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Games Entertainment

Newest Quake 'Productivity Tool' -- The CLAW 131

Posted by timothy from the ok-ok- dept.
W. Starlight writes: "LinuxWorld Australia has a good article about a new type of PC game gadget called the CLAW (claw.com.au). The CLAW simply plugs into your keyboard port and has nine programmable buttons to make playing 3D shooters games like Quake easier. Also, the CLAW needs no device drivers or other software to work, hence it is operating system independent. The review has photos of the CLAW being used with a mouse to play Quake. I can't wait to try it myself!" From the number of people who sent this in, this must be second only to the Fountain of Youth among objects of untapped desire.
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Newest Quake "Productivity Tool" -- The CLAW More

Newest Quake "Productivity Tool" -- The CLAW

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  • Do they do a Left Handed version? (Score:4)

    by GC ( 19160 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @05:34AM (#666802)
    I have enough trouble having to position a mouse on the other side of the keyboard everytime some right-handed person comes and sits down at my PC.

    I doubt they will do a left handed version of the Claw, (that will fit the Right hand, mouse in Left)...

  • Okay, it actually looks dumber than the Powerglove. It's just an ergonomic keyboard! If you want that, why not just get yourself a Twiddler [handykey.com]. At least that has some non gaming uses as well. Maybe if they threw in some BAT keyboard drivers (really neat chorded one-handed keyboard, with one key for each finger and 3 for the thumb) or something, then I could see buying this, but $50 for a dedicated gaming keyboard just seems silly.

  • "An apology for the Devil: it must be remembered we have heard only one side of the story. God has written all the books." -Samuel Butler

    That's a weird quote, since God didn't write all the books. Man did. And mankind is equally affected by both the devil and God. No apologies should be forthcoming. What was dear old Sam thinking?
    ----

  • It's much easier for movement and sliding around things. I use mouse for aiming, been using this combo since my quake2 days. Now I just need to find an ambidextrous joystick with more than 4 buttons so I can do taunts and stuff without reaching over to the keyboard :)
  • I saw something similar at Fry's in Phoenix... it looked pretty much like just the keypad part of a kbd with another row (5x4 keys) with removable caps so you could write stuff on the keys; Two different models for USB or PS/2, programmed by catching keycodes from a keyboard you plug into it (i.e. no driver). I think it was like $60, in the keyboard aisle towards the right side of the store.
  • D'oh... 6x4 keys, I think.
  • My error. The five in one is actually an ability
    to execute up to 5 keystrokes in one move not
    the same as using shift to enable a different
    function for a particular key.
  • DZXC huh?

    Sounds interesting. I think I'll give it a whirl. My concern is that the pinky is useless floating on the edge. I like that I can use my index finger when play WASD style to reload, talk, etc.

    However, you do make an interesting point, and I think I'll give it an honest go. Thanks.

    Captain_Frisk
  • I misunderstood my first comment, and I think that there probably are not enough buttons for most multiplayer gaming situations. Especially in HL:Counterstrike, I think that the communication aspect is important, so a keyboard would work much better in this case. By the way, what happened to the microsoft natural keyboard? How come I don't see any more of those?

  • is it just me, or does this thing look a hell of alot like those pics of the mac prototype mouse that were leaked a while ago?
  • > You know and I know that the Columbine boys
    > were already fucked up in the head. Doom (the
    > boys didn't play Quake) didn't help anything

    You said it yourself.. those children had problems. They probably came from abusive households. They needed us (society) to give them love and instead we gave them images of the most graphic violence imagineable. I'd say it did more than "not help any", it plagued their already fragile minds with those visions until they were so desensitized that they acted out in the only way they knew how... the only way we had shown them.

    This stuff needs to be illegal.

  • Why not just use the keypad? (Score:3)

    by Speare ( 84249 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @05:41AM (#666813) Homepage Journal

    When I play First Person Shooter games, I remap all the commands I need to the numeric keypad area. Then, with LEFT hand on the keypad (keyboard moved leftward), and RIGHT hand on the mouse, I have all the controls I need without hand motion.

    I started this with the first Descent, but it works for Hexen II or others, too.

    • / = run forward
    • * = flare or torch
    • 7,9 = roll left, roll right (Descent)
      7,9 = turn left, turn right (others)
    • 8,4,6,2 = slew/strafe forward, left, right, backward
    • 1,3 = inventory left, inventory right
    • -,+ = slew up, down (Descent) -,+ = mapped to specific weapons (others)
    • Enter = jump
    • 0 = lay bomb, tripwire or mine
    • . = crouch

    There, now I don't need to spend money on a gadget that only has nine programmable keys.

  • sort of products is that they don't fit anyone with unusually shaped hands (long/short, wide/thin).

    Very true, and if you've been typing on computers since the age of nine [ZX81 doesn't count - It didn't have a real keyboard!!), the likelyhood that you have rather long fingers is pretty high! :^))

    A personally moulded one however will cost hundreds if not thousands of [insert your currency here] to produce... Still I wouldn't be surprised if they get some queries - some people take their fragging very seriously indeed.

  • leftmouse = fire

    rightmouse = mouselook (with lookspring ON)

  • You can probably ask.

    In the mouse world, unfortunately units for "lefties" have about 1/10th the market, which is why many generic designs are symmetrical.

    I guess my question is if the design was tested for a wide range of hand sizes... for long spindly fingers to short stubby ones to large or small hands.

    The design looks cool. It's not really all that complex but it has to have mind-numbing attention to every detail to be a solid product.

    If there really is a big gamer market for this I wouldn't rule out having one for the other hand as well.
  • They actually came from an abusive shool system. I don't know about their homes. When they needed love, they were laughed at and ridiculed by their classmates. Hmm, maybe that was the real problem?

