Matias Corporation is a computer accessories manufacturer, based in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

The company was founded on 3 August 1990 by Edgar Matias

Edgar Matias

Edgar Matias is the President of Matias Corporation. On 3 August 1990, Matias founded the Corporation together with Steve McGowan and James McGowan.He invented the "Half Keyboard"....

, Steve McGowan, and James McGowan.

Half Keyboard

Matias' first hardware product was the Half Keyboard, a one-handed keyboard that exploits users' existing touch-typing skills. It can be learned in a matter of minutes.

Background

Inventor Edgar Matias explains how the idea came about:

"The Half Keyboard was conceived as a reaction to the Microwriter

Microwriter

The Microwriter is a hand-held portable word-processor with a chording keyboard. It was sold in the early 1980s by Microwriter Ltd, of London, UK...

.

In the fall of 1984, I read a short blurb in a magazine describing this strange new device called a Microwriter

Microwriter

The Microwriter is a hand-held portable word-processor with a chording keyboard. It was sold in the early 1980s by Microwriter Ltd, of London, UK...

. It was a portable dedicated word processor, equipped with a one-handed chording keyboard. It had only 6 keys, which users typed on with one hand.

It was intriguing, but the chord keyboard sounded very impractical to me at the time. I didn’t think most people would be willing to learn a whole new keyboard layout. A week later, most of the Half Keyboard design just popped into my head.

Derived from the conventional QWERTY keyboard, the Half Keyboard allowed touch typists to enter text with one hand, without having to learn a whole new keyboard layout. Instead, by using a slightly different typing technique, their existing skills simply “transferred". Similar to how bicycle-riding skills make learning to ride a motorcycle easier, standard two-handed typing skills make learning one-handed Half Keyboard typing easier.

Not much happened in the subsequent 5 years. My notes sat in a drawer and I pretty much forgot about them.

In 1989, with the industry moving towards increased portability, the time seemed right to blow the dust off my five-year-old idea. On August 29, I applied for a Canadian patent and the clock started ticking. I had exactly one year in which to attract enough attention (and money) to apply for patents in other countries. After a year, the idea would become public domain in every country that I hadn’t applied for a patent (i.e., almost everywhere).

I wrote letters to all the “pocket computer” manufacturers (that’s what they were called back then), and several actually replied. The big companies sent back letters thanking me for my interest in their products, but regretfully stating that it was company policy not to accept “external submissions.” Two of the smaller companies showed an interest and information was exchanged, but in the end neither was willing to take it on. So, shortly before the year was up, I incorporated. I sold shares to various friends and relatives, and Matias Corp. was born.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that “pocket computers” weren’t being used as general machines like other computers. They were being used for such things as reading gas meters, and collecting field data. Typing speed wasn’t much of an issue in those applications.

The other thing I didn't realize was that it would take another 10 years for the hardware keyboard to make it to market!”

Tactile Pro Keyboard

The company's first commercially successful product was award-winning Tactile Pro Keyboard. It was built from the same premium keyswitch technology used in the legendary Apple Extended Keyboard

Apple Extended Keyboard

The Apple Extended Keyboard is a keyboard that was first sold separately alongside the Macintosh II and SE.Later the Apple Extended Keyboard II prepackaged with Apple Professional Desktops during the early 1990s...

, widely viewed as the best keyboard Apple ever made.

The Tactile Pro was later discontinued, and replaced by the improved Tactile Pro 2.0.

USB Matias Folding Keyboard

The company sells the Matias Folding Keyboard, a full-sized keyboard that folds in half. One reviewer has found that the Mac version of this keyboard works with iPads (though not flawlessly) as well as with Macs, even though iPads don't officially support USB keyboards.

External links

• Matias official website
• Edgar Matias - founder's personal website