Slashdot Mirror
New Standard Keyboard
An anonymous reader writes "There are two keyboard standards today - QWERTY and DVORAK. QWERTY, the one we usually have, was used on the first commercially produced typewriter in 1873. Ironically, QWERTY was actually designed to slow down the typist to prevent jamming the keys, and we've been stuck with that layout since. New Standard Keyboards offers new "alphabetical" keyboard. This keyboard has just 53-keys (instead of 101) and offers user-friendly benefits and quick data entry."
Stop perpetuating myths.
Dvorak made up that story as marketing for the keyboard design he hoped to profit from. And, could they have made that new keyboard any uglier?
is this one
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
This story needs some more details. The website is a re-hash of the press release and appears to be a naked grab to get some adsense revenue. Not to mention that details on the product itself is scarce, and it takes a lot of digging to figure out that this keyboard doesn't even have dedicated number keys. Nice idea, no story yet.
Here's a close-up picture.
Ironically, the image on that page leads me to believe this keyboard is made for small children, because of the bright colors and the phrase "After 130 years of typing the same way the keyboard has finally grown up." yeah... right, I'll always love my 101 QWERTY! So does this mean I'm on the dark side? Anyways, I dont think this will ever stick.
From http://www.chicagologic.com/QWERTYrumor.htm --
A long-lived rumor is that typewriter inventor Christopher Sholes arranged the letters in the QWERTY layout to slow down the typist.
If this were true, he would have located popular letters such as "A" and "S" at the far corners of the keyboard and located unpopular letters like "Q", "Z", and "X" under your fingertips, right where you don't need them. Looking at the PC (QWERTY) keyboard shows us that, in fact, the opposite is true.
What really happened was Mr. Sholes varied from his original alphabetic layout* when he placed commonly used pairs of letters such as "sh", "ck", "th", "pr", etc. on alternating sides of the keyboard to reduce jamming of the typewriter's swing-arms.
This design change actually had the bonus effect of speeding up typing by letting the user alternate hands more often - think drum roll.
A 1953 U.S. General Services Administration study of the QWERTY keyboard and it's only serious challenger, the DVORAK keyboard, found no appreciable typing speed difference between the two keyboards. Fingers travel less distance on the DVORAK layout, but additional alternating-hand keystrokes speed up the QWERTY layout. The result - a draw.
The fact is, QWERTY works and it works quite well.
* You can see remnants of Mr. Sholes original alphabetic layout in the QWERTY layout, namely the keys "FGHJKL".
http://almostsmart.com
The new keyboard layout was designed such that computer salesmen of poor typing skills could type TUBGIRL with one hand, all along the same row of letters.
Unfortunately this did not stop the keys getting sticky.
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
The problem with new keyboards is the pervasiveness of the QWERTY system. One has to run a cost/benefit analysis of replacing QWERTY keyboards - be it with the DVORAK or this new alphabetical version. Many computer users are experts with the QWERTY layout, and can have a high amount of wpm (words per minute). Perhaps, if one switches, the benefit will result in a higher wpm achieved - but there will be quite the learning curve.
You'd have to institute it with people starting to use computers, because it'd be organizational suicide to replace QWERTY w/ DVORAK/alphabetical due to the steep learning curve and the resistance to change.
Personally, I'm great with a QWERTY keyboard, even knowing that it is designed to be an inefficient system and would never change to an alphanumerical keyboard, despite the ultimate benefits. Shortsighted perhaps, but I don't see the benefit to the steep learning curve. I'm willing to bet that many organizations won't be willing to make that step either.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id =356
Have you seen this thing? Since when did FisherPrice start making keyboards?
And where's the space bar?!
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I JUST switched to Dvorak about two weeks ago. I recommend giving it a try. This design looks like BS though. Note the "New Standard Keyboards debuted a patented USB-interface computer keyboard at CES 2005"...this patent-encumbered keyboard won't get that far.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
After 130 years of typing the same way the keyboard has finally grown up. New Standard Keyboards of Santa Maria, California announced "alphabetical" keyboard that offers user-friendly benefits and quick data entry for any level user. New Standard Keyboards debuted a patented USB-interface computer keyboard at CES 2005. This keyboard has just 53-keys and offers many advances over QWERTY and DVORAK designs.
The New Standard Keyboard is a bold departure from current designs and will compete directly with standard QWERTY models as a replacement keyboard for users who value user-friendliness over arbitrary standardization. The keyboard has only 53 keys instead of 101 or more, which places them all within easy reach of the home position. It also takes up much less desk space, measuring just 12.5-inches wide x 5 inches deep x 1-inch thick.
Still Driving a "Horse-Drawn" Computer?
The New Standard Keyboard solves all the problems associated with QWERTY, which was used on the first commercially produced typewriter in 1873. Ironically, QWERTY was actually designed to slow down the typist to prevent jamming the keys, and we've been stuck with that layout since. While QWERTY was great in its day, it's not relevant on a computer. Computer keys can be placed in any order desired. After 130 years most people still use a keyboard layout specifically designed to be as inefficient as possible. New Standard Keyboards is changing that.
Many have attempted to build a better keyboard. The Dvorak keyboard of the 1930's is the most famous. It never caught on because the demand was for user-friendliness (it still is). People want instant gratification. Dvorak's jumbled letters look no better than QWERTY, and no-one wants to buy anything that has a significant learning curve just to reach a low level of hunt and peck! Dvorak also overlooked ergonomics and his design retained the crippling key layout that forces the left wrist into a grossly unnatural position.
Those who value user-friendliness over standardization and demand attention to ergonomics will love the New Standard Keyboard...
A Keyboard Designed for Any User
This 53-key alphabetical-oriented keyboard with USB support for IBM-compatible systems is a long-awaited solution to the QWERTY keyboard problem, which has confounded typists for 130 years, according to New Standard Keyboards.
The keyboard is the invention of John Parkinson, an electrical engineer who also holds a degree in psychology with an emphasis on industrial psychology and ergonomics. Parkinson set up training programs in a typewriter factory prior to branching off to develop the New Standard Keyboard, which has earned patents in the USA and UK.
The keys are arranged alphabetically so there is no learning curve for hunt and peck typists as well as senior citizens who have never had a computer because they are challenged by the difficult basic keyboard. The keyboard can be learned at a glance, and differs from other manufacturers attempts at alphabetical-based designs because it is also efficient for high speed typing.
The New Standard Keyboard has several functional and ergonomic advantages over QWERTY keyboards, which Parkinson believes will make it a desired accessory for new system buyers and those wishing to upgrade or update their keyboard.
The advantages include: the alignment of the keys with natural movements of fingers to insure proper posture while typing; alphabetical letters can be easily found and keys are color-coded; all keys can be easily reached from the home position; shift keys are centralized and shift characters can be easily typed one-handed; editing keys are integrated; the keyboard has a smaller footprint, which allows the mouse to be placed right next to the typing keys; and there are only half as many keys to learn.
The New Standard Keyboard also eliminates the "typing on concrete" feel experienced on many laptops and the "mushy" feel of some desktop keyboards. Parkinson's design uses a new, short-travel k
Alcohol and Calculus don't mix. Don't drink and derive.
There is only one "standard" keyboard (QWERTY) and everything else.
And until there is something that is easy enough to learn without any practice, I doubt that anything will replace QWERTY.
They weren't designed to slow typists down. That would be stupid.
In reality, the placed keys which were likely to be struck consecutively (like Q and U) away from each other, so the hammers wouldn't jam when struck too quickly.
Why does the "Tech-Blog" have no author and read exactly like a corporate press release, trying to cram down my throat why I NEED this keyboard?
It's probably some of the most blatant advertising copy I've read in quite a while. At least have some subtlety to get your product "reviewed" by one of the tech magazines or something...
Please help metamoderate.
I don't see how this layout is better than dvorak. The Dvorak layout has the most used keys on the home row and was designed to help typer type fast and without errors. Here is the home row: AOEU ID HTNS I love dvorak. How can an alphabetical keyboard speed things up? Its only useful for old people.
Whats dvorek?? I am just getting used to the qwerty keyboards.. after years and years of use... go figure.. Irony has its merits though. The layout (querty) really works. It may be set up to slow one down but I feel that there won't ever be a layout to replace. The microphone might keep our hands off of the keyboard more and more, but it'll be there for quite a while longer. 53 keys.. neat
Dvorak should be the standard!
:S. why not the frog usb keyboards?!? why not the blah bla... settle with qwerty or dvorak; we dont need another keyboard layout!
this is almost as making the mobile phone keyboard the standard
F/OSS & IT Consultant
Now I'm working on fewer systems on a given day; perhaps it might be worth trying something new again. Oh, whoops... one of my main computers is a laptop. Unless I'm thinking of carting this thing around, there go those gains again!
The CB App. What's your 20?
From the article: After 130 years of typing the same way the keyboard has finally grown up.
Alphabetizing the keys and giving it a garish Fisher-Price color scheme does not make a keyboard grown up. One of the benefits of a QWERTY keyboard is that a good deal of typing is done with keystrokes alternating between the hands, speeding things up quite a bit. Alphabetical keys may make it easier for "hunt and peck typists as well as senior citizens who have never had a computer because they are challenged by the difficult basic keyboard," but it is far from becoming a standard, since the layout is very inefficient for a touch typist.
This article really reads like a marketing press release.
I find it's not the keyboard layout that slows me down, but rather the speed of my fingers. I can type pretty fast, but until someone comes up with a keyboard layout that includes multiple letter keys (e.g. qu, the, to etc) then I can't see how I would be able to type any faster.
Even number entry is very quick and easy. I just can't see how a new keyboard layout would change typing speed dramatically.
Shitdrummer.
"ironically, QWERTY was actually designed to slow down the typist to prevent jamming the keys, and we've been stuck with that layout since." This is a myth that has been around for a while and it just isn't true. C. L. Sholes was the guy behind the first commercial typewriter, and eventually qwerty. qwerty was not intended to slow down a typist, but rather to speed up typing by eliminating jams. The first typewriter was sluggish and it did clash and jam when someone tried to type with it. But Sholes was able to figure out a way around the problem by rearranging the letters. The first typewriter had its letters on the end of rods called "typebars." The typebars hung in a circle. The roller which held the paper sat over this circle, and when a key was pressed, a typebar would swing up to hit the paper from underneath. If two typebars were near each other in the circle, they would tend to clash into each other when typed in succession. So, Sholes figured he had to take the most common letter pairs such as "TH" and make sure their typebars hung at safe distances.
Get a free Ipod!
Ironically, QWERTY was actually designed to slow down the typist to prevent jamming the keys, and we've been stuck with that layout since.
