Keyer

A keyer is a device for signaling by hand, by way of pressing one or more switches. Modern keyers typically have a large number of switches but not as many as a full-size keyboard; typically between four and fifty. A keyer differs from a keyboard in the sense that it lacks a traditional "board"; the keys are arranged in a cluster which is often held in the hand. An example of a very simple keyer is a single telegraph key which used for keying Morse code. In such a use, the term "to key" typically means to turn on and off a carrier wave. For example, it is said that one "keys the transmitter" by interrupting some stage of the amplification of a transmitter with a telegraph key.

Morse code was an early form of serial communication, which in modern times is usually automated. In a completely automated teleprinter system, the sender presses keys to send a character data stream to a receiver, and computation alleviates the need for timing to be done by the human operator. In this way, much higher typing speeds are possible.

Iambic keyers became popular, in telegraphy, in the 1960s. In these, the "dot" and the "dash" are separate keys. When this concept was introduced to inventor Steve Mann in the 1970s, he mistakenly heard "iambic" as "biambic" which he then generalized to include various "polyambic" or "multiambic" keyers, such as a "pentambic" keyer (five keys, one for each finger and the thumb), and "septambic" (four finger and three thumb buttons on a handgrip). These systems were developed primarily for use in early, experimental forms of wearable computing, and have also been adapted to cycling with a heads-up display in projects like BEHEMOTH by Steven K. Roberts. Mann (who primarily works in computational photography) later utilized the concept in a portable backpack-based computer and imaging system, WearCam, which he invented for photographic light vectoring.

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