    Should we let the exceptions dictate the laws in our country? Because that was what this was - an exception. %99.999 of video game players do not go out and kill people. Wow, what a country we'd live in if everytime someone screwed up, we all got slammed with a new law. You like living in your box?
    ----

  • I have one that was given to me to review by the designer, Jason Ferraro. I spent about 8 hours with it on Saturday playing Thief, and it is great.

    I have big hands but it is still comfortable, and once you get get it configured correctly, you can eliminate most of the keyboard useage. I say most, because there are is only so much you can do with nine buttons, but that is all you can keep track of without looking.

    How it works is by capturing (in program mode) the keystroke(s) (up to five per key) you type into its own flash ram. Then when you hit that button it sends the keystroke(s) like you had pressed them at the keyboard.

    My current config is still under devolopment, but at the moment Im using: (brackets is the number of buttons in that location)
    Thumb: Walk, Fast Walk, Walk Backward & ?? (4)
    Index: Strafe Left & Right (2)
    Middle: Use (1)
    Ring: Crouch (1)
    Little: ?? (1)
    Mouse: Attack, Jump, Switch Weapons

    ?? means I'm having an attach of monday morning.

    RMIT IT Test Lab Engineer

  • wow...

    i finally see someone who binds +foward to mouse2, everyone i know except for myself generally uses W. Having it on mouse2 means that you can continually move forward while giving radio commands (counter-strike). I tell them to try pressing 8 (negative) while holding down W and watching the screen.

    What i would like to see is a FPS that could distinguish between CAPITAL keystrokes and lowercase keystrokes. That way shift/caps could be used as a modifier for all keys allowing twice the buttons in the same area.
  • Don't take it as a personal attack, it's just that I'm REALLY EFFING tired of getting lumped in with all the Vampire: The Pretentious RPG people.

    And as a StoryTeller, I'm tired of my very well run live action game, or any of my World of Darkness tabletop games being lumped in with whiney preteens with crisp, ironed Toreador T-Shirts in clubs bitching about the bartender not serving them. (Someday I'm gonna have a JtHM moment)

    Although I'm much more of a fan of stuff like Nick Cave, Faith and the Muse or Dead can Dance, White Wolf's Club CD shows off real Goth Rock with a track listing including The Cruxshadows, Seraphim Shock, Wench, Carfax Abbey, Mission UK, Nosferatu and others. (We'll ignore the tactless inclusion of Sunshine Blind. Oh, well... some people like 'em).

    Marilyn Manson is not Goth Rock.

    Jimmy Carter is more goth than Manson. Mansonites are the goth equivelent of Skript Kiddies trying to weasel into the kernal list.

    --
    Evan

  • Neat, but... (Score:3)

    by OnanTheBarbarian ( 245959 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @05:00AM (#666821)
    My problem with those "moulded perfectly to your grip" sort of products is that they don't fit anyone with unusually shaped hands (long/short, wide/thin). So your fingers wind up (in my case, having long fingers) sitting all curled up, well outside those cool ergonomic grooves.

    They should just send the buttons, the circuitry, and the clay.
  • Whereas I'm VERY disturbed by "White Wolf's Club CD" because of the whiny-Toreador-T-shirt crowd (or even worse, the "I am the reincarnation of Percy Bysshe Shelley and am therefore much Gother than thou, o fie, o fie me...") your reference to JtHM gave me quite a smile, ditto the script kiddie/kernel list comparison.

    It's people like that that make me totally understand why Cliff Yablonski devotes half his hate pages to the Childer of Darknesse (TM). Fer a real hoot next time you're in Toronto, Canada check out a store called "Siren" - the proprietors, "Morpheus Blak" and "Groovella Blak", owners of the shop and founders of the *starts wiping tears of laughter from his eyes* "Toronto Gothick Society" *starts openly gut-laughing* give "Goth Talk" a certain air of believability.

    Ah, for a decent scene...
  • I agree. It's unlikely it'll fit a wide enough audience/percentage of the population if it was just done with clay and molded to match the original designer's grip.

    Worse than that, looking at the photos it might even promote the a bad hand/wrist posture for RSI. The best designs allow for flexibility in where you place your hands to give them a break.

    Calum

  • For some reason this just remindes me of the 8-bit nintendo glove. It'ts distantly similar and its just anynother cool toy that won't sell that well.
  • Devices like this have been around for years, and consistently make the 'Top 10 Worst Gadgets of the Year' for one reason or another. Are we to believe that just because the screenshots show it running Quake, that it will do better than the rest?

    --
  • Claw? What is this nonsense?

    Real men use pure keyboard, play Q1 only, (on its worst fullscreen resolution) on a 28.8k dial-up connection. Oh, and on a p/133 with less than 64 megs of ram. Puh-lease.

  • And it's called the Microsoft Sidewinder Strategic Commander.

    Take the claw, add 3 shift buttons (for a little bit of that chording action), make it USB, plus give it joystick-like capability... and U got something that beats the claw hands down.

    http://www.microsoft.com/products/hardware/sidewin der/devices/SComm/default.htm

  • But isn't it similar to using a second mouse? I don't see how this is much different from using two mice other than the improvement that there are more buttons. If the Claw is so much better, why not buy two and use two of them instead of the mouse? Another concern is how if you roll the claw to the extent of your arm, how do you pick it up to move it back in the air to go forward again? (same situation as using the mouse to move forward in Quake)

  • MS Strtegic Commander (Score:3)

    by cdrudge ( 68377 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @05:09AM (#666829) Homepage
    I personally prefer my MS Strategic Commander. Its features include both X and Y axis, plus left and right rotation. Each axis or rotation is fully programmable. On top, it has 8 programmable buttons. Also, there are 3 buttons for the thumb to press that can select a subset of the 6 main buttons on top, for a total of 26 programmable buttons. All this for about the same price. The only down side is that it is for windows...for now.
  • thats kool but i never would want to give up my mouse for a keyboard

