Typing in the Round

"Three-quarters of all humanity runs around with ruined spines," says Luigi Colani, a successful West German industrial designer. To help prevent any further proliferation of bad backs--at least among typists--Colani has invented the cradle-like device. In it, a secretary can sit upright, slump or practically recline while typing, without missing a key. "Every part of a typist, with the exception of her eyeballs and fingers, is supported," says Colani. Installed in the contraption, a typist can lean against a contoured back and headrest, with elbows planted on concave platforms and wrists braced on two flexible supports just below the keyboard. Earphones provide music or can be connected to a dictating machine. Colani, who calls his device an "integrated mobile module," spent three months and $20,000 developing it. But he is somewhat pessimistic about its future. "Like most of my best ideas," he says, "it's too far ahead of its time to have much of a chance in our slide-rule society."

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