I was always told that the Qwerty design was to prevent key jams, based on the frequency of the letters, not slowing the typist down... Besides, I'm still getting 70-80 WPM, and I've heard people going 100 before, so how slow is that?
Current keyboards do have problems, but this *ahem* example just throws out the baby with the bathwater.
.
One of the biggest problems with the current AT-keyboard layout is the ordering
of digits on the numeric keypad.
I mean, damn near every other keypad in existance begins with 1 at the top left and works its way down to 9 at the bottom right (think telephone, ATM, eftpos terminal, security keypad).
But for some unfathomable reason the AT keyboard standard has transposed the top and bottom rows, so you get 1 at the bottom left and 9 at the top right, making it much more difficult to master data entry.
Which of these looks more familiar:
1 2 3 7 8 9
4 5 6 4 5 6
7 8 9 1 2 3
0 . 0
I'm betting most will pick the former, since the pattern in the latter is much less recognizable if it's not shown in the context of a computer keyboard.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
The reason QWERTY was designed was not to slow down typists. The problem was that each key was directly tied to the type head, so when certain letters were typed quickly, the heads would cross over each other and jam. The QWERTY keyboard is designed to move frequently-combo'd keys away from each other so that even if they do cross over each other, they will not jam.
Now, of course, there is no need for such a system seeing as how there are no type heads to jam. Even older ballhead typewriters didn't suffer from this problem. So we can finally move away from this design.
However, the research has shown that the speed of typing has very little to do with the layout of the keys. A person can type just as fast on a QWERTY layout as they can on a Dvorak layout. What matters is the proximity of certain keys to each other. Some layouts will be faster than others (the alphabetical being probably one of the worst ), because it is faster to type using alternating hands than alternating fingers, which is faster than using the same finger twice in a row.
This low learning curve keyboard is not going to have much usability. Anything, really, that has a low learning curve is so because features have been removed from it. Look at Linux, which has a very steep learning curve. Compared with Windows, it is much more difficult to learn, however, in the end it is much more powerful than Windows is.
Madness! I demand MORE keys! I won't be satisfied until my keyboard has 7 different shifting keys and an Alt Lock, damn it! Though I suppose the caps might get a bit small cramming all that into my iBook's keyboard space... The Space Cadet Keyboard
Original press release
Engadget reivew
From the CES show
My problem with this so far is that the alphabetical layout is about as bad for your wrists as QWERTY. And I type too many numbers and symbols to seriously consider this type of keyboard.
Not to mention it has a Windows XP ^W^W Fisher Price theme.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Now you don't just teach your kids the Alphabet, but also how to use a computer keyboard. "Now remember son, 53 keys..."
the PLUM keyboard (similar idea).
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
For many, including me, having to use a keyboard with fewer keys would actually be a step backwards. I like to have a lot of extra keys that I can map to do interesting things and special function keys, these are great timesavers. I often look for keyboards that have more keys, not less, Ive had a keyboard from Gateway 2000 from years ago which allowed you to remap the keys on the keyboard and had several extra keys which I found quite useful. Often it is nice to be able to map macros to certian keys so when they are pressed they can reproduce several characters These can actually save time.
Well ok, maybe over time it would help, but I can type pretty well as it is, and when I'm programming I don't need to go blazing fast either since I still need time to think about things. Another problem that a new keyboard layout won't fix: People who look and peck at their keyboards. We would need keyboards without the symbols printed over the keys to do something about that. And I do find it particualrly discouraging to see professionals who use a keyboard daily over years do this.
Qwerty was designed to keep typewriters hammers from jamming together -- At neast that was the intent...
I personally like the Dvorak layout, not for speed, but for the fact that it requires less finger movement (And who knows, I certainly dont, It might even be better for all those people with corpal tunnel (and friends) thay those ugly weird 'ergonomic' split keyboards)
No internet button... This one goes directly to the trash heap of history
In 'not a whole lot of googling' effort. Not that anyone would check a story on slashdot... That's what comments are for, to bitch about the facts....
"[Inventor C. L. Sholes, who put together the prototypes of the first commercial typewriter in a Milwaukee machine shop back in the 1860's, designed the QWERTY keyboard] using a study of letter-pair frequency prepared by educator Amos Densmore, brother of James Densmore, who was Sholes' chief financial backer. The QWERTY keyboard itself was determined by the existing mechanical linkages of the typebars inside the machine to the keys on the outside. Sholes' solution did not eliminate the problem completely, but it was greatly reduced. The keyboard arrangement was considered important enough to be included on Sholes' patent granted in 1878 (see drawing), some years after the machine was into production. QWERTY's effect, by reducing those annoying clashes, was to speed up typing rather than slow it down."
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
What about using the keyboard as a gaming input device. First off, those arrowkeys in the middle, just wont work. Secondly, wwe would have to retire WASD, and I love WASD! Finally, as someone else already pointed out, where the hell is the spacebar! How can I jump without a spacebar!?
The colors look stupid. The world is used to QWERTY. You'll keep pressing the caps/numlock everytime you go to type.
This is a dumb concept, a dumb implementation and a dumb product. Someone must have been bribed to allow this into production.
If you want to learn something without practicing at ALL, you won't learn much. No pain...
You've obviously never used a 10-key calculator...
The linked articles all refer back to the two original authors, "S. J. LIEBOWITZ and STEPHEN E. MARGOLIS."
So this Dvorak Debunking lies in two people's research. Are there any others who have verified this research?
I've no political interest or affiliation with one story or the other, I would simply like to know the truth!
-Pie
There's a reason that regular keyboards have so many keys. It's because there are so many symbols you can and may NEED to type. I have to wonder what sort of crazy combinations you'd need to do to type a $ or % or @ or €.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Regarding the content of the post, dvorak is far from a standard. I say this primarily from my own experience of having been denied a data entry job because I used the dvorak layout and they didn't want to accommodate me. Even in the modern day, qwerty is the accepted standard in America. I suspect that being able to use any other keymap will be difficult for a while since: 1. The majority of computers that one would use while not at home are probably windows. 2. If I recall correctly, all windows platforms, with exception of XP, require the install disc to be present to change to a keymap that the system hasn't loaded. 3. Even in XP, if you are at a terminal that is not yours, the computer that you are using may very well have restricted access to keyboard settings. About dvorak itself, I've found it to be more fluid than qwerty (certainly less gangly). I never bothered taking typing tests with it but I feel confident that my speed was improved. Unfortunately, my denial of a job and other factors have made me reluctantly switch back to qwerty.
this article brought to you by the server 'too slow' and the letters K-A-B-O-O-M.
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
Really, it's a new keyboard from a company called "New Standard Keyboards." So yes, it's a New Standard Keyboard, but not really a new, standard keyboard.
Also, doesn't it look like a Fisher-Price?
we should be able to mod articles as well as comments. Start with a half-true myth about QWERTY, then lead right into a naked press release. Puh-leez. What a piece of crap, just like the stupid keyboard that "anonymous" (no wonder) is shilling for.
Where's the spacebar? Dude, if I can't hit the spacebar reliably with my FOREHEAD, then I'm not interested!
We need a way to stop this, if things become more "user friendly" more and more "slow" people will be given the chance to ruin the internet!
Eat sleep die
I much prefer the Chord Keyboard. Used by one of the people at Xerox Parc if memory serves?
Just imagine a beowolf clust erm... nevermind.
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
> After 130 years of typing the same way the keyboard has finally grown up.
It actually looks like a keyboard for kids in Toys R Us.
> The New Standard Keyboard is a bold departure from current designs
The slightest change (i.e. switching Y and Z in European keyboads) is difficult to adapt to.
> The keys are arranged alphabetically, so there is no learning
> curve for hunt and peck typists
You anyway have to learn the QWERTY keyboard because most laptops will
not offer this keyboard.
> It is compatible with all systems running Microsoft Windows 95 and above.
And this is called "Standard Keyboard"?
Wow, I cannot wait to service someone's computer that has one of these keyboards. I guess I'll have to start bringing my own keyboard with me between jobs, otherwise the customer will be forced to do all the typing.
Maybe I'm typing slower on a QWERTY keyboard, but I still manage to type my /. replies in less than 20 seconds ... and get hit by Malda's spamtrap.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Check the date when the keyboard will be available. It's probably just an elaborate April Fools' joke...
I was watching "Modern Marvels" recently about IBM or something of the sort, and they showed several typewriters from the early part of the century. They made no note about it at all in the show, but the typewriters had the Y and Z keys swapped from their current positions, making it a QWERTZ. Any historical significance to that?
Jerry
http://www.syslog.org
studies show neither dvorak nor qwerty have an advantage. in fact they show almost any random arrangement of keys appears to work equally well.
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/25/0 019242
Short version. The two authors are economists who don't know crap about typing. Dvorak wrote a 500 page book about just typing of which only a small part was about his alternative keyboard. So, believe the suits or believe somebody who actually knows what he's talking about.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
While I agree the QWERTY system is outdated, I don't believe that most people (other than stenographers and secretaries taking dictation) need the extra speed, as the bottleneck isn't the fingers -- its the brain.
"They've canceled the show but we're still here. What does that make us?" "Big Damn Junkies, Sir!" "Ain't we just"
The QWERTY keyboard has the fabulous design feature of putting those commonly used cut, copy and paste commands right next to the cmd key. I mean, that was just inspired design - who would have thought?
With this new keyboard you are gong to have to reach all over the keyboard to do a simple cut, copy and paste.
Which raises the biggest problem, a huge majority of programs have been designed to be used with the QWERTY keyboard. At the simplest think of games with keyboard motion controls - anyone remember I,J,K,L movement triangles? That is writ large over practically any program (except maybe anything designed by Microsoft who don't seem to consider usability and interface design high on their list of product atributes ;))
Would anyone seriously call Dvorak a "standard?"
[sig] 10 + 10 = 100 [/sig]
QWERTY was layed out so the Remington typewriter salesman could quickly type "typewriter" using only the top row of the keyboard.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
The layout with the "1 2 3" on the bottom row has been the standard layout for 10-key calculators and adding machines for decades. Accountants, bookkeepers, and others know this format by touch and can get quite fast at punching in numbers. I don't know for sure, but I'd wager that the 10-key format predates the telephone format by many years. If you're used to 10-key calculators (as I am), it's the telephones that seem "wrong", not AT keyboards.
So QWERTY is standardized as a layout among the hundreads of schools/institutions and thousands of companies, a bunch use DVORAK although I honestly ignore its popularity/usage.
As time goes on, more and more computers are found in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. John Smith. Most probably they will use QWERTY simply because it's there and established. Anybody using the least logic possible will understand that introducing an alphabetical keyboard will screw people up. Getting used to different layouts is more of a hassle than being user-friendly.