  • Re:Do they do a Left Handed version? (Score:3)

    by evil_one ( 142582 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @05:52AM (#666831) Homepage
    It says in the article that they don't have a left handed version, but are considering one.
    ---
  • It depends which sects you ask. Many Christians, however, would say that God controls everything (and therefore, in a sense, wrote all the books). Even those that don't would still say that the Devil exerts much less direct influence over the world than God. The Devil tempts, God guides and controls. The Devil can, at most, grant some boons to his followers, but cannot directly subvert the Earth for his own purposes (if the Devil were as powerful as God, he would have won in his effort to overthrow God, and would be God, instead of a fallen angel). At the very least, the Bible, the work upon which most people form their judgment of the Devil, was written by God, effectively using humans merely as tools to record His message (or so the claim goes). Most other authoritative works concerning God and the Devil were also produced by people claiming divine inspiration. Hope that helps :)

  • I wasn't so much meaning MS releasing the driver as some geek writing a driver. I realize that the chances of MS writing a driver for another OS is less then zero.

  • Heh. I didn't know they were still selling Gravis Game Pads. I discovered awhile ago on one of my joysticks that the hat switch was perfect for directional movement (i.e., back, forward, left strafe, right strafe). Unfortunately the damn thing is just too big when I jsut need the hat switch. I was thinking about buying a gravis gamepad for that use (i used to own two), but I couldn't seem to find them in the stores anymore.

    Does this thing actually work? Or does someone know of a good device for what I need?
  • You said it yourself.. those children had problems. They probably came from abusive households. They needed us (society) to give them love and instead we gave them images of the most graphic violence imagineable. I'd say it did more than "not help any", it plagued their already fragile minds with those visions until they were so desensitized that they acted out in the only way they knew how... the only way we had shown them. This stuff needs to be illegal.

    I couldn't agree with you less on this. Fragile minded or not, those people chose to go and do what they did. A video game didn't teach them to go and kill people. It showed them how to kill demons. demons != people... Saying that video games should be banned is like saying that anyone who plays D&D is a satanist and should be burned at the stake. Come on. Get real, please.

    Their classmates, as already noted by somebody else in this thread, never showed them any compassion. Maybe the problem is with those people who feel it is their duty to rub shit in timid people's faces. Maybe you need to ban football. Maybe you need to make it illegal for these people to grow up. Part of life is struggle. Struggle with your peers, with yourself, with your society. If you can't hack it, you die or go crazy. Or kill a lot of people. In any case, they cracked, not because of some video game, but because they were too weak to be responsible for their own actions any longer.

    Irresponsible people are not going to take away my video games. I need them to let off steam. I don't kill people. I just like to do something else besides code for my classes. People like you who are willing to yank my freedom to play a video game are seriously mistaken in the direction you're taking. I think you need to reevaluate the situation and shut your mouth until you've thought it out a bit more.

  • It's the CLAW, it cannot be stopped ! -- Jim Carey - "Liar, Liar"

    --
  • At the risk of appearing a nitpicker, I'd like to say that - unless the Claw supports chording as someone suggested - it won't work for Counterstrike. Just count necessary commands: 4 movements, jump, walk, crouch, use, reload... well, that's 9 buttons already and we don't even have one key for weapon switching - and in my experience, you really want buttons for all 5 slots. I'll assume we use the keyboard for buying.

    Now of course, we could theoretically use the keyboard to supplement the scant button selection on the Claw, but is this really feasible? I couldn't get a good look at 'em from those pictures, but it sounds like it would be very difficult to get a finger out of one of those grooves, to a given key, and back while still playing.
    (We can use the keyboard for buying anyway 'cuz that happens before the fighting starts.)
  • Maybe I'm just a purist, or a freak, but I've always liked DZXC. Every time I tried WASD, I kept hitting the E for 'forward' because my hands naturally tilt slightly inward when placed on a keybaord (especially when relying on armrests on a chair to cushion my war-worn elbows).

    I do the same thing, so I just moved my config to ESDF. Leaves my left hand on the home row, which feels natural, and gives my pinky the use of not only control, shift, and tab (assuming you remap control to the correct position like I do) but also gives it easy use of q, a, and z. My typical config:

    e - forward
    d - backward
    s - slide left
    f - slide right
    a - use item (Or special in q3f)
    z - duck/crouch
    space - jump
    tab - scores (Or destroy supplystation in q3f)
    control - changes from game to game
    mouse1 - fire
    mouse2 - next weapon
    mouse3 - zoom (zoom/throw grenade in q3f)

    I can then bind various functions to keys around those on the keyboard. For instance, in q3f (my latest obsession) I use w and r for priming gren1 and gren2, and then mouse3 to throw them, q is used for build sentry/upgrade/repair/refil when engineer, detonate pipes as grenadier, turn on radar as recon. x, c, v, and b are for setting various charges as grenadier. Comms are F1-F12. Using this setup I generally end up 3rd or 4th on the board (Unless I'm an engineer who's guarding a base that doesn't get attacked).

  • Only Left Handed? (Score:3)

    by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @05:34PM (#666839) Journal

    Why did they do this only left handed? I mean, the original designer was probably a lefty, but certainly he realised that most... oh, wait. They're in Australia where everything is upside down, so lefties must be the majority.


    Eenie meenie miney moe
    Stupid voters have to go.
    Inca dinca dinca do
    I can do it, why can't you?
  • for counterstrike i use the scroll wheel for weapon switching or q to switch between primary/secondary. and scroll wheel down is reload, this would leave just enough if you used the claw for : 4movements, jump, duck, walk, use, switch between last weapons. but then you have all the radio commands and chat buttons, but you'd use the keyboard for chat anyway. i dunno, i'm not spending any money on it.

