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There is a better design. It's called Dvorak.

www.dvorakint.org

www.catskill.net/evolution/typing

http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~whuang/misc/dvorak.html

Whoa! I've never heard of a DVORAK keyboard. I've only ever used QWERTY (that was easy to type ;-) keyboard. So for others who don't kno what a DVORAK keyboard is like...

The Dvorak keyboard was named for its inventor, Dr. August Dvorak.

DVORAK


Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"

Dvorak International

Makes you wonder why we even bother with QWERTY anymore..

Haven't we had this discussion exactly one year ago? That you posted?

Well, there's always Dvorak, though the benefits of that are up in the air. (My inciteful comment on that topic (#47) was soundly defeated. (#190) :)

I'm not certain that it would help, but you could get a big keyboard and feel like the world's tiniest geek.

And there's those cool one-handed keyboards. Again, I don't know if it would help, but you could use two of 'em and multi-task fiercely.

Of course, the all-thumb keyboard. It's essentially ASL, but while wearing a glove. This one is my personal favourite. Probably not as good for coding (there's a convenience, or at least a learned one, to the location of the squiggly brackets, carets, parenthesis, etc.)

Oh, and programs like ViaVoice. Those are more and more highly rated. Again, probably not good for coding, but a hell of a start. Perhaps that combined with another keyboard, like a chording one, might do ya' right.

I learned how to use a dvorak keyboard out of boredom about two years ago. Almost all modern operating systems have hooks in place to use a software dvorak layout (so you can use a standard qwerty keyboard).

Affix a little post-it note to the side of your monitor with the keyboard layout so you don't have to waste any valuable screen real-estate on a graphical map. You can paste some keytops onto your keyboard, but IMHO there's no real point. The keys are supposed to be under your fingers, and well out of sight.

If you ask anyone who's used qwerty, then dvorak... they'll tell you its like riding a bicycle. You never forget qwerty, so you really don't have to worry about that. You may get rusty with time, however.... I generally use dvorak in linux (where I spend most of my time) and type qwerty in WinFro.

loadkeys can change your console keyboard layout, and setxkbmap can change your x11 keyboard layout.

I typo (hehe) at approximately the same speed in both qwerty and dvorak, but I can type much more comfortably and longer with a dvorak keyboard. I read somewhere that about 70% of your keystrokes are on the home row(pretty good cache hit ratio for you asm programmers). I havn't tried anything statistical, but it feels pretty close to the truth.

for more information, check out Dvorak International.

http://www.ccsi.com/~mbrooks/dvorak/ is a good starting point if you're interested in the Dvorak layout; I tried it this past summer, and found it to be much easier on my hands, although I was reduced to a hunt-and-peck typist. One of these days I want to actually start learning to type on a Dvorak as quickly as I can on a QWERTY..

You may also want to check out the official page for the Dvorak keyboard layout at http://www.dvorakint.org, although it seems to be down at the moment.

There was also a handy little utility I had for Win9x that would let you switch layouts on the fly and learn to type with a Dvorak without buying one, but I've lost the link to it.. I'll post a followup if I find it again.

I found this tutorial nice, which I found by way of Dvorak International

Another interesting looking keyboard is the Maltron. The original is quite pricey, but Teleprint sells a cheaper one. Note that it is largely similar in key sequence to Dvorak, but ergonomically sculpted. I have also created an Xmodmap for this one (mapped to a regular keyboard) that is more optimized for programming, but I haven't tested it out yet.

dvorak.kb
=========
keycode 0x2f = bracketleft braceleft
keycode 0x30 = bracketright braceright
keycode 0x3d = apostrophe quotedbl
keycode 0x3e = comma less
keycode 0x3f = period greater
keycode 0x40 = p P
keycode 0x41 = y Y
keycode 0x42 = f F
keycode 0x43 = g G
keycode 0x44 = c C
keycode 0x45 = r R
keycode 0x46 = l L
keycode 0x47 = slash question
keycode 0x48 = equal plus
keycode 0x54 = a A
keycode 0x55 = o O
keycode 0x56 = e E
keycode 0x57 = u U
keycode 0x58 = i I
keycode 0x59 = d D
keycode 0x5a = h H
keycode 0x5b = t T
keycode 0x5c = n N
keycode 0x5d = s S
keycode 0x5e = minus underscore
keycode 0x6b = semicolon colon
keycode 0x6c = q Q
keycode 0x6d = j J
keycode 0x6e = k K
keycode 0x6f = x X
keycode 0x70 = b B
keycode 0x71 = m M
keycode 0x72 = w W
keycode 0x73 = v V
keycode 0x74 = z Z
keycode 37 = 1 exclam
keycode 38 = 2 at
keycode 39 = 3 numbersign
keycode 40 = 4 dollar
keycode 41 = 5 percent
keycode 42 = 6 asciicircum
keycode 43 = 7 ampersand
keycode 44 = 8 asterisk
keycode 45 = 9 parenleft
keycode 46 = 0 parenright
keycode 49 = grave asciitilde
keycode 95 = backslash bar brokenbar

qwerty.kb
=========
keycode 0x2f = minus underscore
keycode 0x30 = equal plus
keycode 0x3d = Q
keycode 0x3e = W
keycode 0x3f = E
keycode 0x40 = R
keycode 0x41 = T
keycode 0x42 = Y
keycode 0x43 = U
keycode 0x44 = I
keycode 0x45 = O
keycode 0x46 = P
keycode 0x47 = bracketleft braceleft
keycode 0x48 = bracketright braceright
keycode 0x54 = A
keycode 0x55 = S
keycode 0x56 = D
keycode 0x57 = F
keycode 0x58 = G
keycode 0x59 = H
keycode 0x5a = J
keycode 0x5b = K
keycode 0x5c = L
keycode 0x5d = semicolon colon
keycode 0x5e = apostrophe quotedbl
keycode 0x6b = Z
keycode 0x6c = X
keycode 0x6d = C
keycode 0x6e = V
keycode 0x6f = B
keycode 0x70 = N
keycode 0x71 = M
keycode 0x72 = comma less
keycode 0x73 = period greater
keycode 0x74 = slash question
keycode 37 = 1 exclam
keycode 38 = 2 at
keycode 39 = 3 numbersign
keycode 40 = 4 dollar
keycode 41 = 5 percent
keycode 42 = 6 asciicircum
keycode 43 = 7 ampersand
keycode 44 = 8 asterisk
keycode 45 = 9 parenleft
keycode 46 = 0 parenright
keycode 47 = minus underscore
keycode 48 = equal plus
keycode 49 = grave asciitilde
keycode 95 = backslash bar brokenbar