Some old games used the w, e, and s keys for west, east, and south. Pretty lucky that the qwerty keyboard happens to put those letters next to each other and in the correct orientation for that usage-- for English speakers. Some games used i,j,k,m instead of 3,w,e,s. Turned out that i,j,l,k works better than i,j,k,m. (What's with vi using k,h,l,j anyway?) Suppose this isn't really worth considering when designing a keyboard layout.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I used to do phone support for a now defunct brand of PCs. This was circa 1997/1998. The job was mind numbingly boring. I'd heard how great Dvorak was supposed to be. I saved a Dvorak keyboard layout in my home directory and I would configure the machines I logged into with it and I started logging my calls typing with the Dvorak layout. It took me about 6 weeks to be able to type Dvorak as easily as I had done Qwerty, and the new challenge of trying to keep up with my work load with the new keyboard layout helped stave off some of the incessant boredom. I honestly didn't notice any difference in my speed, comfort level, etc. What I did notice was that when I used a computer that I couldn't easily switch to Dvorak, I was back to being a hunt and peck typist. This turned out to be a major PITA. Finally, I gave up and switched back to Qwerty. It took me longer to relearn Qwerty than it did to learn Dvorak, but in the end, it was worth it as I could now use 100% of keyboards I came across. I'm willing to go against the grain in a lot of ways. I'm a mac user, a vegetarian, an agnostic, and bleeding heart liberal, but the fight against Qwerty keyboard layouts was a cause that turned out to just not be worth it. Too little return on investment for the effort involved.
english is my first language, but my only formal education in it was from U.S. public schools, so you may forgive me for
I cant figure out how having less keys than we have on standard keyboard makes it easier to use. having less keys means that we have less ways to quickly access features in our application so that means now we have have to hold down even more keys to access 'shortcuts'.
Can someone more enlightened or chemically enhanced explain how somebody can get the financial backing necessary to actually get a production line producing what is obviously (to me anyhoo) a product with no chance of success?
I mean what are these people thinking? That cornering the 'Fisher Price, water-proof keyboards for the nearly toilet trained' is going to make them rich?
Sheesh!
The big problem with changing to a new layout is not so much the learning curve for the new board, it would be the further steepening of that curve created by the persistence of the qwerty layout.
I had planned for quite awhile to switch over to a dvorak layout keyboard, but haven't just because I would be switching daily between the keyboard on my personal computer, and the ones that I use at school/work. Having to learn something new once would not be bad. Having to learn something new while constantly being reminded of how things used to be would be a real pain.
One thing that I would like to see in the keyboard market is more variety in the shape of the board itself. I have one of those 'split' Micro$oft keyboards and love it. Unfortunately, there aren't many other manufacturers out there that use this layout. Being able to adjust the exact angle of the split, and the distance between the halves would make the board even better, but I can't see this happening in the current market. Closest thing to inovation that they've done in awhile is make keyboards that light up. It may look cool, but hasn't really improved the functionality or versatility of the product at all.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
I can't get to the article, but an alphabetic keyboard is just plain dumb.
1) The QWERTY keyboard is established tech
2) I see no empirical evidence that alphabetic is easier to learn or use
3) Alphabetic keyboards overwork one area of the keyboard
4) It would be difficult, if not impossible, to arrange keys to allow alternating of hands, which speeds typing.
Can anyone list any real reason that this is better? Other than the reduced number of keys, of course.
http://www.mirrordot.com/stories/d361122c31487d599 46b2a41355bde88/index.html
We are not ready to change keyboard layout yet. We must wait until generation of people using 'vi' dies or retires.
WINDOWS == QWERTY
I leave it to the reader to work out the details of the analogy.
But these idiots didn't do it right because it's not as funny if the keycaps actually match what you get when you press the keys.
Some of you guys are saying that John did this?
As a way to do *what* to the QWERTY people?
What has John Dvorak gone and done now?
I didn't know he invented a keyboard!
I didn't even know he could TYPE!
(I thought he was just a curmudgeon.)
Whatever he has done, it must be BIG, listening to a lot of youse guys moan and groan about it.
We all gonna learn to type all over again, huh?
Think I will move to voice commands and dictation software on my computer now.
This sounds just like the desktop operating system debate. I wonder if there's any correalation between dvorak/desktop linux users and qwerty/Windows users?
70 bucks for a keyboard with half as many keys as usual? It's that like Apple charging twice as much for a mouse with only one button?
The Immortality Institute
You have to admire them for wanting to improve a lousy design, but what they did is ... weird, to say the least.
...). That way, there are no big breaks: letters increase slowly and consistently from left to right.
To quote from Donald Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things":
"What about alphabetical keyboards (figure 6.3)? Wouldn't they at least be easier to learn? Nope.[6] Because the letters have to be laid out in rows, just knowing the alphabet isn't enough. You also have to know where the rows break. Even if you could learn that, it would still be easier to scan the keyboard than to compute where a key might be. Then you are better off if common letters are located where you are apt to find them by scanning---a property that the qwerty keyboard provides. If you don't know any keyboard, there is little difference in typing speed among a qwerty keyboard, an alphabetic keyboard, and even a random arrangement of keys. If you know even a little of the qwerty, that is enough to make it better than the others. And for expert typists, the alphabetical arrangements are always *slower* than qwerty."
If you want an alphabetical layout, it would be better to lay them out with a-b-c going down, rather than across (so the top row is a d g j
Granted, this funky new keyboard is better than plain alphabetical because it breaks lines per hand, so it's not *quite* as bad, but I still don't see how it's better than Dvorak (which has saved my wrists!), or even qwerty.
Is anyone still making actual '101 keys' keyboards anymore? you know, without the annoying extra keys between ctrl and alt, and all the other "extras" found on the standard keyboard of today? I'd love to be able to buy a keyboard and not have to take a screw driver to it to yank out some of the keys that get in the way.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
I learned to type on the Dvorak layout in my late 20s using a program called Typing Tutor. It dropped letters down the (DOS) screen a la video games of the time and you had to blow up each letter by typing it. The letters fell faster and more frequently as you progressed, thus forcing you to progress.
It worked. I have always been able to type about 1.5 to 2 times as fast on Dvorak as qwerty. This is on a computer keyboard where the little arms have no chance of getting jammed either way.
I also have no problem leaving my workstation unattended for the sheer hilarity of watching people try to peck their way through the strange keyboard layout. They never repeat that mistake!
I have a small workspace and with the prevalence of Mouse usage, I would like to reclaim the space wasted by the keypad. I hardly ever use the keypad and my mouse could occupy the space where the number pad and arrow/home keys reside now.
Heck I think I would prefer a left handed keyboard even. As it gets the keypad out of the way of my mouse. Any non standard keyboard seems to quadruple in price though.
This keyboard is nuts though. ABC layout is complete non starter. I like some of the general concepts though. Small, with a split and the cursor in the middle is kind of neat..
I'm just saying...
The very last line of the article is: It will ship in April 2005.
Would that be April 1st, 2005?
I mean how many times do we have to read on /. the same-old-same-old...
"Woe is us for having to use QWERTY keyboards."
"Praise be to DVORAK keyboards!"
and
"Ooh Dexter, look a this pretty alternative keyboard."
I'm going to predict the following will happen before QWERTY ever sees a demise:
1.) The U.S. will be using the metric system almost entirely in place of our current system of measurement.
2.) Microsoft will have "perfected" speech recognition and made it easier to use than typing.
3.) Every restaurant is Taco Bell.
4.) We'll have read at least 80 more posts at /. about QWERTY vs. DVORAK vs. Other keyboards.
(Since we know that M$ doesn't "perfect" anything, except "pretty icons" from their "Dee Dee" department, it is probable that we will be using QWERTY for a long time.)
I've slowed down since and now average about 80wpm and have learned not to strike the keys quite so hard. My hands don't ache as much and I've considered going with one of those whiz-bang carpal-friendly keyboards before I come down with CTS. Coding can be tough on the hands.
Anyway, one semester my room-mate and I believed the Dvorak myth and decided to try out switching. We bought new keyboards that supported both standards and came with two sets of keycaps, then made the switch.
It took us about a month to re-learn touch typing and it was a bitch. Neither one of us caught up to our previous speeds - we even played typing games to help - we got to maybe 2/3-3/4 of our previous typing speeds.
While we were okay on our computers we both found it very frustrating to use others. Being geeks, we frequently needed to work on other machines and lugging a keyboard around wasn't really a solution. We decided to abandon Dvorak and went back to QWERTY. In a week or two we were back to ballpark of our old typing speeds, though it was a frustrating transition.
The moral of the story is an old one: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I only need 28. I use vi.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
"Unfathomable? Take one look at a calculator and it instantly becomes obvious. I can't say for certain since it predates my time, but I'll bet tape calculators used by accountants existed for some time before the numeric keypad was standard on keyboards."
Exactly. And those @#%$&! mechanical calculators weighed a ton too. Felt like carrying a truck battery around.
Ironically, the question of numeric keypad layouts was just addressed on AskYahoo.
What we really need are alternatives to traditional typing -- ways to communicate with the computer in a more efficent manner.
I'm personally waiting for the wireless implant in my head so I can just "think" the words onto the screen
In the meantime, I've tried out the Twiddler2 chorded keyboard, which is a combination key entry and mouse device. Although a bit slower, it is FAR more comfortable surfing and chording with it than using the traditional keyboard and mouse (though you can forget programming). And it plays nice with OS X and Windows.
If you're interested, there are many other chorded "keyboards" as well as many more ergonomic variations to the standard keyboard. A useful resource is the exhaustive Alternative Keyboard FAQ and this alternative keyboard gallery.
Meanwhile, Windows users use their computers.
Yup, that looks like a pretty solid correlation.
"Ironically, the image on that page leads me to believe this keyboard is made for small childrem"
It would make a good KB for a first time typists, maybe? It looks almost like it was designed to start good typing habbits:
* The arrow keys are in the middle, keeping fingers from one hand finding their way onto the other's keys. (I do this all the time.)
* There are all sorts of keys where the wrists might rest.
However, like the QWERTY based keyboard, Gentoo found that through complacency and improper setting of priorities that eventually a system emerged (haha, pun wasn't originally intended) which required more energy input to reach a partially usable and stable state by the user than energy output (which for most is productivity).
What resulted was therefore less akin to the desired "bootstrapping" or "self building" system and instead was more of a mire of quicksand weighing down the users whom spent all their time trying to fix problems and making more and bigger compromises so that they could not appreciably improve Gentoo nor could they consider it a reliable tool enabling them to even do the minimal amount of work.
