Maltron

PCD Maltron Ltd
Industry	Personal computer hardware
Founder	Lillian Malt
Products	Ergonomic keyboards
Website	www.maltron.com

Last updated March 24, 2024

PCD Maltron Ltd, trading as Maltron, is a manufacturer of ergonomic special-needs keyboards. It was founded by South African-born inventor Lillian Malt^[1] and manufacturer Stephen Hobday. Maltron specialises in making keyboards for the prevention and etiological (root cause) treatment of repetitive strain injury.

Maltron manufactures several models of keyboard, in varying levels of adaptation. Malt's original invention and the company's flagship design, the Fully Ergonomic 3D Keyboard, is the most highly adapted; it incorporates a curved surface in which the keys' angles and depths are staggered to compensate for the different lengths and placement of the fingers. Customers can choose an integral trackball at extra cost. Other types include single-hand keyboards, a flat version of the fully ergonomic keyboard, a keyboard designed to be used by a single digit or headstick or mouthstick, and a robust expanded keyboard for people with cerebral palsy. Maltron keyboards are electrically compatible with IBM PC keyboards and Apple Keyboards, using USB connectors. Earlier models used mini-DIN or PS/2 connectors but these are now discontinued.

History

Lillian Malt ran a secretarial training business from 1955. Based upon her experience of typing errors (having been closely concerned in the printing industry with retraining Linotype operators to use computer keyboards), she had the idea for a typewriter keyboard with the keys arranged to fit different finger lengths, but found no manufacturer willing to work with her. In 1974, Stephen Hobday came to her with a one-handed keyboard that he had designed for the handicapped. Malt made several suggestions for improvement, telling Hobday of her failure to engage the interest of any manufacturers in actually building her ideal keyboard. Hobday told her "You tell me what you want and I'll tell you whether I can build it or not." The first Maltron keyboard was the result of their collaboration.^[1]

The full name of the company, PCD Maltron Ltd, stems from Hobday's original electronics firm, Printed Circuit Design Limited, based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The seeds of PCD Maltron were sown when another Hampshire business had inquired about the possibility of custom manufacture of a computer keyboard. This led to discussions with Farnborough Technical College about the design of the keyboard, and in turn to the meeting with Malt.

Stanley notes that Malt was almost erased from history in the 1970s, with the only one of two 1979 articles in The Inventor (the journal of the British Institute of Patentees and Inventors) even mentioning her, crediting only Hobday.^[1] However, Malt did present a paper describing her work: Malt, Lillian G., 'Keyboard design in the electronic era', Printing Industry Research Association, Symposium Paper No. 6, September 1977.^[2]

Models

There are five models of Maltron keyboard. Two target general users, of which one is the original curved, retro-styled keyboard. The other three are geared towards people with more pervasive disabilities. Although the general form has remained the same, the original keyboard has gone through several revisions.

Maltron keyboards became well-known in the 1980s and 1990s for their distinctive layouts. Hackaday described the Maltron keyboard as "a mass of injection-molded plastic with two deep dishes for all the keys."^[3]Tom's Hardware said that the keyboards were "one of the real first ergonomic, split keyboard to use keywells. Designed for people suffering from RSI, its makers sought to address the needs of people who were, or at the risk of, being harmed by extensive typing."^[4]

Customers requested a halfway house between a conventional QWERTY keyboard and the curved Maltron, so a flat (2D) version was introduced which although lacking the curvature of the 3D keyboard, incorporates split key groups, and offset letter rows to accommodate the different lengths of the fingers.

For severely disabled users, there are the single-handed, headstick, mouthstick and expanded models.

All Maltron keyboards use Cherry MX brand key-switches, which are much more responsive and durable than the membrane or dome key-switches used on most keyboards.

Layouts

Maltron 3D and 2D (flat) keyboards are produced with three different layouts: QWERTY, Dvorak and Maltron.

In 2009, PC World magazine named the devices among the "world's weirdest keyboards", particularly the right-handed single hand model that sold for US$413 at the time.^[5]

In the Maltron layout, the home row of keys are "ANISF" for the left hand and "DTHOR" for the right. This can be used to type many more complete words than that found on a QWERTY keyboard.^[6]

The Maltron layout was derived from frequency of use (FoU) statistics, plus additional considerations, such as the most frequent two- and three-letter combinations found in words. As much as possible, such combinations need to be placed as non-blocking sequences.

