Jim, thanks for that fascinating summary. The work you did to pin this down and reproduce the problem is terrific. I had always suspected that the "ghost characters" were the result of my typing style, as I have a tendency to glide or roll my fingers much as you described, especially going from keys on upper rows to lower rows. E.g., in typing "red" my middle finger surfs from "e" to "d" instead of pressing them distinctly. (Like you, I had formal typing training on fancy electric typewriters (in my case in the early '80s), and then got heaps of actual practice on microcomputers.)
Your recollections of some of the problems (especially the arrow-up glitch) brought back some old traumas for me, and it's making me recall the disappointment I had with this machine not working out to my expectations. Still, the WP-2 served a novel purpose in my early career as a network/system admin, where I used it as a terminal to communicate with headless servers. I had even created a custom termcap/terminfo entry for the WP-2 that was mostly compatible with its small screen and key codes, so I could use (e.g.) vi with few issues. (And I found that I didn't have as much of a problem with ghost characters when using it as a terminal, implying that I use more discretion when typing Unix commands than when writing prose.) So I still have a fair amount of fondness for it. Best, CAM > On Nov 16, 2020, at 11:18, Jim Anderson <jim.ander...@kpu.ca> wrote: > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: M100 [mailto:m100-boun...@lists.bitchin100.com] On Behalf Of Nick >> Shaner >> Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2020 21:18 >> To: m...@bitchin100.com >> Cc: M100 List <m100@lists.bitchin100.com> >> Subject: Re: [M100] WP-2 >> >> CAUTION External Sender: Do not click links or open attachments unless >> you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. >> >> >> any report on keyboard quality versus the model t? I really appreciate >> this timely thread because I've been looking at the WP-2 of late. > > I bought one to use as a note-taking device, and for that purpose I'd say it > would be fabulous for most people (unfortunately, not for me - see below). > The keyboard isn't as nice to type on as an M100, but it's MUCH quieter and > when taking notes during a meeting or lecture the M100 is just unacceptably > noisy. I love the M100's keyboard and prefer typing on it where noise > doesn't matter. Note that the T102 and T200 both have a softer and quieter > keyboard than the M100, and the WP-2 keyboard is a different design and is a > bit softer and quieter still compared with those two models. They are > perfectly usable keyboards but I don't enjoy typing on them nearly as much as > on the M100. (Full disclosure, I have an IBM Model M keyboard on my work > computer and I love love love it - I would rather give up my firstborn than > that keyboard. I guess I'm a bit of a keyboard snob.) > > I also appreciate having a spell check with a large dictionary on-board > without having to have an external device attached. Spell check is slow of > course as the document gets larger, just like with Sardine on the Model T > machines... The screen is a plus and a minus for me - you get 80 columns, but > the characters are tiny, and in poor light it's harder to make out simply > because the characters are smaller. > > I added a 128k ramdisk chip to mine which is great feature, since you work on > documents in the 32k on-board ram and can copy them to the ramdisk chip > periodically to make a backup in case you royally mess something up in your > document. You'll still want to backup to a TPDD device of some kind in case > the memory goes b0rk (same solutions you'd use for the M100, except the WP-2 > has a PC-standard 9-pin male connector so you need a different but arguably > easier-to-find cable - I'm lucky to have a NADSbox so I just have a slim-line > double-sided 9-pin female adapter to couple it right onto the back of the > WP-2). Speaking of memory b0rk, I did have a situation once where my WP-2 > crashed in the middle of a meeting (because I was goofing around and typed a > control character sequence that froze the machine) and I had to use the reset > pinhole on the bottom to recover. It wiped the internal memory but the > contents of the 128k ramdisk remained intact. Whew! I wouldn't necessarily > count on that happening that way in the future, but it saved me quite a loss > that day. > > Speaking of memory contents, they're maintained by a CR-something > non-rechargeable lithium coin battery. You can make a spacer (mine is made > from wadded paper) to make a cheap and readily available CR-2032 fit in the > holder instead of tracking down the larger and much more expensive correct > replacement battery. > > OK, so back to what I alluded to at the beginning - as mentioned in this > thread already, the WP-2 keyboard has a problem with fast typists. Not all > fast typists, mind you, so if you don't mind spending the money and > discovering it isn't happy with the way you type, go ahead and get one. I > was disappointed because I didn't have any warning ahead of time that this > might happen, and nobody on this mailing list at the time had had a similar > experience, so I bought a second WP-2 assuming mine was just defective - same > problem. :( > > There's two possibilities I have considered: either the keyboard decoding > can't keep up with typing above a certain speed, or the keyboard decoding is > unable to handle the way I (and others, apparently including C.Magaret) type. > I strongly suspect this second cause based on some tests and study I > conducted on myself. I learned to type on electronic typewriters and > computers in high school, and I studied my technique a little more carefully > when I first discovered this problem with the WP-2 and got my mom to try it. > She can blast away on it about as fast as I do without a single erroneous > character appearing, while I get very specific and very repeatable erroneous > characters when I type certain sequences of characters. What I noticed is > that my fingers are sort of 'chording' the keys (but not an actual chord, > more of a rolling chord), pressing subsequent keys while previous keys are > still in the process of being released, whereas my mom learned to type fast > on manual (mechanical) typewriters as a secretary in the 1950s and types as > fast as I do but with very precise individual keystrokes. Typing as I do > would jam up a manual typewriter at speed, but most electronic keyboards are > able to decode the sloppy keystrokes just fine. > > Not the WP-2. Specific sequences of three keystrokes will produce an extra > fourth character. Anything with 'ina' will produce 'ina3', anything with > 'ing' will produce 'ing7', and typing the word 'in' (I-N-space) will produce > the keystrokes I-N-space-CursorUp. This is the worst, because all the rest > of the errors I can fix with search and replace after I'm done, but every > time I type the word 'in' I have to make sure to do it with deliberate > individual keystrokes. Whenever I forget to do so, I look down and see that > I've been inserting everything I typed since the word 'in' in the middle of > the line above where I was typing... :( If I get my mom to type 'ina' or > 'ing' or 'in ' as fast as she can over and over, they *always* come out > cleanly, whereas if I type them fast over and over they *always* come out > with the extra keystroke. > > There are other sequences which produce phantom keystrokes too, and not all > of them introduce the extra character at the end - some put it in the middle > of the sequence. I can't remember them all, so I just pulled out one of my > WP-2s and tried typing random sentences. This made me rediscover one of the > worst of the errors (especially if you are passing the notes on to someone > else and don't catch and fix them first), which is that the sequence 'are' > when I type it fast produces 'arse'. :( :( :( > > I still love the WP-2 because it's so thin and light and quiet. If I am > making a concerted effort to be extra quiet and type slower than usual, it's > fine. If I forget and start typing quickly, errors galore. > > > > > > > > jim