While those with other OS's worked hard and rarely had crashes, the Gentoo user was faced with spending almost as much time creating excuses as he or she spent time troubleshooting, researching, and attempting solutions to problems in an ever-expanding cycle. Gentoo became slave-master god demanding every more work, dedication, attention, zeal, and of course sacrifices as opposed to being a pragmatic and practical tool to be used by the user.
If changes by the vendor, expendatures of money by the user, and dedication to the learning curve can be shown to add significant value then there are those that will do it. If it is simply a "cool" thing to do, or if such a childish attitude develops to a point of overshadowing actual pragmatic attempts at progress then we are looking at more wasted time and products.
Microsoft Keyboard
Table-ized A.I.
This monstrosity had better not become a standard, what with the patent and all.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
is the speak n' spell which was, of course, designed for 5 year olds entering one word every 15 seconds or so. This thing is retarded...
I thought some of you were joking about physically changing the keys on your keyboards. But, sadly, no.
If you intend to type from memory (touch-type) then save yourself the trouble of possibly damaging your keyboard. Just use a decent typing tutorial program and learn by feel/touch. That's the way I learned and it worked great in about 2 weeks. Speed gains came later as I used Dvorak more.
I can even "switch" mentally when I sit down at a foreign system, type "dir" and see that "hgo" comes out (or on * systems type "l" and "p" comes out), and I recognize that I need to think QWERTY instead of Dvorak. Give yourself some credit, but don't waste your time popping plastic keys all over the room.
You can sell those keyboards to monkeys the rest of us will keep fragging around.
Why does everybody assume that rapid typing is a bringer of unalloyed good? I find that one easy way to improve my prose is to write it more slowly. That way the part of my brain that is looking after logic and expression has a chance to catch up with the part that's controlling my fingers. The more quickly my words flow, the more they seem like speech -- informal and sprinkled with usages that, while accepted in speech, are grammatical errors in writing. Even if I'm not writing for publication, I still find that going slowly helps me pick up the odd error that would otherwise render my words completely zymurgy incoherent.
I'm a CS PhD student, so I write more prose than code, but the same principle applies -- the hard part isn't coming up with the words, the hard part is coming up with the ideas and the logical structures. Taking mental short cuts with logic when you are programming is asking for trouble.
Obviously, painfully slow hunt-and-peck typing is going to annoy anyone who has to actually do it and so the alphabetic keyboard is going to be fabulous for people who can't type and don't need to learn; that's not in dispute. I am only pointing out that the competition between partisans of DVORAK and QWERTY is not necessarily based on the correct metric.
(I must admit though, I don't like DVORAK -- it's optimized for right-handers, and I'm a lefty.)
It is a woman's prerogative to change other people's minds.
No wireless, less keys than a normal keyboard, lame.
kThis too, will end.
I used to work for a company with hundreds of programmers that was very ergo conscious. They would do anything to help the coders work easier.
Desks that would raise to standing height at the flip of a switch, gelpads, Herman Miller chairs, split keyboards, massages, whatever.
I had some pretty bad pain in my hands (still do since I left the company) and they got me a Kineses ergo keyboard. Honestly, within days I was used to the weird layout and my pain was gone. Simply gone.
I don't know why I haven't picked one up since, $300+ isn't too much for better wrist health. It even has foot pedals that can be configured for those keys that cause you to leave the home row, like Esc.
If my company takes off so I'm not living week to week, I'm getting one. For now I must suffer.
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/advantage_pro.htm
It's not easy being green. -K.T.F.
That's a much repeated falsehood.
Besides, everyone knows that all real geeks chord.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
I'm just amazed and amused by all these comments that you people are posting. There is absolutely no point in saying how Dvorak is impracticle, not faster, not better, to expensive to switch over, and other such comments until you have actually TYPED using the dvorak layout yourself. Until you have actually used dvorak, at a proficiency level equal to that of qwerty, there is no point in giving your opinion on the benefits of qwerty or the shortcomings of dvorak.
It took me less than 2 weeks to learn many years ago, and I'm still able to type QWERTY, when needed.
If someone could cite a modern study (something more recent than 1970?) of dvorak vs. qwerty I'd like to see it.
just create a keyboard with removable keys, and let the user place the keys where he/she wants them?
Just a nitpick, but there are LOT more than two kinds of keyboard. The French use AZERTY, for example, and I think many/most countries have their own varyingly different layouts.
Slashdot posts "Teen Beat" pictures of Bill Gates that aren't from Teen Beat at all (a couple of publicity photos from the launch of Windows 1.0).
Slashdot posts an "ad" from Microsoft that wasn't an ad at all (it was an internal company joke).
Slashdot posts a complete myth about the QWERTY keyboard as an introduction to a hollow press release.
Come on!
Also the 123-on-top button layout is closer to rotary phones - the standard that everyone was moving from. On both dials, 1,2 & 3 are at the top, 456 in the middle, and 7890 at the bottom. True, the order of the digits is backwards (123 vs 321), but I don't think people would have stood for the 321 keyboard.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
... Patent pending?
errera hunamum ets
That nifty dataglove I linked in rebuttal to your statement... uses a Dvorak layout.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
It might be great to learn DVORAK for your own use, but then you go to the office, and the keyboards are all QWERTY. So you are forced to be bilingual - bi-textual?
And for the people it really matter to... secretaries and the like who have to type serious speeds, it would be a major nuisance.
It's tough to break standards once they are embedded, especially when it's only for an incremental improvement.
ABKey ( http://www.abkey.com ) has a faster, healthier way of arranging an alphabetical keyboard. Take a look.
Uses blocking in combination with alphabetical key order so you can learn it much faster (actually learning through hunt-and-peck) and much more thoroughly then QUERTY or DVORAK can be learned and achieve typing speeds near that of the DVORAK layout. Really well thought out.
The New Standard Keyboard (from the link) - pretty bold for a keyboard that looks more like spearmint bubblegum than anything useful.
:)) ) that I most surely would not want under my fingers.
who value user-friendliness over standardization - please teach me, how would that make (many different layout "standards") using keyboard easier. It's all just a metter of getting used to, and many people can type quite fast to say the least on qwerty keyboards. Now if you had to learn the darn board all over again for the different layouts (well, they say users will value such diversity) that would probably make many of us just insane.
I agree, ther are some people, mostly non-professional, home-users, who probably will get such stuff, and sing odes about them. Well, "good" side-effects of a large market.
keys are arranged alphabetically - And that is at least one thing (besides the junky toy look of course
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
You know what I don't get? Why do they still call x86 PC's "IBM compatible", like in this article? Macs use IBM processors, not Wintel computers! IBM no longer even MAKES PC's!
This thing doesn't have a 10-key on it. As a multiple-time cashier, I'm personally offended.
People talk about how great the Dvorak was, but there's no hard evidence that it was.
(No, this isn't a pr0n joke set up.)
I saw a one handed typing device at a Macworld years ago that seems to have disappeared and I can't remember who was selling it.
As I recall, it strapped to one hand, had two sets of keys for the fingers and a 'shift' button or two for the thumb. Supposedly it was as fast/faster than standard keyboards, as there was very little 'movement' of the hands/fingers, just different places to exert pressure with one hand.
All I can find on google now are big ass replacement keyboards for those with a disability (missing limb etc.).
Anyone have any experience with these?
Another fine product brought to you by the folks at Unstable Solutions(TM).
Changing the QWERTY layout will never happen in the United States.
I do agree though, the layout is pretty clumsy.
I did this to mine also but for different reason mainly security.
Reason I say security is that I don't really trust people with my stuff. So when people ask me if they can use my AlBook I ask them if they can touch-type or use Dvorak, since responding yes to either question is a sign that the lights are on and that they can get around my rearranging of the keys or know enough about a keyboard that they learned Dvorak on their own. If they can't respond yes to either question then tough luck but I can't do anything about their inability to type.
I know it sounds a bit harsh especially if some hot girl wants to use it, but then again I'd like someone on my level, a girl that knows how to type.
I like the idea behind Dvorak and even tried it out for a while, but it's still not quite as good as it could be. For one, the 'R' should be on the home row, at least for english. I believe I read an article once where a guy ran tests using thousands of pages of literature and code and using certain algorithims determined the best layout... at it was pretty similar. What we need it to redo those tests, put them through scruting, and get behind one new standard. Anybody know what article I'm referring to?
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
Drum rolls are accomplished by "diddling", which means to strike the drum twice with the same hand very quickly (usually by bouncing it). The roll of quick beats is accomplished by doing more with each hand before trading to the next. It may not make sense to a non-drummer, but in comparison it is VERY difficult to roll with simple alternating strokes. However, once you get good at diddling, so you don't have to think about it, you can focus instead on alternating your hands quickly.
I have been using my own dvorak i18n-ized layout for a few years, and typing feels indeed more natural. For the shortcuts, Ctrl-V is actually quite close, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-X a bit trickier, but they are all within the span of my hand.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Will my son be considered retarded in school if I force to use mavis bacon teaches typing using this new 56 key keyboard?
what?
with a small group of people saying how superior QWERTY is, ad nauseum?
Who says alphabetic order is good for anything. It is some random arrangement of letters that we can use to keep things organized. I think we need a new alphebetic order with all the vowels in one place.
/ dvorak.php as to why, I found that, as I typed continually without looking at what I typed/keyboard I felt to have been mistyping (qwerty influence?) was misspelled, only to find that I typed it all correct. S)
Fewer keys, but how am I going to play Long Bow Gold (uses every key 2-3 times)
I found after switching to Dvorak for the second time, read: http://nascent.freeshell.org/misc/writing/aboutme
It should be called the "New NONstandard Keyboard", since it doesn't match any of the keyboard layout standards (e.g, ISO/IEC 9995).
I have talked about typing with a data-typist.
As she told me, keyboard layout does not really matter, as long as ou keep using the same layout.
When typing blind, with a dictaphone or from paper, she even manages to conversate with her colleguages. With typing speeds between 250 and 300 chars/min. According to her, typing is just 'moving the fingers without thinking'.
Imagine putting someone like her at an other keyboard layout.
I think it will be quite unreadable.
Or someone must write a program to convert the document to qwerty.
I always thought that one was pretty standard as well.
Not that I use it.
Most of the time I type on a ¼î-keyboard.
I like the way Koreans map their keyboard. Vowels under one hand, consonants under the other.
if your pants fit well, it's not only because of the pants
judging from how fast teenagers these days can type a message on their mobile phone, all we really need is a computer with a numeric-pad.
Hit F1 to continue...
Sleep is futile.
Well I personally find that different keyboards make me type at different speeds. I am no hunt-and-peck'er (tee-hee), and am quite a bit faster then anyone else I know, except a secretary, or someone who does data entry for a living.
