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You know what would be cool? A .NET-centric programmer's keyboard

I just had a thought...you know what would be really kick ass?   If someone out there could develop a keyboard that was totally .NET-centric.  I mean, it's layout of the alphabetic characters would still conform to the current widely-used convention, but it would have other keys to do things like import namespaces, comment blocks of code, automatically write out ToString(), generate class templates, run batched compilation statements, perform certain Visual Studio .NET functions, and other customizable stuff.

I don't go all the way back to COBOL or those days, although I did start out in BASIC on an Apple IIe in '84, but i do know that people from the assembly language days used a keyboard different from the QWERTY variety that we use today.

The question is - would anyone really use such a thing?  I'd certainly give it a whirl...

Posted: Feb 23 2004, 05:52 PM by guam-aspdev | with 8 comment(s)
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Comments

Gavin Joyce said:

Great idea Jason, I'd buy one in a snap.
# February 23, 2004 6:01 AM

Firoz Ansari said:

You can use any key mapping tool for this purpose.
Take a look at WinKey 2.8. You can download it from http://download.com.com/3000-2344-913626.html?tag=lst-0-1
# February 23, 2004 8:33 AM

Scott said:

Yeah, but you have to remember what the keys are Firoz.

Maybe we should pressure this company to release an overlay for Visual Studio and the different languages?

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/gaming/5fed/

I know they have overlays for Word and Excel.
# February 23, 2004 12:39 PM

Dumky said:

Why change the hardware?
Add a C# "mode" to a regular keyboard using a rarely used key as the toggle, or more generally use macros...?
# February 23, 2004 3:24 PM

Jason Salas said:

Hi Firoz,

Oh sure...but I'm one of those people who would prefer a set piece of hardware that had specific purposes in mind.

Also, should anything ever happen to my PC and the settings get erased (perish the thought), I'd have to do the whole thing over again. I wouldn't mind paying extra for new hardware that someone built that laid everything out for me.

Case in point: varying joysticks for flight sim and racing games.

In other words, I'm an idiot, I need help and I'm one the people who would buy this type of thing. :)
# February 23, 2004 7:23 PM

Jason Salas said:

Hi Scott,

Now there's an idea...I might shoot this by a couple of product managers I know for their input....
# February 23, 2004 7:24 PM

Martin said:

I want one of thoseeeeeeeeeeeeee. But not only for Visula Studio.NET (puff). One for programmers, with {} $ etc easy access!!!
# May 27, 2004 10:24 PM

Nathan Allan said:

I found this when doing a google search for this very thing (a programmer's keyboard). I would buy one. Forget just remapping keys, how about adding a bunch of keys so we don't have to use exotic cords for things like "set bookmark", "collapse definition". It would also be nice to figure out away to reduce the stretch for things like parens. More than anything, however, I would like to see simpler navigation... some way to navigate the cursor quickly to a certain column/row without having to leave home position.
# July 21, 2004 12:06 PM
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