[sdiy] Kickstarter - capacitive multitouch overlays for keyboard

[cheater00 .]

Ingo,

On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 12:34 PM, Ingo Debus <igg.debus at t-online.de> wrote:
>
> Am 18.08.2013 um 11:21 schrieb cheater00 .:
>
>> having to fit the thumb is the reason why black
>> keys are shorter
>
> Are you sure about that? I think I once read that the first popular instrument with a chromatic, black-and-white-keys keyboard was the portative organ. This keyboard was played with the four fingers of the right hand only, not with the thumb.
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portative_organ>
>
> Ingo

This might well be where the arrangement of
bottom-top-bottom-top-bottom-bottom-top-bottom-top-bottom-top-bottom
came from, but it's very far from the piano keyboard we know now. This
is considerably changed from the portative organ keyboard. Those
changes were made to improve playability, and among others to let you
fit your thumb without raising it over the black keys.

D.