Yet even when using different keyoards that I own, I still find it slows me down. I get used to my laptop's keyboard (which is harder then all my other ones to get used to) and then I slow down on my main desktop machine. If I go to a friends' house it's even worse.
So why would I want to slow myself down with this childish looking toy keyboard, and then not have half the keys I use?
Dunno about you guys, but except for things like number lock/scroll lock and the stupid windows keys, I use every one on my keyboard. Take away 1/2... there goes a bunch of my shortcuts.
If I can't smoke and swear I'm fucked.
So if they finally trying to set a new standard keyboard, how can they forgot that in Europe some people have different alphabets and some maybe need more than 54 keys? Shame on you narrow minded americans..
i think that this 70$ 'new' keyboard has one use... and that is to beat the inventor over the head with their own creation.
everyone that already bought one, meet me at this persons house at 11am this saturday
Lizard "Never let them set limits on your mind!"
on what OSen?
Mac OS 8+ (at least) has it built in.
Windows 98+ has it built in (but you need the CD to install it)
beOS had it.
Linux distros have all had it since I started typing dvorak in 1998. Try xsetkbmap dvorak or loadkeys dvorak in a shell.
Quick Internet searches told me how to do this.
The biggest thing I noticed when I switched from QWERTY to Dvorak was that it was more comfortable, I was moving my fingers less and therefore my fingers weren't getting nearly as tired. This is also the testimony of everyone that I know that uses Dvorak.
With regards to speed, I think it made no difference. My QWERTY speed was 60 wpm. My Dvorak speed eventually reached 70wpm, but I did a lot of typing exercises when I switched to Dvorak, if I had done the same practive in QWERTY I'm sure I would have lifted my typing speed comparably.
Another thing that I noticed is that my accuracy improved slightly, I was getting over 97% accuracy the first time in gtypist, it often took me a few times in QWERTY previously.
Finally, it gave me an opportunity to unlearn all the bad habits I'd developed when using QWERTY, because I was concentrating on typing so much, I could also concentrate on using the correct shift keys (left when the letter is in the right hand and vice versa), and other things like using the correct fingers, I used to use the wrong fingers for . and , and all the symbols and numbers.
-as a dvorak user, I must contend that the greatest advantage is that my fingers don't hurt after 30 minutes of solid typing.
I heartily agree! There is much less physical labour in the typing now. With QWERTY I feel like I'm moving my hands all over the keyboard, while w/ Dvorak esp. the english text comes out smooth as silk. Any reduction in the physical movement while typing is a big plus for ergonomics.
I got comfortable w/ the layout in about a week, even if I didn't reach my Qwerty speed that fast. I still make a bit more errors in Dvorak, possibly because I type much faster and in a more "relaxed" fashion.
And remember, the only HW mod you need to do is to re-arrange the keys, which should be easily detachable from the keyboard.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
6 months ago, i wrote qwerty very fast, often used only 2 fingers except for a few special combos. So I started to learn Svorak(swedish version of dvorak) to get a fresh start with correct writing:) and it rocks :PpPpP
The movements of the fingers on the QWERTY keyboard should be looked at before deciding optimal placement of characters. For example, I like the fact that the "e" and the "i" are on opposite sides of the keyboard. It's easier to type words when there is a pattern, for me, of 1-3 keys on one side, all reachable without moving my hand, followed by, or alternating with the same on the left side. When I get messed up is when I have to type a lot of characters all right near eachother, or type Z, X, V, (since my left hand is weaker than my right), along with A F E W T G S. I would think a statistical analysis of common letter pairins in relation to the most convenient finger movements would reveal something considerably more efficient than both QWERTY and Dvorak. However, given the fact I can sustain 120 wpm at about 98% accuracy, I see no reason whatsoever to switch now. I can "burst" up in the 150wpm range. Now, has anyone used a Microsoft "Natural" keyboard? Drops me to 60wpm or less. And that's just changing the angle of the hands. To me, though, it's like if someone chose not to make guitar strings parallel. Seriously.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
Moderators: Please note that "bonch" is a known fanatical psycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft shilling. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, bonch is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.
/. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than bonch. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider bonch and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Windows or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a
For example, in this recent post bonch not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "MS". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +0) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own.
More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, bonch wants to be Bill Gates, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean, really. You think?
FUD, FUD, FUD, FUD, offtopic FUD, and more FUD. This guy is like the Monty Python SPAM skit, but with FUD and more FUD instead of canned meat. Amazed yet? Don't forget that KDE and Gnome make you dumb, and it's all a Slashdot conspiracy. How low do you want to go? Maybe as low as this?
The infamous Slashdot Front Page Troll? Nuclear fireballs? It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on (troll?). Like the energizer bunny. Or take these two, which stretch the definition of weird.
It's up to you. We can get rid of this guy and make Slashdot a better place. I don't know about you, but I'd rather take the trolls and crapflooders over people like "bonch" any day. And I sure as hell don't want to be categorized along with him. This is not how you advocate free software, period.
the PEBKAC error??? If you need to ask what it is, you really aren't supposed to. :-p
Hmmm... Technology... anyone have a match?
As many others have commented, the root cause for Dvorak kb not being popular is the fact that even if we switch keyboard layout in sw, we are still faced with a conflicting physical lettering on the keyboard. The solution is therefore for manufacturers to make all new keyboards with dynamic lettering (eg tiny lcds or LEDs or e-ink or some other mechanism). The moment we change the layout in the OS, the key lettering on the physical keyboard should change automatically. This will immediately allow all Dvorak users to move easily to other people's computers (by a quick remap).
Ironically, QWERTY was actually designed to slow down the typist to prevent jamming the keys
I'm a little bit rusty on my history, but I always thought that QWERTY was designed to prevent jamming by causing subsequent hammer strokes to occur from opposite sides. If you look carefully, a lot of the words in English seem to cover the entire physical distance of the keyboard for each word.
I tried using DVORAK, and I really wish I could stick with it but I use vi and that makes things difficult. Keyboards have been used on computers for almost 50 years now, why couldn't DVORAK be the standard from the get-go?
$69.95? That's how much my computer cost.
Looks like one of those Lame-squishy keyboards to me. Not the rock solid, spring-loaded, nicely tactile and loud IBM Model M's which actually let you type at a reasonable speed.
I'd challenge the idea that alternating hands has _any_ influence, good or bad, on a _computer_ keyboard. I keep hearing people repeating that myth, because it once used to be true on a mechanical keyboard, but never seen a study to show that it still applies to a computer one.
Have you ever used a mechanical typewriter? And I do mean the purely mechanical kind, for which QWERTY was made. Not the modern electrical ones.
It was a purely mechanical contraption, and you had to physically *HIT* the keys so the hammer would swing hard enough at the paper. To type anything in three copies via carbon paper, it was an exercise akin to hammering nails into a beam of wood. With your fingertips.
Even the position of the hands was different. Anyone who grew up on those won't get RSI (or not in the wrists) from a keyboard, because their wrists don't touch the table. The way to type on one of those was to have your hands hovering above the keyboard (a tiresome exercise in itself holding your arms like that), so you could launch your fingers downwards HARD at the keys.
So I can see how it was an advantage for those to distribute the effort more evenly and alternately between the two hands and arms.
But on a computer keyboard? Can't say I've noticed that typing, say, "SAD" would be any slower than "PAL". The pre-requisites to need to alternate hands just aren't there any more.
That said, I'm still not for DVORAK, because in the end what works faster is what you're used to. Someone used to QWERTY will type faster on QWERTY, and that's that. Including, yes, the imaginary monstrosity that you mention in the phrase: "If this were true, he would have located popular letters such as "A" and "S" at the far corners of the keyboard and located unpopular letters like "Q", "Z", and "X" under your fingertips, right where you don't need them." If you grew up on that, you'd type the fastest on that.
So I still see no reason to switch.
I'm just wondering about the whole alternating hands theory.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Once again, and I know this has bee stated on /. before, the QWERTY keyboard was NOT designed to slow typists down. Here is an article that explains it in more detail - http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/whyqwert.html
It just baffles me how many time bullshit can be submitted and accepted. I won't be switching to any other keyboard soon as it has taken me years to move from a hunt and peck to a half-assed touch typist. Not only that, but I love my MS Natural Pro and most ergo boards are either so far from a standard keyboard that it's like learning a musical instrument or just have a wrist rest. So, in conclusion no Dvorak and no 53 key keyboard for this guy.
> So let's use a keyboard designed for people, not machines, shall we?
Funny, haven't seen a Dvorak keyboard yet designed for non-English speaking people (read: no international characters!)
boky
If you've got a Mac with an iSight camera, all you really need to add is software.
It's the software that's the hard part. The algorithms for pattern recognition work well when the images are very controlled (e.g., circuit boards that are all supposed to be the same under a very specific light with a specific camera at a specific position). Change the lighting or the angle of the target or add a little noise and things fall apart quickly. You either get "false positives" or you get "false negatives". Either way, it cuts down on the percentage correct of your algorighm.
My other first post is car post.
53 keys? Still too many. What you need is the full featured pirate keyboard which has only 6 keys! Bad ass design, if you ask me.
Too big to fail? Does that make me to small to succeed?
So this Dvorak Debunking lies in two people's research.
The only support that Liebowitz and Margolis provide as evidence that there is no speed difference between the two layouts is the research of Dr. Earl Strong in the 1950's.
So the Debunking actually boils down to the research of one person. Done in 1956. And he didn't want Dvorak to win. Oh, and he destroyed his data before anyone else could look at it, so all we know is what he said it said.
The truth isn't out there. Nobody has done a good study.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
My first post-college career was typing in registration cards for consumer software (I suspect there aren't any more people who do this in the US :) ). I wanted to squeeze every speed advantage I could find, because doing more cards made my job more secure and also allowed me to take longer breaks.
But you know, I'm not in that business now, and haven't been for a while -- and I think that's probably true for most slashdotters. For us, heavy typing is like the manual labor of our parents. Sure, I type all day, but I don't actually _type_ all day -- I think a bunch, I experiment, I figure things out. In the end, my keyboard isn't the limiting factor on my productivity, my brain is. I can easily type as fast as I can think, even using my ancient IBM QWERTY keyboard -- but honestly, that's not actually all that fast. How do you even measure code output? It sure as hell isn't in WPMs.
I think they are called harmonic keyboards they were developed for feild computing originally used by diver engineers.
I sometimes get the opportunity to talk to younger people, 23 and younger. I'll often ask if they have used certain technologies that older people take for granted but are hardly around anymore.
About half of the people in my little poll have used a typewriter, if just briefly. Many say that they tried it for a while when their parents pulled down their old college typewriter from the closet. Many people are impressed by the typewriter's feel and musically polyrythmic possiblities. No one would attempt to do any serious writing on it.
