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PCD Maltron Ltd., d.b.a. Maltron, is a manufacturer of ergonomic special-needs keyboards, founded by South African-born inventor Lillian Malt, the namesake of the company, and manufacturer Stephen Hobday. Maltron specialises in making keyboards for the prevention and etiological (root cause) treatment of repetitive strain injury. Maltron manufactures several models of keyboards, in varying levels of adaptation. Lillian Malt's original invention and the company's flagship design known as the Fully Ergonomic 3D Keyboard is the most highly adapted; it incorporates a curved surface for the keyboard, in which the keys' angles and depth are staggered to compensate for the different lengths and placement of the fingers. An integral trackball mouse is a customer-selectable option at additional cost. Other keyboard types available are single hand keyboards which are ergonomically designed to be used by only the left or right hand, a flat version of the fully ergonomic keyboard, a keyboard designed to be used by a single digit or head stick or mouth stick, and a robust expanded keyboard designed primarily to assist people with cerebral palsy. Maltron keyboards are electrically compatible with IBM PC keyboards and Apple Macintosh keyboards, using USB connectors. Earlier connectors included DIN and PS2 but these are now discontinued. == History == Lillian Malt ran a secretarial training business from 1955. Based upon her experience of typing errors (having been closely concerned in the printing industry with the retraining of Linotype operators to use computer keyboards), she conceived the idea of a typewriter keyboard designed with the keys arranged to fit different finger lengths, but found no manufacturer who was willing to work with her. In 1974, Stephen Hobday came to her with a one-handed keyboard that he had designed for the handicapped. Malt made several suggestions for improvement, telling Hobday of her failure to engage the interest of any manufacturers in actually building her ideal keyboard. Hobday told her "You tell me what you want and I'll tell you whether I can build it or not." From the resulting collaboration, with Malt's expertise in keyboard design and Hobday's expertise in electronics, came the first Maltron keyboard.〔 The full name of the company, P.C.D. Maltron, Ltd, stems from Hobday's original electronics firm, Printed Circuit Design, Limited, based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The seeds of P.C.D. Maltron were sown when another Hampshire business had inquired about the possibility of custom manufacture of a computer keyboard. This led to discussions with Farnborough Technical College about the design of the keyboard, and in turn to the meeting with Malt. Stanley notes that Malt was almost erased from history in the 1970s, with the only one of two 1979 articles in ''The Inventor'' (the journal of the British Institute of Patentees and Inventors) that even mentions the names of the keyboard's inventors at all, crediting it solely to Hobday.〔 However, Malt did present a major paper describing her work: Malt, Lillian G., 'Keyboard design in the electronic era', Printing Industry Research Association, Symposium Paper No. 6, September 1977.〔http://www.maltron.com/keyboard-info/academic-papers/236-lillian-malt-papers.html〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Maltron」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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