  • OK, I was too busy looking for opportunities to be funny to realize that right-handers are naturally going to put this thing in their left hand. So sue me.


    Eenie meenie miney moe
    Stupid voters have to go.
    Inca dinca dinca do
    I can do it, why can't you?
  • I have to concur. I've have a joystick called the Quickshot. It maps all imputs to a keyboard button. all eight directions, plus rotate left/right, a four way hat switch, a fire button under your finger and four extra buttons on top of the stick. It's attached to a keypanel that includes all the funtion keys, all the number keys, plus 15 extra keys. Oh, and it has the shift and alt keys, so you can use control+ or shift+.
    Even has a lovely wrist pad on it.

    Plugs into the keyboard port w/passthrough. works great with my mouse.

    (I don't use the joystick much, but I really like the control panel)

    So what makes this thing better?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Sure, that's a great idea. They could ship a half-pound of Sculpey(tm). You could form it to fit your hand, then bake it. The electronics isn't going to be hurt by a trip through the oven at the low temperature that Sculpey requires.
    -russ
  • The Matsushita microswitches I did it with worked fine. Plasticine clay hardens at a very low temperature. What is it, 220 degrees?? I always have to go look it up.
    -russ
  • Wow! I never knew Gary Larson [ctyme.com] reads slashdot. Welcome!
  • I'm so proud of you... Drilling your mind with images of death and destruction, and then getting whacked out on pot so as to not be in control of your actions... now that's a smart thing to do. I sure hope there are no weapons in your house! (and that you don't live in my neighborhood!)
  • I had a device called the gamestar in 1992 or 3 that was very similiar ... it was actually a 6 button nintendo classic controller, (purists will say the nintendo didn't have 6 buttons, but this one just had "turbo buttons" ...) with a converter box that converted the nintendo protocols into remaped keypresses and plugged inline with the keyboard ... you could load keypressess into it with a dos util it came with, or do them by hand with a button on the converter box ...

    The coolest thing about the whole thing really was that you could plug ANY nintendo controller into your pc ... So you could go buy a nice aftermarket nintendo controller. Which was great because in 1992 everyone was into those flight sticks and about the only pad you could get was the gravis gamepad (which sucked).

    so you can see this really isn't a "new type of gadget" at all ...

  • For FPSs I find that having rightmouse = Jump, and middlemouse (if you have one) = alternate fire (for games that have an alternate fire for each weapon), or zoom for Q3.

  • Just because you don't agree with her doesn't make her a troll. Somebody mod this woman back up before I start thinking signal11 was right.
  • You said it yourself.. those children had problems.

    For sure they did. their mental instability may or may not have been affected by computer games. or by violence on television. or movies. or the news. or books, or magazines. or music.

    But the main thing that differentiated these kids from the 99.9% who don't act like them? they were bullied. they were shown violence in the most direct way - applied to them. and humiliation. and what did the school do about it? their parents? anyone who should have been looking out for them? obviously, not enough.

    There are always complete nutcases going around. we can't ever assume there won't be. What we have to do is ensure they are listened to, understood, and accepted. We shouldn't be cushioning them, and:

    This stuff needs to be illegal.

    We shouldn't be cushioning anyone else. People are free to make their own choices - children being the exception to some extent, as their parents or guardians are, morally and legally, responsible for them.

    And the last thing this needs are self-righteous crusaders charging mightily up their own backsides because they choose to follow whatever media shock story is there to trigger the synapses of the braindead that day. get with the program and don't simply lash out at something you obviously don't understand.
  • I've seen things far more disturbing on television than I've seen in computer games. The news is showing people, real people, being shot dead. I find this far more distressing that blasting apart a monster from another dimension using my oh-so-real rocket launcher.

    If you really want to place blame, (and I don't believe you can simply point the finger at a single culprit), blame parents.

    You are very right in saying these are kids, and as a parent it is your responsiblity to watch out and raise your son/daughter until they are of a suitable age to "think for themselves". But how many parents actually do this? How many parents stick their kids in front of the TV, or a computer game, or whatever-else-can-be-blamed, just so they don't have to worry about them?

    And when something tragic does happen, do these parents take a little responsibility and say that maybe, possibly, they may have done a bad job? Or do they look for a scapegoat, be it computer games or the bad influence of the other kids at school?

  • Chording Keyboard (Score:5)

    by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @06:10AM (#666853)
    When Douglas Englebart invented the mouse back in the late 60s, he also invented the chording keyboard. The idea was a lot like this claw, one hand on the mouse and the other on the keyboard and no need to take either hand off its designated input device.

    For some reason, the chording keyboard never really took off. Perhaps because it is a little complex to start using, there is no 'hunt-and-peck' way to use a chording keyboard. You've only got five buttons and you have to remember which combination of simultaneous button presses will generate the characters you want to type.

    One really good thing about chording keyboards is that because there is so little hand movement required to operate them, they are far more ergonomic than regular keyboards.

    I read the article and there is no mention of chording on the claw, but it sounds like it is programmable enough that it shouldn't require any other than new software.

    Now, if only it had a USB connector so I could use it on my HP workstation in the office.
  • Sorry, I guess I didn't explain myself. What I meant was that since right-handed people (who use the mouse in the right hand...) will use the left-hand version. Eg, a claw for the left hand is the version for "righties" and a claw for the right hand would be for "lefties."
    ---
  • My only problem with that configuration is that my shoulders are the size of a small city :). Keyboards aren't exactly large either, so I like to have a key arrangement that doesn't cramp me. One of my friends came up with this arrangement about 3 years ago, and I use it in almost any game these days:

    E,D - forward,back
    S,F - strafe left, right
    A - jump
    Z - duck
    Q,W - Inventory left, right
    Space - Inv use
    Ctrl - Environment use (buttons and such)
    Shift - Force walk (I use always run)
    Tab - Inventory (for games with an inventory screen
    Standard mouselook setup, with mousewheel used for weapon switching

    There's the basics, if a game needs extra mappings, I can find space for it (Heretic 2 was a fun one to figure out!)
  • What? That's weird. Your directional keys aren't arranged in a compass-like fashion. Hell, your forward and backward keys are actually reversed! How do you keep them straight? I can't ever remember which keys are which unless they are arranged in an inverted-T shape.