The whole question of keyboard layout is somewhat quaint anyway. We should be talking to our PCs. Voice recognition software is stuck in a legal limbo, due to Dragon's bankruptcy problems and IBM's complete and total ineptitude at refining and marketing this innovative technology.
Voice recognition technology is at the same place that mouse and GUI technology was back in 1981. Almost ready to be widely adopted and integrated into PC, but locked down by totally clueless management. Remember the Xerox executive who, after having a tour of Palo Alto Research Center and being shown the Xerox Star (the first GUI PC), remarked, "Boy, you sure get great reception on this thing!".
My complaint about the keyboard is that there are far too many keys. Half the keys on the board I never use. The Keypad, the function keys, and all those weird buttons above the function keys that are different on every keyboard but do nothing on any keyboard; who needs this stuff?
Here's their email address: feedback@tech-blog.org
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
"Idiot soon to release shitty product!"
"So?"
"It's brand-named NEW STANDARD!!!"
"HOLYFUCKSHITBATMAN!!!!!!!!!!!SUBMIT NOW!"
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Is there a program that can convert the corresponding dvorak letters to qwerty or vice-versa? I'm sure it'd be easy to program, but does one exist? I was just thinking it'd be a neat way to encrypt messages between friends.
Once you get use to it you never want to use a mouse.
also apple keyboards are much smaller and take up less space than a PC keyboard
I can get a standard 105 keyboard for £4 here, that's roughly 6p per key, now this one wants over $1 per key! Get real.
TODO: 753) write sig.
http://wetpc.com.au/html/index.htm
I'm not sure why you got a funny, but there are Keyboards with Foot switches and a super duper Keypad.
LOL
$20 says the grandparent and parent are the same person.
My favorite thing about this is that it was metioned as a comment back in the Ask . article about Server room KVM laptops
/. could be?
I wonder why the AC who submitted this adcopy to
...you insensitive clod!
Oh wait, this isn't a poll.
Internationalisation is also a problem.
If the layout of the keyboard is changed, many non-alphabetic input methods (such as many asian languages) will also be affected.
Reviewed in the Guardian. See:
, 13270,1394031,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/insideit/story/0
The abKey site is:
http://www.abkey.biz/
No idea if it is any good. Looks better than the New Standard Keyboard though!
Sesostris III
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
I really wish I could think good sentences half as fast as I type. I really wish I could think of good code one tenth as fast as I type.
If you really need to type much faster as to need to learn a new keyboard layout because you cannot keep up with your mind, then it's time to start thinking/reading what you are typing.
" the crippling key layout that forces the left wrist into a grossly unnatural position"
When my hands are on the keyboard they are in the same position as if I sat them on the table in front of me. All those people who "suffer" from RSI and whatever are simply do not know how to type whilst their hands are relaxed.
Against popular opinion, the way I type is that I have a very flat keyboard (about 1/2 the thichness of a standard keyboard) and it is slightly angled. The "balls" of my palm rest on my table in front of my keyboard and my arms are horizontal. I work on the computer for about 10 to 15 hours per day with no pain at all. Those people who hold their hands off the table are just increasing the fatigue in their forarms and wrists.
Maybe I should patent my method of typing and make a million.
PS. My spelling mistakes are not a result of my typing method but rather a result of my spelling sucks.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
ÅÄÖ & åäö are quite common in scandinavian languages, so does this mean that I am typing shift-down half the time when writing in finnish?
"Tämä on näyte meidän skandinaavien kielestä"
Other non-english-speakers may agree on this..
love slashdot. populate it. use it. abuse it. hate it. kill it. miss it. stop following links, they only kill servers.
You can actually buy foot pedals for certain keyboards. My Kinesis Contour keyboard has 1- to 3-button foot pedals. I have the older 2-pedal variant, and being an Emacs user, I had them mapped to "control" and "meta". Was interesting, but my wrists aren't bad enough to put up with the learning curve of training my feet...
Where's the DELETE in my daily CTRL+ALT+Delete?
Pageup / pagedown, home, end, printscreen... I actually push these buttons daily.
Not to mention scroll lock...
It looks like its one of those learn to type kiddie things, its horribly colorful, besides a girl i happen to know, who else likes purple blobs?
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - HHGTTG
Since when did Dvorak become the only alternative keyboard though? There are several alternatives that look more promising, for instance Arensito ( http://www.pvv.org/~hakonhal/keyboard/ ). If we really want to change the standard keyboard layout used by most people, there's no reason to pick the second-worst alternative.
1. Invent goofy keyboard. ...
2. Write up a press release.
3. Get press release published as news by PC Magazine and posted on Slashdot.
4.
5. Profit?
My other first post is car post.
"I ldve kearniny ti typo wuth Dvosak!"
What's funny is that's the best his typing's ever been.
You can see the layout here, if this thing is real that is.. the layout
and the same picture
I'm not certain were mine is stored. but one day a couple years back I forgot my ATM PIN for a whole month. A royal pain in the butt.
One look is enough to see that A, E, and I have to be typed with the left pinky. These three buttons pave a wide road to tendonitis of that finger.
Except that everytime someone creates one of these new bits of plastic with buttons on them they think that theirs is worth not even 2-3 times what a normal keyboard costs but 5x or more. This one is listed at $70! Talk about killing an idea who is going to spend that for something they may decide they hate in a week. stupid. Oh well guess we all will just continue to use what weve always used.
Since we usually access the bracket(round, square and angle) keys and the + - = ! / * symbols often, would'nt it make sense to come up with a keyboard layout that has those keys at more accessible locations... I think the most irritating thing while typing code is having to use the shift keys to type any kind of a bracket, even though brackets are so common in code. Also all brackets are located on the same side, so it becomes all the more tiring to type both the brackets with the same hand while typing...
Not sure if the alternative keyboards address these issues. If they do, maybe it is worth a try..
Finally! A keyboard to match the Look-and-Feel of Windows XP! ;)
Who really gives a flying ***? So we're locked into a suboptimal path ("path dependence": FYI RTFA please). DVORAK is better than QWERTY, Beta is better than VHS, Linux is better than Windows... Wow, big deal. Over time VHS gave way to DVDs, and a whole new war about encodings, and copyright issues etc. started. The same will happen when keyboards finally give way to voice recognition and other more efficient tools. Beta might have been better than VHS, but both were crap when compared to DVDs. Same with Windows and Linux, and with keyboards. These technologies will eventually give way (or evolve, in the case of Linux I think) to something vastly different and better. But whatever they evolve to will have a whole new set of issues. However, I think the human race tends to get things sufficiently right in order to keep the ball rolling towards the next era. Where technologies are truly crappy they disappear quickly anyway.
this just can't work because it's not designed to be efficient but friendly for people who never learned to type (and are to lazy to, or just illogically scared) :
1) laying keys alphabetically is easy for people looking at what they type and searching for keys, but inefficient for real typing (qwerty or even azerty keyboards are layed to optimize the dispatching of key typing through the different fingers while typing common letters combinations)
2) the keyborad colors : Hell ! who wants to type on a playskool keyboard sort of. That just makes me think of those keyboards you wrap on your real keyboard for the games designed for babies...
3) Too few keys. I'm sorry, but how the hell am i supposed to type in symbols and digits ? using some shift/caps lock-like key all the time is pain, even if they are placed in the middle so everything can be typed one hand. It would have been far more "user-friendly" to have some sort of numeric keypad (everyone is used to numeric keypads), and, why not, some symbol keypad. That would have been, even if ugly for real typer efficiency, more in the spirit of this user-friendly keyboard wannabe...
4) English don't use accents. But many of us out there do. Latin-based language go for cute and grave accents, spanish have some tilde, german loves "umlaut", and nordic language have '' (angstrom sort of). These are common letters. Having to reach them as symbol is NOT acceptable.
This guy wrote a genetical algorithm to find out the most efficient keyboard layout based on several factors like time needed to move fingers and use of both hands alternating. The best designs were stunningly similar to Dvorak, suggesting that it is quite perfect. In direct competition to Dvorak they even lost. Seems there are no (mathematically) faster keyboards. Quite scientific method. Of course only relevant to ten-finger-typists.
There exist absolutely no advantage to an alphabetical layout. It is insulting to suggest that the needs of beginner 'hunt and peck' typists in any way should have design relevance for a high speed text input device. The colors and similar design trappings have no application for skilled typists looking only on the screen.
DVORAK is a logical design with a layout derived from real-world statistical language analysis producing a very fast and efficient keyboard layout. QWERTY is good enough for most people, however.
"New Standard" indeed. I hate marketing people.
Will this thing have *good* national layouts for non english speaking countries?
For example how can one map the 9 extra characters needed to type in Hungarian on such a small keyboard?
... and I type waaaay faster than I talk.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Windows (even XP) only supports Dvorak for US -- if you require æøå then you need the Norwegian layout. You must hack/replace the "US Dvorak" DLL (1), or install a separate application and make your own layout (2).
p x
1: http://www.stenling.no/dvorak/Drivere.htm
2: http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.ms
"Good news, everyone!"
My box has no operating system installed.
Can I use the keyboard in BIOS setup? Or during installation of a new OS?
Well, the article says it needs Windows 95 or newer.
My Linux and *BSD are newer, does that count?
Of course it has to be compatible with old keyboards, but the press release doesn't say.
Jeez these marketing guys should be having one keyboard in their arse.
There are plenty of reasons to why the key layout matter, and so it seems implausible that the optimal layout would be abcdefg.
We're probably going to use keyboards for most of our lives and even a very small advantage of a certain layout is worth pursuing.
It's just as much about comfort.
C'mon guys, Dvorak req's less finger movement (regardless of actual typing speed), and any true slashdotter should strive for less physical exercise - right?
"Good news, everyone!"
Better yet, have you even tried to learn Dvorak? The fact is that it's easier to learn and use than QWERTY. I made the switch a year ago, after typing QWERTY more than half of my life.
Super ninja monkeys will one day rule the world!
We figure that, if a church organist can play scales with her feet, we could
All church organists are NOT female.
Just a subtle hint..
For a limited time the DataHand is actually affordable. Might want to pick up a couple.
Where are our beloved Windows keys?!?!?
Frankly, this smells of profiteering. Some product and marketing team at a keyboard manufacturer is trying to generate revenue. They want to stir the pot, create new exclusive markets for what has gone sour. I spent about $20 on my last keyboard. I bet these clowns are going to try and sell this thing for $99 or more.
Personally? I hope it fails miserably. It's almost as if these people think they're doing us a favor... when in reality, they're trying to cut costs by making cheaper keyboards, and they're bucking the system. While these people are at it, let's get the US to switch to driving on the left side of the road? And let's change books so that we read from right to left, instead of left to right.