Whilst the letter E is the most common letter in English, the space character is nearly twice as common; the comma and full stop are more frequent than the letters KVJZXQ.^[7]

Directional or cursor keys have also been subject to changes in design. Whilst the earlier PC-XT compatible Model B featured opposing keys near each other such as PgUp and PgDn aligned vertically on the left little finger, and arrow keys arranged UP/DN and LF/RT on either thumb, later models were to introduce a complete design philosophy where such keys were split into left-right locations matching the former re-arrangement of such characters as "(" and ")" which had been moved to sit above the numbers 5 & 6 (as "< >","[ ]", "{ }" and "/ \" had been similarly separated). This meant that any movement to the left or up (Backspace, PgUp, Left etc.) was keyed with the left hand, and any that moved right or down were keyed with the right hand.

Further variation in design has been a slight rotation of the key-bowl upward in the centre which reduces the amount of pronation in operators' wrists. Referring back specifically to the Model-B, the key-bowl required the hands, although separated from each other, still to be rotated outward as though operating a flat keyboard.

Another change moved the twelve function keys to a new top row inside the bowl rather than as a straight line along the back, which the single-handed versions retain. The standard numeric row (1 through 0) has also been shifted one column to the left aligning "1" with "F1", "2" with "F2" and so on. The blank area between the two thumb keys has also been raised to prevent "dropped-wrist" operation of the number pad, although because of its location and layout, the keyboard must be moved laterally when entering continuous numeric data, to accommodate the dominant hand (left or right). This increases the amount of desk space the keyboard needs.

There is only one key below the home row for the ring finger (made obvious by the gap in the next row). As the middle and ring fingers share the same tendon along the back of the hand, removing excess "under-reach" for the ring finger alleviates potential stress on this tendon thus contributing to the keyboard's overall success in reducing repetitive strain injuries.^{[ clarification needed ]}

Manufacture

The keyboards have been made by hand since the 1970s. They have vacuum-formed cases and each switch is hand-wired. The keyboards have a thumb cluster area where thumbs can hit keys other than the space bar.^[4]

Related Research Articles

QWERTY is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top letter row of the keyboard. The QWERTY design is based on a layout included in the Sholes and Glidden typewriter sold via E. Remington and Sons from 1874. QWERTY became popular with the success of the Remington No. 2 of 1878, and remains in ubiquitous use.

A pointing stick is a small analog stick used as a pointing device typically mounted centrally in a computer keyboard. Like other pointing devices such as mice, touchpads or trackballs, operating system software translates manipulation of the device into movements of the pointer on the computer screen. Unlike other pointing devices, it reacts to sustained force or strain rather than to gross movement, so it is called an "isometric" pointing device. IBM introduced it commercially in 1992 on its laptops under the name "TrackPoint", and patented an improved version of it in 1997. It has been used for business laptops, such as Acer's TravelMate, Dell's Latitude, HP's EliteBook and Lenovo's ThinkPad.

Touch typing is a style of typing. Although the phrase refers to typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys—specifically, a touch typist will know their location on the keyboard through muscle memory—the term is often used to refer to a specific form of touch typing that involves placing the eight fingers in a horizontal row along the middle of the keyboard and having them reach for specific other keys. Both two-handed touch typing and one-handed touch typing are possible.

Microsoft has designed and sold a variety of ergonomic keyboards for computers. The oldest is the Microsoft Natural Keyboard, released in 1994, the company's first computer keyboard. The newest models are the Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard (2013), the Surface Ergonomic Keyboard (2016), and the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard (2019).

Caps Lock⇪ Caps Lock is a button on a computer keyboard that causes all letters of bicameral scripts to be generated in capital letters. It is a toggle key: each press reverses the previous action. Some keyboards also implement a light to give visual feedback about whether it is on or off. Exactly what Caps Lock does depends on the keyboard hardware, the operating system, the device driver, and the keyboard layout. Usually, the effect is limited to letter keys. Letters of non-bicameral scripts and non-letter characters are generated normally.

Arrow keys or cursor movement keys are keys on a computer keyboard that are either programmed or designated to move the cursor in a specified direction.

The PLUM keyboard is a keyboard layout which differs from the traditional QWERTY keyboard in both physical key layout and letter arrangement. Unlike most keyboards, the PLUM keyboard organizes keys in a square grid, as opposed to the staggered rows of a typewriter. Though the Plum Keyboard is currently off-line, it is still being promoted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinesis (keyboard)</span>

Kinesis is a company based near Seattle that offers computer keyboards with ergonomic designs as alternatives to the traditional keyboard design. Most widely known among these are the contoured Advantage line, which features recessed keys in two bucket-like hollows to allow the user's fingers to reach keys with less effort. Moreover, the keys are laid out in perfect vertical rows to avoid the need for lateral movements during typing. In addition, the modifiers such as enter, alt, backspace, control, etc. are moved to a central location so they can be pressed with the stronger thumbs rather than the pinky fingers.

