Timing sensitive input methods; morse code IMEs

[David Woolley (E.L)]

On another (ameteur radio related) list, someone asked
<http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/elecraft/2008-May/090079.html> about
devices that would allow someone with disabilities (carpal tunnel
surgery) to use a morse key as a substitute computer keyboard.

One thought I had was that one could use an IME to achieve this, either
by having it respond to specific hardware events, or by rigging the key
to keys on a normal keyboard.

The critical factor in achieving this would be the ability to resolve
event times quite accurately.  Even the slowest keying speed generates
events with spacings of less than 100ms.  I was wondering whether
scheduling and other delays would be too variable to successfully decode
a morse key in an IME, or whether this approach is actually worth
following up.

Does anyone have views on the viability of an input method that depends
on event timing?

(The sort of key in question has two paddles.  One generates dots when
operated, the other dashes, and together they alternate dots and dashes.
  One could interface the two contacts, or one could generate the morse
code.  The advantage in decoding the code is that such keyers generate
accurately timed code, whereas the key closures will have some slop.)
--
David Woolley
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.

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[Jens Petersen]

David Woolley さんは書きました:
> On another (ameteur radio related) list, someone asked
> <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/elecraft/2008-May/090079.html> about
> devices that would allow someone with disabilities (carpal tunnel
> surgery) to use a morse key as a substitute computer keyboard.

Hmm interesting.  Naively it sounds like this would fall more into the
a11y support in gnome etc, but yeah maybe something could be done using
input methods too.

> One thought I had was that one could use an IME to achieve this, either
> by having it respond to specific hardware events, or by rigging the key
> to keys on a normal keyboard.
>
> The critical factor in achieving this would be the ability to resolve
> event times quite accurately.  Even the slowest keying speed generates
> events with spacings of less than 100ms.  I was wondering whether
> scheduling and other delays would be too variable to successfully decode
> a morse key in an IME, or whether this approach is actually worth
> following up.
>
> Does anyone have views on the viability of an input method that depends
> on event timing?

I haven't thought deeply about it but off the top of my head I can't
think of why an IME couldn't use timing of events to determine input.
Integrating such a hardware device might be need some work of of course.
  It could also be interesting to develop a keyboard driver for such a
device.


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