Isn't Dvorak or Qwerty enough choice for now? I know Dvorak isn't as popular, but at least it's a pretty good alternative to Qwerty. Really... these people thought we needed another "standard"?
"Let's make a new guitar. We'll make the strings different lengths. That way, it'll be easier to figure out which string is which! Never mind that there are 5 billion people that DON'T use guitars this way. We'll just announce the change, and see how we do!"
The problem with this new keyboard is that it doesn't have enough keys to be converted to cyrillic. I will never use it.
Do some fscking research before you design a product. Repeat after me: alphabetic layout does NOT magically make typing faster.
Morons.
"There are two keyboard standards today - QWERTY and DVORAK. QWERTY, the one we usually have, was used on the first commercially produced typewriter in 1873."
Wrong, grossly wrong.
There's only one true standard regarding keyboards, defined by the ISO/CEI 9995 norm ("Keyboard Layouts for Text and Office Systems, in Parts").
Now, inside that norm, there are several standards in use all around the world: QWERTY in anglo-saxon countries. AZERTY in Europe. QWERTZ and DVORAK also found limited use. And that's not even counting the numerous regional variants. Even if you restrain the definition to the layout of the standard alphanumeric keys, you can already find AZERTY, QWERTY, DVORAK both with unshifted and shifted access to numbers, all in widespread use - that's already six layouts that you can call standards (as they're used in more than one country).
Don't believe that because QWERTY-US is in use in your country that it is the case in the rest of the world !
If I recall correctly (I'm at work, so I can't check), "The Psychology of Everyday Things" ("The Design of Everyday Things" in paperback) by Donald Norman has a detailed discussion on keyboard layouts. He cites studies showing that, for beginners, alphabetic keyboards are no quicker than QWERTY, and for users with experience of QWERTY they're substantially slower.
Qwerty and dvorak are nice, bu do not forget the French tried to be difficult again and chose AZERTY. Works actually better, because of many accents used. Example: éèà
i cs/keyboards/qwerty.jsp/
And then I probably forget other advantages for french speaking persons.
Here in Belgium the layout is also AZERTY, mostly because in the beginning of the existance of Belgium the french speaking part was more powerful and occupied the high spots in society and the government. The dutch speaking part now also uses the AZERTY layout. But in the Netherlands they use QWERTY again.
And even Germany seems to use QWERTZ, the Y and Z are switched. http://www-306.ibm.com/software/globalization/top
Long live standardisation!
PS. Doing computer sciences at the university of Antwerp, for programming most keyboard here are QWERTY, and a lot of important signs are placed ideally for prgramming...
Dependency hell? =>
First, cursor keys belong everywhere but the middle of the keyboard. Or does anyone want to use both hands for cursor control?
Second -- as already pointed out by others -- where's the space bar? There's a reason why certain control keys are bigger than others such as Alt, Shift, Ctrl, Enter/Return and, most notably, Space.
Third, I don't think it's a good idea to place average control keys into the lowest row while having an empty row above. Can't see how this will improve ergonomy.
Oh, and finally, what the heck is it with color coding keys? The one who needs color on keys to determine their function can type on any keyboard, no matter how silly the layout is. That person will also never suffer from wrist problems because with the "search, target, and pick"-method you only use 1-2 fingers and don't get fast enough anyways.
If you want to give your wrists a rest, get a Microsoft Natural Keyboard. No big learning curve and instant relief.
For most of us non-competitive typer types, i.e., probably all but maybe one person reading this post, speed isn't a reason to move to Dvorak. But comfort is. This is so much nicer; the gain-per-minute is small, but I still plan to put a lot more minutes in front of a keyboard.
This can't be overemphasized. For those of us who spend 8 hours a day working w/ computer Dvorak is an excellent choice. We can't afford to fsck up our hands because they pay the bills, and we are going to be typing a lot through our careers.
QWERTY users, do you think you will be grateful you didn't lose the productivity for a week 10 years from now when your hands are fscked from all the suboptimal typing? Some investments don't pay off immediately, but the price of not investing may be surprisingly high.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
However the whole arrangement of the keys in both Qwerty and Dvorak is a hack to build mechanical typewriters, as a straightforward layout of clear rows and columns would be much better for our fingers.
The Dvorak-layout is already over 70 years old.
The optimal layout would probably use clear rows and columns (like currently on the number-pad) with a key-layout similar to Dvorak, but optimized by computer-aided statistic research.
Has anyone produced a keyboard for programmers, where all the commonly used punctuation keys are easier to reach?
For example (on a UK Keyboard) the fact that {} are both shifted, means hell of a lot of extra keystrokes in some languages, as does the fact that @()": are all also shifted.
I'd like to see a keyboard that kept the QWERTY layout, but had better positioning of punctuation for programmers.
New Standard Keyboard
"This can't be overemphasized. For those of us who spend 8 hours a day working w/ computer Dvorak is an excellent choice. We can't afford to fsck up our hands because they pay the bills, and we are going to be typing a lot through our careers."
The same could be said for brains. So why do geeks take drugs?
For most people the presumed (dis)advantages of qwerty and dvorak are less than relevant, because for most languages the frequency of letters can be totally different.
For instance, I have a good 7 letters here on my keyboard that I will never need when typing in my native language (Finnish). On the other hand, two vowels are situated where I can only access them with my left pinky. Does this make my typing slower? Probably, but not very much. Why doesn't each country develop their own keyboards? Cause it would just be expensive and stupid.
People learn to cope with 'design flaws', and they move on. Just ask all the left-handed people out there.
Gnome: A never ending quest to make unix friendly to people who don't want unix and excruciating for those that do.
The same could be said for brains. So why do geeks take drugs?
Perhaps the payoff is bigger than that given by typing on a Qwerty keyboard?
Drugs are more of a lifestyle/social issue, and in that area you might make tradeoffs that are stupid in professional sense. Drugs also help to reduce the geek factor, which might be worthwhile for some people.
The colorful image of the keyboard may cause permanent damage to your eyes. OUCH!
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Stop your dull little tricks, please!
He obeys very well for a new channel.
There is QWERTY, and there are about 3 geeks who run around pushing DVORAK.
Give it up already.
I'd love to see some more research done into keyboard layouts... though, for me at least, I'm not interested in migrating away from QWERTY. I am interested in alternative mechanisms by which to capitalise and to enter symbols. For example, I find it infuriating that UK keyboards put the double-quote character above 2 - which, to my mind at least, is far less convenient than where the US puts it above the single quote... but I can't justify (in a modern world with email addresses etc) putting the "at" symbol above 2 either. As a programmer I'd like brackets, braces, single/double quotes and all the standard operators to be available to me in a single keystroke... and I'd particularly like an alternative "shift" which does not need to remain depressed as a modifier - but rather a shift key which when pressed once inverts the case of the next character. While I doubt that such a keyboard would be substantially faster than an standard QWERTY one - I do think it would be far more comfortable to use - and suspect it would dramatically reduce the likelihood of developing RSI by writing code.
They put the OFF key where the Escape key is in QWERTY keyboards. That means you'll end up powering off your computer whenever you want to close a window or change mode in vi. How smart... :)
Where you live that may be true... However, venture out a little further and you'll find that it isn't. I somehow suspect that there are currently more French AZERTY keyboard users than Dvorak users worldwide. Don't forget that even most languages that use latin characters have more letters than the 26 that you're used to. Don't forget non-latin character languages (far Eastern etc.) too.
It'll never happen, (yeah I know neither will RAM sizes get beyodn 640k). The QWERTY keyboard is so entrenched that no other alternative keyboard will get rid of it. QWERTY works fine for 99.99% of occasions.
Mind you, one keyboard I wouldn't mind having is a GKOS keyboard. Nice simple chordic design.
-- main(s){printf(s="main(s){printf(s=%c%s%c,34,s,34
Looks like a nice DIY to rearrange the keys in my keyboard
The keys are arranged alphabetically so there is no learning curve for hunt and peck typists as well as senior citizens who have never had a computer because they are challenged by the difficult basic keyboard.
Oh, so that's why.
Noise Is Music Podcast.
I switch constantly between QUERTY and AZERTY between my desktop and laptop (a good deal on eBay, but AZ). Moreover my parents only use AZ (because it is the prevailing standard in Belgium, due to the availability of accents) and at work we mostly have QU (due to the easy access of numbers). After a minute or so I am usually used to the change. My speed is not incredible but at least the typing is not in the critical path (the thinking is).
For 'for typing for some reason' read 'for typing the character U+00AC NOT SIGN for some reason'.
Somehow the synbol I typed has vanished, which shows just how useless it is.
I think that this keyboard made specially for dummies!
How I can work eith it in my emacs? How about my native language symbols?
QWERTY keyboard is more useful IMHO.
i don't like bad comments
In Brazil we use QWERTY, but while some oldschool geeks (like me) prefer US_Intl keyboars, mainstream seems to prefer the ABNT2 keyboards - basically, it adds a Ç key where your '/ key was supposed to be, and remaps almost all the symbols. It's awful. Details here http://www.macromedia.com/support/fontographer/ts/ documents/latin/BRZ1.gifo m/support/fontographer/ts/ documents/latin/BRZ2.gif
http://www.macromedia.c
The sad thing is that's becoming very difficult to find us_intl keyboards around here. And I'd prefer typing on a german eszet-enhanced keyboard than on an ABNT2.
Microsoft Windows 95 and above.
so does not meet your,
"So let's use a keyboard designed for people, not machines, shall we?"
criteria on that count as well.
You'd think a $70 keyboard would emulate the standard as far as the machine interface!
YFI
(for being a bore)
Oh, good, I see two of the three most common letters are under the left pinky, one forcing you to stretch a little.
On the other hand, I'm not an expert.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
And if that became popular how hard would it be to generate dvorak equivalents for a dictionary attack file?
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
There are two keyboard standards today - QWERTY and DVORAK. QWERTY,
In other countries people use AZERTY or other keyboards. The layout of many keyboards in many countries is different from that from standard QWERTY.
here be some info
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Typing "TYPEWRITER" fast was simply a sales gimmick, so the salesmen could tell clueless PHBs "see! It doesn't slow typists down! I can type TYPEWRITER quickly!" And unsurprisingly, clueless PHBs existed in 1870 just as well, long before computers, and corporate purchases were made based on some rigged non-representative demo.
But there were real mechanical considerations there too.
Typewriters used to be purely mechanical things. Hitting a key physically pressed a lever, which swung a small hammer at the paper. Actually, at the ink ribbon. And on the hammer a letter or digit was embossed. (Actually, two. SHIFT would physically raise the carriage, so the second letter on the hammer hit.)
