Proposed Bliss Software Application

Sutton Glyphs

You may ask, how will we ever be able to quickly and easily select from thousands of glyphs with only a regular keyboard? The answer is to go back to the original method Charles Bliss used on the IBM ball typewriter, with a small set of primitive glyph elements, one assigned to each key on a standard keyboard, but with a twist: With a mechanical typewriter, he could only get about 2 or 3 mechanical up-down orientations of a glyph for each key. Today, a software application can give us as many glyphs as we want under each key and in any orientation we wish.

Some keys may have 10 or more symbol elements programmed into them. For example, press 'Y' once and you get the symbol for 'person'. Press it again and it changes 'person' to 'man'. Press it again and it changes 'man' to 'woman'. Again and it changes 'woman' to 'body-standing', etc....... All different configurations of the glyphs for 'person'. It works just like texting on your cellphone. And just like texting, it gets quite easy as you begin to know how many times to count on which keys as you quickly tap the key that has the glyph element you want.

To summarize, as you keep pressing the same key, it cycles through all the glyphs under that key, and then starts over. So in the beginning you may just keep pressing a key till you see the glyph you want. Then press another key till you see the glyph you want. After time, you will remember how many presses are needed for commonly used glyphs, and you just press that key quickly the correct number of times. Just like texting. Seems hard at first, but gets very easy.

To type the symbol for 'language', press 'o' once and '2' once. That's it! I'm planning a little keyboard memory trick here to help you remember the keys. The 'o' looks like the 'mouth' glyph, and the '2' looks a little like the ear glyph.

To type the symbol for 'day', press 'O' once and 'underscore' once. That's all! Again the keyboard memory trick. The capital 'O' resembles the 'sun' glyph, and the 'underscore' is a horizontal line like the 'earth' glyph.

To type the symbol for 'flower', press 'o' twice and 'i' once. Again the memory trick: the 'i' is basically a short vertical line like the stem on the flower. Watch for more of these resemblances between keyboard letters and the glyphs under those keys. I plan as much of this memory assistance as possible.

As for the indicators over some symbols, just press the spacebar and it puts them in for you. Just like the other keys, press it again to get different indicators.

There is a full suite of other great features planned for this Bliss software. I am not a software engineer, so this project will have to wait for volunteers or funding. Soon, I will update this page with the suggested other features. If you have the technical skills needed, feel free to take the ideas and run with them.