deskthority

Just found out that there was a project called PianoText.
Users do not need a computer keyboard to type - they just need their (electronic) piano keyboard.
Their idea comes from the Stenotype, i.e. typing chords and syllables simultaneously with a few fingers instead of typing just individual characters. (This was something that I learnt only a few months ago.)

Unlike the mainstream computer keyboards, Stenotype designs have no baggage from traditional typewriters, and have very progressive and ergonomic designs to begin with - very much like some designs of ergonomic computer keyboards:

I almost had a programming project this year that used a computer keyboard to play the piano.

I talked about something like that in the other thread, i.e. use computer keyboard to play "piano music".
This post is the other way round: use piano keyboard to type and enter text on a computer.

On a slightly unrelated note, Planck has the feature of playing music on different keypresses since it has a speaker

Some of the the first telegraphs and also typewriters (the first use was to transcribe telegraphy!) used piano-like keyboards, with a letter on each key
I wrote about it in the Wiki about QWERTY, because the staggered QWERTY had evolved out of such a layout. First, there were only letters on white and black keys, then a row was added for digits and vowels were moved to its own row .. and then letters were swapped here and there in later iterations which ultimately resulted in the QWERTY layout, that when sales took off was formally chosen as standard by the leading typewriter manufacturers.

In fact, using computer a keyboard to play music or input musical notes were fairly common back in the days when MIDI keyboards were not as cheap as they are today. I recollect, ten years ago, most MIDI amateurs or newbie "music producers" didn't have anything more than a computer and a (psudo-)professional audio card whent they started doing the music editting thing, so to say most of them probably made their very first pieces of MIDI music by hammering on computer keyboards and clicking around with mice.

It's an interesting idea that we could input letters back into computer through MIDI keyboards, which usually come with 88 keys, 76keys, 61 keys or less, quite adequate as long as number is concerned, but in fact a musical keyboard logically has only 12 keys (an octave) and it just repeats the pattern several times to form a complete keyboard. Personally speaking, it feels more unnatural(awkward) typing on a musical keyboard than using a computer keyboard to play musical notes.

Mr.Nobody wrote: ↑In fact, using computer a keyboard to play music or input musical notes were fairly common back in the days when MIDI keyboards were not as cheap as they are today. I recollect, ten years ago, most MIDI amateurs or newbie "music producers" didn't have anything more than a computer and a (psudo-)professional audio card whent they started doing the music editting thing, so to say most of them probably made their very first pieces of MIDI music by hammering on computer keyboards and clicking around with mice.

It's an interesting idea that we could input letters back into computer through MIDI keyboards, which usually come with 88 keys, 76keys, 61 keys or less, quite adequate as long as number is concerned, but in fact a musical keyboard logically has only 12 keys (an octave) and it just repeats the pattern several times to form a complete keyboard. Personally speaking, it feels more unnatural(awkward) typing on a musical keyboard than using a computer keyboard to play musical notes.

i can;t imagine playing music on a normal keyboard... but yeah, even now composer use midi keyboards to compose. Music schools usually have tons of them in the tech lab