Re: Bopomofo keyboards in Taiwan

Michael Everson wrote:

> At 13:40 -0400 2005-08-31, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > > No one manufactures keyboards without letters engraved on them.
> >
> >Seems like it might be cheaper to manufacture lots of identical keycaps
> >than 80 or so different keycaps as on a standard keyboard.
>
> The marketplace thinks other than you do, apparently.

I think the cost of marking keycaps is real, but compared to the rest of
the cost of a keyboard, near microscopic. The value manufacturing and
poushing through the sales channel a keyboard with no keycaps is
apparently no more then zero except for the smallest niche cases, if you
believe the market.

>
> >If they are told that it's the only way, then they have nothing to
> >measure it against.
>
> I have already said, many times, that if you or anyone else has an
> alternate scheme I would be interested in offering it as a choice to
> Vai users. None of you has got out your pencils and tried to meet the
> brief I set before you, so far.

I mentioned earlier that there is some research ongoing at IBM - I think
some sw was recently released at their Alphaworks site. I would be
interested if you think that might or might not be a viable non-keyboard
method for entering the characters.

Best,

Barry