John McKown writes:
> Russell, you're right in saying my configurations to date involve the
> fingers being less curled than what you're calling the neutral
> position. Your relaxed hand would get closer to what I like if you
> let your arm hang straight down at your side.

This is true for me. Unfortunately, the dog ate my keyboard, so I
can't test keying. Sigh. I was planning to re-make it from scratch
anyway, but I would have preferred to look at the existing model.

> What it comes to, I think is do we or do we not believe that a
> "relaxed" position makes a good "ready" position. This might be a
> matter of individual physiology but I'd bet not.

I'm not sure that I see a difference. The range of travel on the
Marquardt switches is only a millimeter, and as noted, both gravity
and wrist position changes the position of the relaxed fingers.

> These configurations don't work at all but that doesn't matter to
> the USPTO,

It's supposed to. You can only patent something which functions as
claimed. This is to prevent you from patenting something you don't
know how to do so that when somebody else does figure it out, you have
the patent already. But ranting about the faults of the USPTO belongs
in another forum.

> Actually I think the freedom from grip duty is more important than the
> ready position --- you want to move your fingers around.

Yes, that's a key insight of yours. Hopefully it's a claim in your
patent (which I haven't read, since I find reading claims painfully
dull.)

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