    Interesting note: seems that the inverted-T-centered-about-the-"S"-key has become the de facto standard for the default setup in most new 3D games. I call it the "ass-wad" cluster (after the keys A-S-W-D.)

    C for down/crouch and space for up/jump are also part of this setup. I've gotten used to it, and I like it. Now, if we could just get game makers to agree that X is next weapon and Z is previous weapon I'd never have to change anything from the default setup!

  • Same Here. I use just 13-15 buttons w/ the left hand, and i use them without looking or thinking. If the claw doesnt offer me more buttons than my keyboard setup, its of little use.
  • I just started paying more attention when crossing the streets after Carmageddon. So there's good sides to these games too :)
  • This is great!!! all the way down the thread!! You come in with a view contrary to Slashdot's normal population, and then proceed to defend it seriously!

    Bravo!

    I'd bite, too, just for the hell of it, but it's been better said down the thread.

  • I have a feeling this could work very well for long gaming sessions due to its 'ergonomic' design - my keyboard kills my wrists after only an hour or so.

    I think a lot of people may be missing the point here - this device is not intended to increase functionality; it is intended for comfort and speed. As I see it, this is a trade-off that may well be worthwhile: the number of times I've died because my hand was in the wrong place on the keyboard...

    I wonder if it would be possible to configure this with a 'shift' type button for the more esoteric controls many people seem to want. Two shift buttons would increase the total possible commands to 32 (9 original, 8 each with shift 1 or 2 depressed, 7 with both shift 1 & 2 depressed), which should be enough for the most complex config while still keeping the comfort and speed of the main, most-used buttons.

  • Re:Why not just use the keypad? (Score:3)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @06:17AM (#666861)
    When people look at my mapped keys for First person shooters, they're like "What the hell?!", but I've designed it for maximum efficiency.

    Move Forward: Left Shift

    Move Backward: Z

    Strafe Left: Left CTRL

    Strafe Right: Left ALT

    Crouch: A

    Run On/Off: X

    Jump: Space

    Fire/Attack: Left Mouse Button

    Zoom: Right Mouse Button

    In addition, I use the mouse to steer my character.

    All of these keys are in one area of the keyboard, and are all easily accessable to the left hand while I steer/aim with the mouse using my right hand.

    I started using this combination when I was playing Half Life, after many years of simply using the arrow keys with no mouse. That worked for wolfenstein and Doom, but not the real 3D games. My new style took a lot of getting used to, but it works well - especially for snipers. It's very efficient, and I kick ass in a game of Quake III. :)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • I'm interested to hear from people who actually think 9 keys is enough for your average first person shooter.

    All of the configs I have seen from the best Quake players use a whole lot more than 9 keys. I mean, you've got at least the following: 4 for movement, 1 for jump, 1 for walking speed (stealthy!). Maybe even 1 for crouch and 1 for zoom if you're so inclined.

    On top of that, you need to be able to switch weapons. Nobody I know that is anywhere close to good uses two (or one) key to cycle through weapons. With weapon switch times the way they are, you need one button for each weapon or you face swallowing a rocket without any ability to return fire while you browse your gun collection. So in Quake3, that gives us at least 6 more keys to bind.

    If you're playing team deathmatch, or ctf, you're going to need teamsay binds, so you don't have to stop and drop the console to tell your team where you are, where enemies are, etc. That's another three or four keys, minimum.

    I use about 20 keys, give or take a few. Give me a controller that has under half that many, and I'm pretty sure I'd do a lot worse.

    Just my 2c.

  • It says in the article: "We may well see a right-handed version of the CLAW". The current CLAW is left-handed.

    --

  • But it's not a mouse.

    Essentially, it's a sculpted, programmable keypad. Iit plugs into a keyboard port and generates scan codes; pressing a thumb button, for instance, might broadcast a signal for 's'.

    Devices like this in functionality (but not form) have been used for quite some time by hard-core flight-simmers who prefer to use a device resembling a control panel, rather than memorizing a few dozen keyboard commands.
  • How hard could it be to build one of these - why not an Open Source claw?

    The basic need would be to generate keyscan codes, easily done with a PIC or similar. Getting a nice injection-moulded handrest would of course be harder, but I was just thinking of a row of five buttons at the top of the device (weapons), a space-bar like thing and maybe a horizontally-activated thumb button or two. With most games allowing reconfiguration you could just make it send static keycodes.

