• MrFreespinmr
• 01 Nov 2024
• Стартапы, идеи, проекты
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Try tapping your fingers on the table

After a week's training a person can type 400 symbols a minute — twice the speed of a skilled typist — if he employs a new apparatus which has been designed by Georgi Zagorelsky, a young Leningrader. A more elaborate version of this GEZOTYPE (the name is formed from the initial letters of the inventor's first and surname) will make it possible to type more than 800 symbols a minute, in other words, to type at the speed of speech.

At first Georgi had the idea of designing a speed typing device that would fit into the mouth — a thin plate with sensors on the palate. Touched by the tongue, the sensors would react by actuating the electrict typewriter.

Very soon, however, this concept had to be discarded as impracticable. Then Zagorelsky developed another idea: in talking, man uses his lips, tongue and teeth — only three main sound-forming "variables”. Typing involves the ten fingers of his hands. This seemed to offer greater possibilities. But the speed of speaking varies from 600 to 1,000 symbols a minute while a skilled typist can get up to 200. Hence, the typewriter keyboard is imperfect, slowing the fingerwork.

What if a panel were built that would permit man to simply move his fingers left and right when setting down symbols? Try tapping your fingers on the table. Then rub back and forth quickly and you will see that the second type of movement is much easier and faster.

The latest model of Zagorelsky's device is a control box that can be placed on the palm of a hand. By running fingers over the box's panel, you can feel slightly protruding knobs, which look like mushroom caps. There is a wire stretching from the box to the typewriter.

"There are six knobs acting as sensors, four of which form a column in the panel's middle and two on its sides; by simply running your finger along them, you can instantly type any text," explained the inventor. "Of course, the position of the 'caps' must be learned before setting about typing."

By touching the sensor, the operator's finger turns it, and the sensor, in turn, closes with the edge of its "cap" either the right or the left pair of contacts. By running the finger alternately from the right and from the left along the central sensors, one can type eight letters. By running the fingers over the panel's surface and touching the sensors in different combinations, one can reproduce all the letters and signs of the Russian alphabet. The signals coming from the contacts, by passing through the gezotype's simple electronic circuit, switch on the corresponding electromagnets, which type the required letters.

Ussing two panels — one for each hand — can bring the speed to 800 symbols a minute — practically the speed of speech.

"The use of the gezotype in typewriters is not an end in itself," commented Zagorelsky. "This device can be employed in wide-ranging information machines. Or take another possibility: conversion of the text into a visible forms on an illuminated indicator board would make it possible to lecture to deaf-and-dumb people. The gezotype could put the telephone within reach of the deaf: the caller would set symbols on the board and the signals would be transmitted to the electric typewriter of the one being called, who would then be able to read the visible text."

Essentially, the panel of this new device is a keyboard. It is a tempting idea to use it to replace the complicated keyboards of telegraph apparata, lettersorters, the panels of computers and automated teaching devices, etc. Of course, it could have many other applications. An incentive to its development is the fact that even a laboratory sample costs only 20-30 roubles. The inventor maintains he has spent less than 10 roubles on it.

by Alexander RATOV from the magazine IZOBRETATEL I RATSIONALIZATOR (Inventor and innovator)
Sputnik. №5 May 1974