An ergonomic keyboard is a computer keyboard designed with ergonomic considerations to minimize muscle strain, fatigue, and other problems.

The DataHand is an unconventional computer keyboard introduced in 1990 by DataHand Systems, Inc, designed to be operated without any wrist motion or finger extension.

FITALY is a keyboard layout specifically optimized for stylus or touch-based input. The design places the most common letters closest to the centre to minimize distance travelled while entering a word. The name, FITALY, is derived from the letters occupying the second row in the layout.

A computer keyboard is a peripheral input device modeled after the typewriter keyboard which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. Replacing early punched cards and paper tape technology, interaction via teleprinter-style keyboards have been the main input method for computers since the 1970s, supplemented by the computer mouse since the 1980s.

Dvorak is a keyboard layout for English patented in 1936 by August Dvorak and his brother-in-law, William Dealey, as a faster and more ergonomic alternative to the QWERTY layout. Dvorak proponents claim that it requires less finger motion and as a result reduces errors, increases typing speed, reduces repetitive strain injuries, or is simply more comfortable than QWERTY.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keyboard layout</span> Arrangement of keys on a typographic keyboard

A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thumb-shift keyboard</span> Keyboard design

The thumb-shift keyboard is a keyboard design for inputting Japanese sentences on word processors and computers. It was invented by Fujitsu in the late 1970s and released in 1980 as a feature of the line of Japanese word processors the company sold, named OASYS, to make Japanese input easier, faster and more natural. It is popular among people who input large quantities of Japanese sentences, such as writers, playwrights, lawyers and so on, because of its ease of use and speed. The rights regarding the use of this design were transferred to Nihongo Nyuuryoku Consortium, a technology sharing cooperative of interested companies, in 1989. It is referred to as an example of keyboard layout in Japanese Industrial Standards.

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Colemak is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets, designed to make typing more efficient and comfortable than QWERTY by placing the most frequently used letters of the English language on the home row while keeping many common keyboard shortcuts the same as in QWERTY. Created on 1 January 2006, it is named after its inventor, Shai Coleman.

EurKEY is a multilingual keyboard layout which is intended for Europeans, programmers and translators and was developed by Steffen Brüntjen and published under the GPL free software license. It is available for common desktop operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

References

1 2 3 Stanley, Autumn (1995). Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology . Rutgers University Press. p. 369. ISBN 978-0-8135-2197-8.
↑ "Lillian Malt Papers" (PDF). maltron.com. Retrieved 21 May 2020.^{[ non-primary source needed ]}
↑ Benchoff, Brian (3 February 2017). "Handmade Keyboards for Hands". hackaday.com. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
1 2 Lekashman, Andrew (22 October 2016). "History Of Mechanical Keyboards". tomshardware.com. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
↑ Edwards, Benj (17 March 2009). "The World's Weirdest Keyboards". pcworld.com. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
↑ "Word Lists – Maltron Layout". maltron.com. Retrieved 21 May 2020.^{[ non-primary source needed ]}
↑ "English Prose FoU". PCD Maltron. Archived from the original on 2014-01-14. Retrieved 2014-01-13.^{[ non-primary source needed ]}

External links

Official website
Maltron Keyboard Layout — Karl Fogel's diagram of the Maltron layout
Maltron Keyboard — the 2002-12-03 review by PC Magazine

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Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
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[MAD-1] 1 2 3 Stanley, Autumn (1995). Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology . Rutgers University Press. p. 369. ISBN 978-0-8135-2197-8.

[2] "Lillian Malt Papers" (PDF). maltron.com. Retrieved 21 May 2020.^{[ non-primary source needed ]}

[3] Benchoff, Brian (3 February 2017). "Handmade Keyboards for Hands". hackaday.com. Retrieved 21 May 2020.

[tomshw-4] 1 2 Lekashman, Andrew (22 October 2016). "History Of Mechanical Keyboards". tomshardware.com. Retrieved 21 May 2020.

[5] Edwards, Benj (17 March 2009). "The World's Weirdest Keyboards". pcworld.com. Retrieved 21 May 2020.

[6] "Word Lists – Maltron Layout". maltron.com. Retrieved 21 May 2020.^{[ non-primary source needed ]}

[7] "English Prose FoU". PCD Maltron. Archived from the original on 2014-01-14. Retrieved 2014-01-13.^{[ non-primary source needed ]}

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