The Making Of Unicorn Quest

A few years ago, while reading the C programming newsgroup on the Internet, one of us came across a request for a typing tutor for a one-handed eight-year-old girl. Her father wanted her to learn to use a regular keyboard, so that she would be at no disadvantage at school, and later in the workplace.

We asked around among local agencies, and no one knew of a one-handed typing tutor. So we decided to create our own.

Version 1 - A Simple Typing Tutor

First we had to figure out how a one-handed person should type; i.e. what finger should be used for each key. The local agencies told us that there were no real standards and that people generally found their own ways of typing. Easter Seals in Arizona was able to provide us with a chart of fingerings for use with one-handed typing, either left-handed or right-handed. That was what we used in creating Unicorn Quest.

Because Unicorn Quest was designed to help teach typing for use in the real world, we avoided using special keyboards or assistive software. Unicorn Quest is intended to help you learn to type on a regular keyboard, using as many fingers as you have available to you.

The original Unicorn Quest team consisted of volunteers from all over the globe, all connected by the Internet. Some were programmers, some were ASCII artists, some writers, and some people who wanted to help test. Together we made a typing tutor and helped one girl learn to type. She was very helpful, making suggestions as to the animal pictures she wanted to see and requesting new features, such as a certificate to print out. Originally we had only one level of difficulty, and it was her idea to let people choose.

Version 2 - Customizable Keys

Since that time, we have revised and improved Unicorn Quest. When we created version 2, one of our objectives was to expand the capabilities of the program so that it could also be used by people who were just missing a few fingers. The result: the current version supports the left hand, the right hand, or both hands simply by providing different configuration files. This makes it easy for us to create custom configuration files for any other required fingerings. People who have special needs can just write to us and tell us what they need. It is easy to have the program use a custom configuration to translate the keys into whatever fingering works best for you.

Version 2e - The Estonian Version

While we were working on version 2, we got a request from Estonia for a version which would allow a class of Estonians to learn to type. Working with our Estonian team member, Urmas, we created an international version, and Urmas customized all the text so that the screens are all Estonian. As far as we know, Unicorn Quest is still the only shareware Estonian typing tutor.

Version 3 - Coming Soon...

We are currently working on version 3 of Unicorn Quest. There are a number of technical improvements in the shareware version, most noticeably that the installed files are about 50% smaller due to an improved compression algorithm.

We were a little overwhelmed by the response to version 2 of Unicorn Quest. We originally launched the web site just so that people would have somewhere to find Unicorn Quest, but the site has grown, and we've added a new member to the Unicorn Quest team just to manage the web site and the correspondence.

Version 3 - A Classroom Version

With this version, we've decided to create a registered version, an extended version with additional features to help in the classroom.

The shareware version of Unicorn Quest supports one student and allows him/her to play through the letters, words, and sentences levels, using right hand, left hand, both hands, or customized fingering. With the registered version, Unicorn Quest will support multiple students, each of whom may have completed a different set of exercises. As always, Unicorn Quest is very much a work in progress, and we welcome any and all feedback from anybody who uses it, would like to use it, or has ideas for other ways it can be used.

Throughout the development and distribution of Unicorn Quest, it has been our desire that anybody who wants to learn to type on a regular keyboard should have the chance. Any information we have which might help somebody learn to type is available on our web site. If you have any more information which might help others, please send it to us and we'll add it. If you have any questions which are not already answered, feel free to write. We always like to hear from our visitors.

- Pick up Unicorn Quest at Thelion's shop.
- Read our mail about Unicorn Quest.
- Read about programming.
- Go back to the front gate.