    Might take a week to do? Wish I had one free.
  • The idea of "play" strongly influences overt behavior, and at some level it is common sense. For humans, as for other animals, play models behavior-- this especially true for kids. Those cute wolf cubs rolling around onscreen in Mutual Of Omaha practice tearing the shit out of each other and prey animals; but when play gets too rough or passes some indefinite period, they immediately shift to more friendly modes of action: grooming, bonding. In Quake OTOH the asskicking and gibbing goes on without end or respite. It's almost a perfect realization of the fantasy world of a disassociative paranoid schizo --all deathwish and adreno-fear-rushes *all* the time! I know that I have experienced increased violent urges after long periods of playing quake and --my old favorite!--Carmaggedon (possibly the *perfect* game of all time except DOS grfx suck). It's hard exactly to explain the nature of the urges, it's not like they are totally new, heretofore unexperienced feelings --the games introduce nothing new-- they just kind of spread more freely after I've done a lot of kill-play games. I am generally too busy to play these things anymore so I am comparing on and off periods in my life when I could. No question about it: after a bout of Carmaggedon, I am in greater danger of doing something stupid with my car when rudely cutoff by another driver. And woe to the pedestrian who decides to test my tolerance of jaywalking !(I live in an urban area, so passive-aggressive jaywalking streetpeople are common hazard)
    When we are in adolescence, the autonomous imaginative dreamworld of childhood is still a truly formidable and unpredictable god moving our limbs and suddenly usurping our thoughts: the kid who is to all appearances a little adult 6 days out of seven, may say or do anything, anything at all, on that seventh day. Lots of exposure to ultraviolence, aggression without the slimmest veil of sublimation with blood and guts and heads bouncing down stairs, will unquestionably have an negative impact on the personality dev of anybody. Gameplay like Art is profoundly meaningful, valuative, and exemplary. Better the kids spend their time learning C, taking piano, playing tennis, going to raves, having sex and staring at Botticelli paintings than doing this stuff. Sadly our society makes a lot of these more difficult to attain than it should and almost completely forbids them to some of its members, which gives so much financial incentive for pushing the bloodsport fantasy games.
  • exactly. Just from looking at the screenshot, I can tell you that this is worthless to an experienced FPS gamer. How are you supposed to switch weapons? Even in quake1, there were eight standard weapons. This means that you need at least 6 buttons to switch weapons at your disposal quickly. Then you need one button to jump, two to strafe, one to move backwards.

    6+1+2+1 = 10 buttons

    And those are just the necessary buttons, you need many more for team messages in games such as CTF.

    my binds section of my q1 cfg (I'm too lazy to count, but this claw thing needs more buttons):
    bind t "messagemode"
    bind y "messagemode2"
    bind ` "toggleconsole"
    bind c "+jump"
    bind x "+moveleft"
    bind v "+moveright"
    bind space "+back"
    bind mouse1 "+attack"
    bind mouse2 "+forward"
    bind tab "+showscores"
    bind pause "pause"
    bind f4 myq
    bind [ ourq
    bind ] enemyq
    bind q ping
    bind f grapple
    bind w flagstatus
    bind d rl
    bind g lg
    bind s snailgun
    bind b db
    bind 2 shotgun
    bind 1 axe
    bind 4 nailgun
    bind z gl

    bind = "say_team acknowledged."
    bind - "say_team negative."
    bind \ "say_team im on it."
    bind [ "say_team enemy quad."
    bind ] "say_team our quad."
    bind , "say_team im on defense."
    bind . "say_team im on offense."
    bind f3 "say_team im at quad."
    bind f4 "say_team my quad."
    bind f5 "say_team check quad."
  • Now introducing, the 101 key solution to all your problems! Yes, that's right, the KEYBOARD! With this spiffy tool, you can write messages, edit documents, and even play Quake! *ooohhh* Specifically customized to give you wrist problems in under 2 years, or your money back! Dont wait, act now, these things are so durable, you can break your monitor with one, and it will still work! *oooohhh* ------ On another note, there is this neat thing in Quake called "Bind".. Yeah, it allows you programmable keys. Sorry fellas, they have had keyboard macro emulators out for way too long for this to be original. And plus, 9 just isnt enough; I have about what... well, more than 2/3 of my keyboard bound to various quick-chats, commands of all sorts (Yes, I am a CTF player). But hey, if ergonomic keyboard toys float your boat, the more power to you.
  • Not exactly. More like "rudimentary" as in "simple to put together".

    By the way, it's hard for anyone to take you seriously when your .sig consists of two ASCII birds propped on an ASCII penis.

  • Make your own claw only with software (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You can get something simular with linux and ALE One hand keyboard: http://freshmeat.net/projects/aleonehandkeyboard/ without spending any money. Happy playing, Johns
  • Well, people say I have the freakiest keybindings they've ever seen... Here's what I have for Quake...

    Left mouse - fire
    Right mouse - walk forward
    Middle mouse - zoom
    Space - back up
    A - jump
    S - crouch
    D - strafe left
    F - strafe right

    with various keys around that mapped to different weapons.

  • You clearly weren't around when there was no autorun option (in DOOM).. My setup is a bit closer to 'the norm':
    Q - backwards W - duck E - weprev R - wepnext
    A - forward D/F game dependant
    Z - strafe left X - strafe right C/V game dependant
    Shift run/walk, with caps as a fixed toggle. Ctrl for zoom. Mouse pri and secondary fire.

    This is a somewhat "evolved" state spawning from mouse control of Descent and Quake 2 keylayout :-)
    --

  • As far as I know USB is proprietary and closed

    Wrong. USB is patented, but the license is Free (license us your patents, and we'll license you ours).

    so it's unlikely that USB drivers will ever be included with the standard kernel.

    So why are they in 2.4?

  • uh...did you read the article? it's for your LEFT hand, which normally rests on the keyboard. you still use the mouse...

  • The big difficulty I had with a chording keyboard was less to do with memorizing the proper chords for particular character sequences and more a problem of independently moving my pinkie and ring fingers.

    Open your hand with all fingers extended, as if to sign "stop" or indicate the number 5. Bend *just* your pinkie in to touch your palm. Do the same with your ring finger. Now try it with the other hand. Notice how much your other fingers bend along with the one you are trying to isolate? My left hand is far worse than my right.

    That lack of completely independent movement kept giving me innacurate chords with my left hand. Lots of practice marginally improved the situation, but not enough to make sticking with the new keyboard worthwhile.
    Who knows, a different configuration of chording keyboard (not so much finger curl?) might have been workable.

