WEBVTT

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nice

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okay so this is the data hand personal

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it's a keyboard it's weird there's no getting around that but it's weird for a

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reason it's more ergonomic more comfortable and can even make you a

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faster typer or so they claim so did data on systems go out of business

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because this is an awful idea a bad

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product or is this bizarre board from

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1995 the absolute best input device you

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like many modern ergonomic keyboards the data hand takes a split board approach

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it has two modules that can be freely positioned however you like according to

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your own personal neck connected by an 18-inch d-sub cable that you'll have to

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buy an extension for if you want to take advantage of the quarter-inch threads on

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the bottom of the modules like if you want to mount them to your chair or to

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the included laplander at its core the data hand aims to reduce the amount of

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movement and force required to register a keystroke it's designed so that your

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hands are resting comfortably on these cushy palm rests placing very little

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strain on the carpal tunnel muscles and instead of having your fingers curling

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and contorting in unnatural ways to reach keys the data hand has individual

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wells for each digit where each keystroke

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requires only a half inch of travel for your fingers and each finger can press

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down or in any of the four cardinal

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directions the switches are optical with the keys

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relying on magnets to snap back into place they're super sensitive though to

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the point where accidental key presses are really hard to avoid and sometimes

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even when your hands are just resting on them you'll suddenly get a bunch of s's going across your screen more on the

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learning curve in a minute but as for ergonomics having each finger do less

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work while moving in many directions other than one repetitive stroke

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is a definite plus each module can be

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adjusted for different hand sizes by raising tilting or rocking the key wells

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and by choosing between small and large palm rests at the time of ordering so

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it's ergonomic as heck but can it help you type faster

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it seems like it could in theory but the question is how long would it

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take you to get there it should be used to

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control a giant mech yeah there's there's ps2 on the other side of that

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okay we're going to LTT Store.com that's my task i want to go to monkey type

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that's delete that's restart no this is oh that's back this is

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incredibly difficult how do i get to blue mode

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there's another typo oh god over

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no no i did it well that's a terrible mouse

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experience can i stop now yeah you can still

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yeah i never want to use that again despite it being a completely different

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typing paradigm the designers did try

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and make it familiar the layout is derived from the qwerty layout with most

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key clusters corresponding to letters that you're used to hitting with that

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same finger however it's not a perfect translation and you can see why

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t y n and b on a regular keyboard are kind of in no man's land so these have

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to be moved to other random fingers which definitely takes some getting used

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to same goes with symbols enjoy learning to type in apostrophe with your left

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hand's middle finger then you've got the thumb clusters

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they've got modifiers for switching layers not unlike pressing shift on a

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qwerty keyboard except there's four layers

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granted one of those is a mouse which is awful please god no but at least it's

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there for people who need it but when combined with the atypical layout all of

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this makes the whole thing pretty damn alien when you first sit down with

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it to be frank jesse who typically types that between 120 and 130 words per

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minute on a qwerty and got to around 40 words spread on an ergodox after a day

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of usage tried the data hand and after a half day their best score was just three

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words per minute you just can't have someone on your payroll typing that

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slowly it's it's bad in data hands own

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advertising they say that it only takes a short time to get up to speed on the

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data hand but a short time is relative

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this guy who ran a data hand as his daily driver back in 99 said it took him

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over a month to get up to speed and that was after actually taking time off work

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to get used to it that's a pretty steep cost but then again can't put a price on

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health except in the states except in the states

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so let's say you're sold should you rush out and buy

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your very own data hand that's tricky because the company stopped selling them

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in 2008 well how about secondary markets

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ebay craigslist if you read it

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if you're lucky the boards are out there but they can be hard to find we only got

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this one because someone donated to us completely out of the blue after being

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interested in it for years but maybe there's another way

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a small but very dedicated group is looking to revive the spirit of the data

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hand with their own projects like ben grover's law board an open source

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keyboard you can 3d print and build yourself here's ben typing at 120 words

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per minute on one which is three times faster than the average person can do on

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a standard qwerty all without wrist extension and ulnar deviation i have to

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admit part of me really wants to get into this but maybe the data hand failed

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for a reason without a public statement from the company or a reply to my

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linkedin message to the founder we can only speculate on what led to this

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curious keyboard's demise but what we do know is that this device targeted a

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relatively narrow demographic and cost between 500 and 1300 dollars depending

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on which model you bought and when which is really expensive even for ergo

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keyboards which are often in the 400 range today this means that data hand

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relied on a limited number of sales with one core product plus a few wacky

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accessories like the data chair but in

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my opinion the learning curve must have been a big contributor to the low demand

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you needed some serious issues to justify investing the time and the money

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required for this ultimate ergonomic solution but today today maybe you just

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need to be a nerd for my part i'm really interested in this concept but i'd like

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to see some changes like perhaps an integrated trackball mouse for the

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people who need it instead of this cartesian bullspit i hate the mouse

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and maybe a more optimized layout that doesn't even try to be qwerty because

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it's already ridiculous to learn anyway so you might as well just use something

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that i don't know puts all the vowels on your strongest fingers or something but

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for everyone else who needs an ergonomic solution that's not

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so life-changing just get a redox moonland or something

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so thanks for watching guys if you like this video we have a bunch of other weird keyboard reviews check out the one

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that has no keys at all that was fun to learn