a year and my hand-eye coordination when playing the game is pretty amazing. I don't even know how I'm playing it most of the time, it's sub-conscious so I don't even have to think about it.
-- mecotterill, Mar 01 2008



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