Ever since the wonderful AgendA (not to be confused with the Agenda VR3) I've been a firm believer in the use of Microwriting for PDA text input. Unfortunately I've been in the minority - chording keyboards have never been much of a commercial success. And this has led to relatively high prices for few chording keyboards available.
The Cykey could change all that. At less than $100 (£58) it promises to be an inexpensive way to Microwrite on PDAs. It allows single handed text entry to a PalmOS PDA or a PC, using a keyboard only 125 x 80 x 6.5 mm. That's just a little bigger than a Palm Vx.
A chording keyboard uses a small number of keys (the CyKey has nine) which are operated by one hand alone. To get the wide range of characters needed multiple keys are pressed simultaneously in various combinations; just like playing chords on a piano.
It might seem daunting learning the chords for the alphabet - a bit like learning the ASCII codes in binary. But CyKey uses the Microwriter codes invented by Cy Endfield and Chris Rainey in the 70's. These mnemonically relate the buttons being pressed to the shape of the resulting letter. Its a proven system that works well.
As a result it is claimed that Microwriting can be learned in 30 to 60 minutes.
CyKey uses half-duplex IrDA to talk to the Palm. Since there are no ACKs coming back from the PDA there is no need for an infrared detector and its electronics, allowing the keyboard can run for six months on a single lithium coin cell. Unfortunately the latest Tungsten Palms do not support half duplex IrDA and so are currently incompatible.
There are some interesting notes about the keyboard's power consumption compared with Bluetooth on the CyKey site.