Five keys · thirty-one chords
The Mother of All Demos — 03 / 07
The Keyset
The mouse only ever handled position. Commands came from the left hand, on a five-key handset played like chords.
01
Both hands, neither moving
Press keys together and the combination is a character or a command. Five keys give thirty-one, and neither hand ever had to leave its position — the right on the mouse, the left on the keyset, the full keyboard between them.
02
The half that did not survive
It took weeks to learn and made the system look difficult, so the industry took the mouse and left the keyset behind.
Engelbart argued against that for the rest of his life. He designed for daily use by a trained user, not for a first try by a stranger, and he thought the trade the industry made was the wrong one.
Still open work
Training, chords and collective method were the parts nobody productised.