We've redefined the computer keyboard - now it's tiny, personal, mobile, ergonomic.
News & Information - About the Company, the Technology and the People
Company News
EkaPad Reviews
Computer Takeaway - End user technical review.
Embedded Handhelds - at the very end he finds he can chord the EkaPad easily.
We're a winner!
It was fun to enter and win an Elecronic Design photo contest.Here's the result. (pdf 385 kb)
Press Releases
Announcements to the media and general public concerning the EkaTetra company, its products and services.
11/27/10 - Short piece: EkaPad on TV
3/6/09 - Incredible shrinking keyboard. New advertisement; (PDF version).
10/15/08 - Computer Takeaway. Review of the chording EkaPad and the EkaPad Package.
8/31/08 - Portland, OR. Ekatetra releases version 2.2 of its EkaPad OS. (PDF version, 157kb).
8/20/06 - White Paper: About design of EkaPad. More details about the new EkaPad (PDF version, 1.95Mb).
7/11/06 - Portland, OR.Ekatetra launches the EkaPad, a pocketable, personal, single-handed USB keyboard.
Fun stuff
Pangrams A pangram is a sentence which contains all 26 letters. These 53 sentences are all good English and contain no proper names, therefore making them harder to create. A fun way to practice chording with your EiaPad.
Book of Four-letter Words This book put together by EkaTetra founder lists 1760 four-letter words in the English language. Prepared for programmers and human interface designers who need short words for menus and screen displays. Also of interest to grammarians and humorists. Soon to be published by eNet Press.
History of Data Entry
Typewriter History
On the Typewriter History page you will find four histories and many pictures of early typewriters.
Also, find 8 collected reviews of the book The Iron Whim, a history of typewriter people, and a sample from the book
Sexy Legs and Typewriters.
In addition, there's background information on Dvorak's keyboard design along with a discussion of path dependence with Dvorak's keyboard used as an example. Path dependence is an economic concept which concerns itself with whether or not a new product gets accepted and replaces an older product.
There is also a pdf containing other typewriter web links.
Chorded keyboards today
The EkaPad is a single handed keyboard, or one hand keyboard, and is also called an ergonomic chorded keyboard. Here some history of chorded keyboards and information about other chorded keyboards can be found.Click here for Chording history.
Click here for a list of chording and non-qwerty keyboards.
About Letter & Word Frequencies
Start here: A page with background information and links to downloadable data pages.pdf files include data used by EkaTetra during EkaPad chord selection and a report describing the final selections of chords and locations of characters.
Report_Chords_LetterFrequencyAnalysis.pdf
Accessibility / Repetitive Stress
The EkaPad avoids repetitive stress injuries and does not produce carpal tunnel syndrome. See the EkaPad Ergonomics discussion here.
RSI (repetitive stress injuries). A listing in pdf format of links to places to visit to learn more about RSI (repetitive stress injuries) and AT (assistive technology). PDF file on RSI and AT
The People
Company Background
In 2000, George Forester invited Jerry Wilski to join him in an adventure to develop and market George's original invention of the keypad which eventually became the EkaPad.
R&D History
In the 1980s, George was playing around with the idea of a pocketable computer. A main feature could be a keypad on the backside, played with the eight fingers as the palms of the hands held the computer between them. George was an amateur musician and recorder player and he easily envisioned how this keying could work. See EkaPad Design white paper 2006
More research and development history can be found at the EkaPad R & D History pages.
The Team
George Forester
Founder and CEO
Loren Lang
Senior Software Engineer
Richard Appleyard, PhD
CIO and Director Informatics R&D
The Advisors
Bruce Farnsworth
Operations Advisor
Brad Myers PhD
Human Computer Interaction Researcher,
Carnegie Mellon University
Wayne Embree
Reference Capital Management
