QWERTY 1

Yesterday, Rome stumbled across an Essessoni quantum computer. These were very powerful computing devices, millions if not billions of times more powerful that we have today. However, humans are still humans so the form factor can only get so small. In fact, if you look at yesterday's post, you can see a picture of one. They look a lot like an iPad just infinitely more powerful. Here are the specs:

30 cm (11.8 inch) touchscreen display with a resolution of 4096 x 3072 pixels
Optional laser-projection keyboard
1 PB of solid-state storage
Solid state stereo speakers
Rear and front facing 3D cameras
Gigafi (similar to Wi-fi) networking
Weight: .25 kg (8.8 ounces)
Thorium batteries, never needs recharging
Peripherals attach using inductive interface (no physical contacts)
Quad ZX20 quantum computational cores

Rome was a data archivist by training and knew her way around a keyboard or so she thought:

     Rome asked. “Can you turn it on?”
     “Sure,” Rei said. He came over and brushed the chair off and sat down carefully. He moved the translucent slab front and center and blew on it a couple of times to remove most of the dust. He tapped the upper right hand corner twice and the display became opaque, lighting up with tiles and icons indicating the computer had just been in hibernation.
     “Where is the input surface?” Rome asked.
     “It’s a touch-screen,” Rei said. “But if you really need to do some typing…” He pressed the upper left hand corner and two thin laser beams shot out and stroboscopically drew a keyboard on the dust-covered surface of the desk.

Rome is about to discover one of the wonders of the 19th century. A keyboard that looks like it was designed by a mad man yet is very effective if you type using more that your thumbs.