  • X-keys from Pi Engineering http://www.xkeys.com [xkeys.com] does a hell of a lot more than this thing. The pro version costs $150 and has 58 programmable keys. There are 2 layers to the device with one key programmed as a "Shift" you can effectively program 107 different macros. Very useful to have one layer for your games and another with useful bits of code programmed like subroutine headers and stuff. I've been able to record hundreds of keystrokes and assign them to a single key. I'm not sure what the limit is. Also supports repeating key strokes and pauses. No super-sleek ergonmic design but it also works on any OS and you can label and program the keys really easily...
  • Has anyone made something that uses your feet? Not just the accelerator/brake gadgets for racing. It would seem like a useful idea to have a foot activate set of 4-point hat switches. One for each foot. I've seen something like this on stand-up arcade games for skiing. Nothing for PC use. Anyone make such a device?
  • Started to. Didn't finish it. Found a better keyboard. Kinesis Essential.
    -russ

  • Re:MS Strtegic Commander (Score:4)

    by Saige ( 53303 ) <evil...angela@@@gmail...com> on Monday October 30, 2000 @05:19AM (#666879) Journal
    I know the big problem with the strategic commander for a lot of people here is that it's by M$ and therefore only for Windows. But I would suggest people get working on making a driver for it, because it is quite useful - and seems to be tons better than this device. As pointed out by cdrugde, the thing moves in the x and y directions, plus twist, and then has all those buttons on top of it. And it's useful for many games - already used it on Diablo II with some success, and just about any game that makes use of the keyboard can be adapted to it.

    It took me the weekend to get used to it for Quake - at first I was having a lot of trouble moving around. So I used the time to finally beat Quake 2 on single player, and in the process, got the hang of it, and am already better than I ever was with the keyboard.

    Now I just need to find a good way to keep it stuck in one place on the desk - it's not quite heavy enough to handle the movement of a game of CTF without sliding a little. Going to try some sticky tack on it, see if that does it.
    ---
  • I used to mouse entirely with my left hand (I'm left handed.) I've switched now to almost always mousing with my right hand. Because I hop between so many shared computers, moving the mouse got to be a pain so I just got used to using the mouse with my right.

    That works for all applications, except games. I've tried, and I just suck too much with my non-primary hand mousing in Quake. That's one application where you've got to switch it over.

    FWIW, they do have left handed mice that are contoured to fit 'us', but they generally don't have a wheel so I wouldn't consider one.
  • It depends which sects you ask. Many Christians, however, would say that God controls everything (and therefore, in a sense, wrote all the books).

    Using the above as my starting point, wouldn't it be more realistic to say that any power that the devil has is power granted him from God? (Since god controls everything, and therefore, in a sense, controls the devil too.)

    -----------------------

    In the beginning was GOD and VOID.

    (Genesis, first creation myth)

    From what was everything created?

    God or Void?

    If you say void, then everything that exists is really NOTHING (since it was created from nothing.)

    If you say God, then everything that exists is really GOD (since it was created from GOD, who is infinate, who has no beginning nor end.)

    Since it makes less sense to believe that everything was created from nothing, it stands to reason that "the devil" is really just another aspect of GOD himself. As am I. As are you. As is this chair.


    -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
  • I know it's not exactly what you wanted, but you could always go with a foot mouse [footmouse.com].

  • Heh. That scene was the first thing I thought of when I read the article, but I didn't think anyone else would remember. Classic.
  • i use the entire left side of my keyboard, minus the caps lock, win key, tab, and control, and 6 on my natural keyboard pro granted there's alot, and i have useful things such as talking, and menu hopping... things you can't really do with one hand on the mouse and one on "the claw" ... i have played games for years, i cna't imagine a 3d shooter withotu the keyboard now, even though it was hard to do at first. i would like to see the claw try descent, or even tougher keyboard handling games. my best laugh is 3d shooters on game consoles... it just doesn't work out.
  • You wanna talk violent games??? How about all the shit kids played when I was a tike. Things like cops-n-robbers, cowboys-n-indians and such. We played with toy guns, or worse, BB guns (IMHO real weapons) and it was lots of fun, but much more violent, not to mention realistic, than video games. We pointed actual gun-shaped thingies (as seen on TV) at each other and pulled the trigger. Yet, we didn't go get high caliber weapons and kill folks/ourselves. Why not? Because from the oldest memories I have, a game was a game, it was not reality. Kids so young that they can't make this distinction aren't the ones killing folks. They're 3 yrs. old.

    IMHO, moving polygons around on a screen, is so far detached from reality, that anyone over the age of 5 who can't make the distinction b/t it and reality, have other far more serious issues. Also note, even though you may not be able to admit it, your kid may not be the quickest monkey in the barrel, and may need help.

    There is one, incredibly simple yet seemingly unadoptable, solution that keeps nagging at me. They're children, not independent adults. Parents, if your kid is doing something you don't like, it's your obligation to do something about it. If little Timmy is playing a game you don't like, take it away. From your standpoint, these games are practically a weapon, and as such, would you let your kids play with them? Don't let your child play with a 'loaded weapon' (I cringe using that metaphor) and then be shocked when he hurts someone.

    Another thought. There are lots of adults that play these games too. And for better or worse, it's not your place to tell them what they can or can't do. For me personally, I've got no problem with it. From Quake or Carmageddon (and Worms!)to Re-volt or The Incredible Machine, they're games, and as such, do not influence my life more than the time spent indulging in them. I don't need my life altered because mom or dad can't say no.

    If I want to watch the latest Hollywood explosion movie, or just run over pedestrians in Carmageddon, it's not up to the new players in the blame game to take that away.

  • It says in the article that they don't have aleft handed version, but are considering one.

    Yeah, of course the're "considering one". If they manage to sell gobs and gobs of these things, they might make a left-handed one.

    Leatherman's [leatherman.com] said the same thing about The Wave [thinkgeek.com]. The Wave's impossible to do the uber-sexy, one-handed draw with your left hand. I'm left-handed, but mouse with my right. Guess I get to use a Claw, but not the Wave.

