Post by @nickrauchen@c.im

2026-09-20 16:18 UTC

@cstross@wandering.shop @j2bryson@mastodon.social @newtontalk@bitbang.social Unfortunately... most of my problem comes from large fingers on tiny screens. 🙁 Perhaps some tuning would help. But I took to the #Palm and developed fluent stylus-based text input within days. I've been using #iOS devices for more than ten years with little progress beyond typing with thumbs and going back to make corrections. I realized that many of you who are reading this might not even know what the #Palm user interface looked like. So here are some photos. Note the #Graffiti cheat sheet--all basic A-Z and 0-9 gestures were single strokes, with the exception of 'X'. Graffiti was (and remains) a robust idea. 👍

Replies (2)

@nickrauchen@c.im 2026-09-20 16:21

@cstross@wandering.shop @j2bryson@mastodon.social @newtontalk@bitbang.social While we're on the #iOS #keyboard topic, here is a lifesaver for anyone who hasn't discovered it... Press and hold over the spacebar.... the entire keyboard goes blank as show here and becomes the equivalent of a trackpad so you can precisely place the cursor for corrections or insertions. This hidden iOS feature has saved me time and much frustration over the years. 🙂

Open ##4781174
@ganxel@oldbytes.space 2026-09-20 21:14

@nickrauchen@c.im @cstross@wandering.shop @j2bryson@mastodon.social @newtontalk@bitbang.social I'm using an IBM-research inspired hexagonal key layout on my Palm T3 but the targets are tiny so Fitt's law applies. There was also a system called MessagEase which was quite comfortable to use. On this Android phone I'm using Thumb-key which gives you the whole alphabet in a 3x3 grid - you swipe towards the edges to type the non-central symbols/letters. I'm probably at 30-40 wpm with that. Back on the iPod Touch I used a chorded text entry program for a while - a bit like the handheld Microwriter device for journalists back in the 1980s. It had a practice mode with a leaderboard which was quite addicting...

Open ##5172492