The Data Egg (1990)

Back in my NASA days, I identified an Astronaut problem: when you’re floating in space, the minute you try to press buttons on a keyboard, unless you were tied down you would start to float away.  (You know, every action causes equal and opposite reaction.)  I thought this was a problem that needed solving.  So I devised a device that you hold in your hand – 7 buttons total – which allowed you to type every letter, number, punctuation, and every other button you could type on a standard keyboard.  (Even Ctrl-, Alt-, or Function buttons!)

At one time someone told me that an egg was the most natural shape for the hand to hold.   And so my first prototype unit was built into a plastic Easter egg.  

This prototype, using a plastic Easter Egg which is a natural shape for the hand to hold, is what inspired the name "Data Egg".

This clumsy prototype allowed me to develop the software.  Later on I shrunk down the hardware to fit inside a pager. 

You type on it by pressing different combinations of buttons – kind of like playing chords on a piano.  The alphabet was designed to be easy to memorize.  My device could be used plugged into a traditional computer (instead of the keyboard), or it could be used as a self-contained keyboard, which memorized everything you typed.   

Yes, the typing scheme might look intimidating at first, but there was another extremely popular device at the time where you had to learn a new way to write in order to use it.  (It was called the Palm Pilot.  Google it.)  So this taught me an important lesson in marketing: When the benefits are compelling, people will happily learn it. 

It turns out that this device could be extremely useful even if you weren’t an astronaut.  What if you wanted to write something down while you were walking or driving?  Traditional laptops make you stop what you’re doing, and sit down before you can capture your ideas.  This device made our increasingly shrinking computer accessible.   Better yet, back in those days I had a brain that had an idea every 6.5 seconds, and if I didn’t write it down IMMEDIATELY, the idea would evaporate.  So I built myself a working prototype which I would wear on my belt like a pager (a popular device before cell phones were practical).

I used it ALL THE TIME.  I would capture ideas all day, then when I got back to my main computer at night I’d plug in the Data Egg (clever name, no?) and download all the ideas captured.  I kept it by my bedside whenever I had a 3:00 AM thought, which I promptly forgot.  One of those 3:00 AM thoughts became my 2^nd patent, and it would have been lost completely if not for this invention.

After a hard day's work at NASA, I'd come home and do even more development of my own inventions. Pictured is the Data Egg development station, including stand-alone single-board computer, laptop for software development, RS-232 protocol analyzer (this was all in my home, BTW), and two one-handed keyboards from a different company. In the background is an ancient IBM DOS computer and an early inkjet printer.

I even published two small booklets containing all of the ideas that had been captured during a typical year.  Some ideas were inventions, some were jokes, some were a phone number I needed to write down but couldn’t because I didn’t have pen and paper.  

You can download and read both volumes here:

https://friedmanarchives.com/~download/blog/EGG_and_I.pdf

https://friedmanarchives.com/~download/blog/EGG_and_II.pdf

Another important application: When cell phones were new, they were only good for making phone calls.  Texting didn’t become a thing until the early 1990’s, but cell phones only had numeric keypads.  If you wanted to type the letter “C”, you had to hit the ‘2’ button three times.  (Long story.) 

What if you integrated my 7-button Data Egg typing scheme onto a cell phone?? You could text while you drive without taking your eyes off the road?  You could send messages quickly.  It would be awesome!

Other prototoypes

As you can see different names were tried, too.

So for the next 12 years I tried hard to make this a real product.  I didn’t know anything about running a business, so that was my first step: I quit my job at NASA and started a business, one that had a reasonable chance of succeeding.  (It was an Information Technology Consulting Firm.  It lasted 5 years before it went broke.)  After that I went about looking for investors so I could either make and sell a unit, or license the patent to the companies that make cell phones.  (That’s the easier path.)  I set up a website that would answer investors’ questions.  You can read an archive of it here: https://FriedmanArchives.com/dataegg 

The idea had its fans – I got fan mail from all over the world from people who would love to have such a unit.  But after 18 months of failing to find an investor, I ran out of money.  Annoyed, I quit the technology business altogether and went to China to teach English.

THE END

A bedridden workstation, which combined The Data Egg with a heads-up display, allowed a person with a bad back to actually use a computer.  Here I was answering emails on my IBM XT (background) before I got up to go to work.

A proposed magazine ad.

Another proposed ad.

Prototypes of different shapes before I decided to go with the socially-acceptable-to-wear-in-public pager design.

Prototype of a computer workstation using a one-handed keyboard on the left.  With this setup you can use a computer with two hands instead of three. :-)

Before the iPad was invented, I prototyped surfing the web using a stylus in one hand and a one-handed keyboard in the other.

Prototype in use.