    (Well, I use a Wave, but as cool as I might. :) )

  • Ahem... (Score:3)

    by Fervent ( 178271 ) on Sunday October 29, 2000 @06:41AM (#666887)
    Take a look at this [microsoft.com] and this [microsoft.com].

    Not OS-independent, but a hell of a lot more swankier. Plus, it wouldn't take much effort to craft some rudimentary drivers in Linux.

  • it seems that it would be easy to put a mouseball (or IR mouse) within that and then you don't need two modules. if you still wanted the ease of OS indep, then just make them separate cables.
    that way you could just drag that around as the mouse, and have the buttons right there. seems to make far more sense to me than to have two hands to do it.
    am I missing something on that?
    ------------------------------------------- -------
  • I would make all of them generate weird key combinations and modify some open-source tetris. Then I could play tetris on my third monitor (yes, triple-head system) while the rest of my brain/cpu/io-systems could read /.

    My database says that my database says that my database says....
  • The Twiddler2 [handykey.com] looks to be a nice chorded keyboard.
    --
  • A scene from an old "Get Smart" episode where Maxwell Smart faces the evil Dr. Claw. In response to Agent 86's constant misprounciation of his name, sayeth Dr. Claw (who is of Asian ancestry):

    No! Not Craw! Craw!

    A scene from when I was in grad school living in a house with 5 fellow students. After seeing this episode they turn and say to me:

    Craw!

    See nick.

  • "it is operating system independent"
    Am I really the only one who thinks ALL hardware is OS independant? (yep, even WinModems)
    It's the OS that needs to adapt, not the hardware. (ask Apple! ;-))

    Other than that, this seems like a cool artifact ... not really worth buying though.

    btw, maybe change the /. poll from scroll lock to this thing?

    -CBAS

  • Re:Hot damn, slashdotted already? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Of course it's slashdotted. The site is called LinuxWorld so you know it can't handle any kind of load. The should try putting a real operating system on their servers and see if that improves matters.
  • Pretty close. What he actually did was put a mouse on one side of a conventional keyboard, and a chording keyboard on the other. When you need to do a lot of typing, you have both hands on the regular board. But when you decide to mouse, you move your other hand to the chording keyboard, so that you can still do some keyboarding.
  • Typical UT Capture the flag keyboard mapping:

    Up, Down, Strafe Left, Strafe Right, 10 weapons, crouch, jump, feign death, 3 acknowledgment voice commands, 3 orders/status voice commande, a couple taunts...

    That makes so many more buttons than there are on this device... so many more...

    phobos% cat .sig
  • If G-d uses tools like these to control the world, it would have to be this one specifically, with slightly remapped buttons: Left, Right, Up, Down, and "Smite".

    Think about it... what a great timesaver!
  • 9 buttons doesn't seem like enough. In my Quake config, I have at least 17 buttons that I use relatively often (8 weapon buttons, duck, jump, forward, back, strafe left, strafe right, scoreboard, and talk) and more that I don't use as often. Plus, you'd have to take your hand off the Claw to type if you were in talk mode.
  • Well, duh, if you're right handed you use your right hand for the mouse.Most people are right handed.
  • Well, I guess I'll just have to do my best to imagine it. Um, someone want to clue me in on what it looks like? I can only assume it's not quite as dumb as the Powerglove for NES :)

  • There are some activities for which a "specialized" controller is nearly indispensible.

    I have a SpaceORB 360, which is basically a joystick with 6 axes (three translation axes and three rotation axes). It's in the shape of a sphere which you grab and twist (gently) to move around. It also has six buttons. It shows up as a DirectInput device under Windoze, and there's support for it in the Linux joystick driver suite. (Sadly, SpaceTec/Labtec no longer make the controller. They show up on eBay from time to time.)

    Now, as a game playing controller, its use is limited. You can't whip around as quickly as you can with a mouse, nor can you aim as accurately. However, as a spectator camera controller, it kicks extreme ass. In fact, when John Carmack announced he was taking parametric joystick control out of Quake-3, I was very disappointed, since it meant it was now much more difficult to record good demos off a live server. I even created a page of ORB demos [best.com] to make my argument but, alas, parametric control was still lost.

    The point is: Keyboard and mouse is good for a lot, but for some work, specialized controllers are just amazing.

    Schwab

  • When I play Quake3, my left hand covers 17 keys, doing everything from movement to weapon selection to zooming getting the score. When I play Thief, my left hand covers 21 keys. And of course, the right hand always does looking with the mouse and attacking. What makes them think that 9 keys is a big advantage? It's only useful if, #1, you are a pure keyboard user, and #2, your right hand is on the inverted T arrow keys.

    I knew one guy who was a pure keyboard user, but he was actually pretty good. He kept both hands on the home key and then used the right hand for moving and looking with the left hand for weapon selection. I think he had special macro keys bound to make him turn ultra-fast as well. Of course, that's still no substitute for a good mouse.

    If you're curious about my config, I keey my left fingers on W-E-R-T. I use the 3x3 square of 1-2-3/Q-W-E/A-S-D for weapon selection (yes, I really do use all the weapons). This is much faster than using a mouse wheel or otherwise cycling. More commonly used weapons are closer to the home row, which reduces finger stress. I use T/G for forward/backward and R/F for left/right. Since you never want to move both forward and backwards, or both left and right, you only need 2 fingers to move, which frees up 2 fingers for faster weapon selection. The other 4 keys are score (tab, handled by pinky), zoom (space-- thumb), walk (alt-- thumb), and use (B-- thumb). Fire, crouch, and jump are on the mouse buttons.

    Thief has even more bindings because you have 3 different walk speeds, 4 inventory commands, and you need lean left/right. Now how could you put all of those onto 9 buttons? Maybe it would work for Counterstrike, when you rarely switch weapons...

    -Ted

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