Because it was purely mechanical and involved densely packed thin levers, it was jam-prone. If you hit two keys at the same time, two hammers would try to occupy the same space at the same time. If they were coming from opposite ends, not much would happen: 99% of the time one would just hit on top of the other. But if they were adjacent (or almost adjacent) levers, the machine would jam.
That was the problem they tried to solve: keeping the machine from jamming. Which involved moving the hammers for most common letter combinations further apart from each other. Which, since it was a purely mechanical contraption, involved moving the keys too. (It wasn't as simple as defining a new mapping table, like on computers.)
And whatever effect it had on typists and typing speed, was side-effect rather than considered in the design. Whether it sped them up or slowed them down, it still ended up faster if it didn't require unjamming twice a minute.
However, here's another fun fact: the typewriter for which that layout was designed was very different even from typewriters manufactured after 1900. After 1900 the hammers were arranged in an arc in front of the paper. Before that, they were arranged in a circle or bucket shape.
That bucket shape is what the QWERTY layout was designed for. Which meant that moving the hammers had some weirder effects on where the keys moved. E.g., near the middle of rows, two adjacent keys would swing hammers from opposite sides of the bucket. Hence the "TY" in "TYPEWRITER" would not jam that machine, which is why they're still near each other.
It would, however jam a post-1900 typewriter.
So basically the short story is: QWERTY was never supposed to be ergonomic, it was supposed to just prevent jams. And even that was a quick mechanical hack, which missed a lot of fairly commong combinations. _And_ even for the purpose of preventing jams it wasn't that useful any more, for any post-1900 typewriter.
Yet, more than 100 years even after the new typewriter design, and half a century after keyboards being used in computers (which don't jam) we're still stuck with the QWERTY idiocy.
Its saving grace, though, is that basically on a computer keyboard _any_ layout works just as well. Neither jams nor alternating hands (which made sense back when you had to hit the keys HARD on a typewriter) are relevant any more. You just type faster on whatever layout you're the most used to. For most people that means QWERTY.
Which means there's little real incentive to switch to a new layout.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Teenagers want to have the "latest and greatest," and they like to stick up for the social outcast. In a nutshell, that's the main appeal of Dvorak. It's the metaphorical 13-yr old angst-ridden outcast keyboard that's just 7o0 pHr33|<1n6 (O0| 4 J0o! (Ahem. I got carried away there. Sorry. It won't happen again.)
/\/\y dvorak!" (Ooops. I said it wouldn't happen again. I guess I lied. Sorry!) Anyway, my point is you're no different from a teenager (the teenager mentality doesn't always start at age 13, and it doesn't magically stop when you turn 20).
Teenagers usually want the optimal solution, and they can't understand why the older generation won't just give up our old, broken ways. Well here's a cluebat for you little whipper snappers: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Translation: Unless you can double my efficiency, don't bother trying to show me your newfangled way. It's simply not worth my time. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go unstick the phonograph.
p.s. Some of you are saying, "haha. Shows what he knows. I'm 27, and I 10\/2oRz
Looking at the key layout I think basically there are a few good ideas in it. If it had less silly colors and a QWERTY scheme and a row of function keys...
I don't think that QWERTY will ever be replaced by anything different. First, it's a standard. Second, other schemes are not significantly better (if at all). But the rest of standard keyboards could be really improved. Having all keys reachable from the home position and having the cursor keys right in the center would be great. Making the space bar less wide and making room there for other keys/modifiers is a good idea, too (the Shift keys are totally awkward on normal keyboards).
Grouping the non-character keys in a more ergonomic way is a very good idea. And giving modifiers a different color and/or shape than character keys is not bad either. Making all keys the same color and shape and laying them out in a strict matrix is just good for lowering production costs but certainly not for ergonomics.
In short: If it had a less silly design, a QWERTY-layout and high-quality mechanics I might consider buying one.
I'm looking at my keyboard right now, and I really can't see that many useless keys... Yeah, I've got a couple duplicate keys (L & R shift, L & R ctrl, etc.) but I just don't see THAT many useless keys. This new keyboard only has 53? What did they strip out? I didn't see any function keys...and I didn't see a numeric keypad...I guess that accounts for a lot of them... But I USE those keys! I really can't see how this is going to be much of an improvement if you wind up missing a bunch of useful keys...
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You're supposed to shout "BULLSHIT" !
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hey, has anyone estimated how many man hours have been lost since the introduction of QWERTY keyboard? Say with the reference point of the introduction of the IBM PC? :-D
One of the biggest problems with the current AT-keyboard layout is the ordering of digits on the numeric keypad.
I don't disagree with you, but my biggest problem with almost all computer keyboards is that they have numeric keypads.
I use a mini keyboard, because I can center the alphabetic keys right in front of the monitor, and I can reach the mouse without stretching my arm. I love it.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
You insensitive English speaking clod!
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-efd8d03c49-97d673d 830-89153cc1f7
c 3b4-82d59056e7
8 f38-6538d660bc
1 a39-e6bf0d0ebb
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-efd8d03c49-a14b6c
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-efd8d03c49-4d9d80
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-efd8d03c49-027411
Who is going to buy this thing when it looks so....terrible? I think it will take at least 10 years for any new keyboarding style to come into the mainstream.
Sorry, I'll call bull on any "proof" based on
(A) scare stories ("but it'll kill your wrists!"), and
(B) unverifiable "halelujah! The new Lord/Layout/Whatever healed me!" bullshit
I _am_ willing to accept that a layout causes more strain than the other, once I see an actual scientific study. But disparate "I heard stories about someone who knew someone who got divinely healed once they believed in the Holy Dvorak" are at best a crap cult, nothing more.
The fact remains that:
1. Last I've heard, RSI had _nothing_ to do with the distance travelled by your fingers, but with the position of your wrists on the table. Which is the same for any keyboard layout.
Here's a bit of a fun fact: the actual mechanical typewriter typists are the _least_ likely to get RSI problems in their wrists, even at actually higher finger movement. Because their wrists aren't touching the table.
So basically saying that DVORAK heals RSI is like saying that a new hat healed your knee. More of a question of belief than any scientific cause-effect link. It's also why you don't hear that someone's pain got worse: because it really has nothing to do with keyboard layout.
2. People believe in all sorts of miraculous healing all the time, because they want to. They want to see results, they want to be right, they want to feel good about having done/chosen the right thing.
So the selective confirmation kicks in. The brains automatically discards any data which would hurt your beliefs, and retains the one which seems to fit your dogma.
It doesn't even have anything to do with keyboards as such. Anything you really want to believe in will have the same effect. _Anything_ can be "proved" via selective confirmation.
For example a racist person who really wants to believe that RaceX is inferior, will remember all the times they've seen someone of that race do something stupid, or all the cases they've seen one accused of a crime on the news, but systematically not register anything good about that race. Or someone who wants to believe, say, that praying to the Lord makes their car go faster, will remember every single time where they got a good speed (down hill and with wind from the back), but conveniently forget every single time the prayer didn't help.
3. There's this fun medical fact that most diseases and injuries heal by themselves, given enough time. Even modern medicine most of the time doesn't outright kill the bacteria or viruses inside you (no medicine kills viruses), but just weakens them a bit so your own immune system has an edge.
That's what makes "faith healing" or "alternative healing" seem to work. At least 80% of their patients would have healed anyway. So, hey, you just need to pray to the Great Holy Banana too and you too have that probability to be healed! And the rest, hey, they probably didn't have enough faith in the Great Holy Banana.
And humans find ways to deal with harm. E.g., someone may eventually learn to position their arms so they hurt their wrists less. Or they might get a different desk and chair, so the wrist position is different. Etc.
There are a _lot_ of factors which can make or break that kind of an injury. Or any other kind of a injury. So I'd wait for a study that scientifically rules those out, before ascribing the miracle to the all-powerful cult of Dvorak.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Last I've heard, RSI had _nothing_ to do with the distance travelled by your fingers, but with the position of your wrists on the table.
"RSI" stands for something. Expand the acronym and you may begin to understand.
That was the sound of the joke going over your head.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
...and the 26 color-coded keys for the letters of the English alphabet are all nice and green and such, but how would you internationalize the product? The Swedish alphabet has 29 letters, where would you fit those three extra keys? I know there are other alphabets that have something inbetween or more. How would you make those?
I, for one, do not welcome our new narrowminded keyboard overlords.
Seriously, whoever wrote that article needs to do some serious research before posting such nonsense. I've used a keyboard in alphabetical order in the past (as a young kid *before* I learned to type on a QWERTY keyboard) and having the keys in that order was definitely wrong. Also, the QWERTY keyboards were absolutely *not* designed to slow down somebody typing. In fact, it was designed to improve typing efficiency by placing letters that are commonly used in sequence, on opposite sides so that the likelihood of a jam was greatly reduced. One well known exception to this rule is the word "database", which is typed entirely with the left hand on a QWERTY keyboard ;-).
My lame blog.
I remember in the early 90's, there were these small annoying pda-wannabes. I think some of them were called "Data banks" or something. They were small, and often only included 16KB of memory, a calendar, a calculator and some password protected account-what-so-ever program.
:)
Most of these useless paperweights had an alphabetically sorted keyboard, and honestly, that was a pain to type on. To be frank, I was not very old at the time when they were out, so I wasn't used to any layout, neither QWERTY nor DVORAK, but still, my typing speed was greatly reduced with this, and it only caused my annoyance to type with it. So the question stands, why didn't Newstandardkeyboard do their research and conclude that alphabetical is NOT the way to sort the keys on a keyboard. And frankly, I don't think I could find another layout so far away from the words that we type.
And what's with the design? If I had a child, I would give it to him or her with an instruction to throw it out after use
I've wondered on the net several years ago why someone wasn't selling such a keyboard for newbies. E.g., my parents cannot type and have an awful time looking for keys. Yeah, I know they COULD learn to type the "right" way, but they have no desire. Thus if you want to sell computer to such newbies, you can either wait for them to bend or offer them a keyboard they'd want.
Of course when I mentioned it all those years ago I was criticized and flamed. But then again, until someone like Dell or Apple starts shipping computers with them, newbies would be too ignorant to find and buy one anyway.
On a side note, I used to work at a law firm where one of the partners could not type. I brought in a keyboard with the letters removed just to bug her. It was hilarious watching her attempt to type on it the first time!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
because they work better the way they are.
People can sit there and argue about whether DVORAK or QWERTY is better. The answer is.... It doesn't matter. Sure, for the top 1% of typists who actually can acheive about 80 WPM, they might actually squeeze out and extra 5-10 WPM using a DVORAK. But tell me honestly, how often do you actually type at 80 WPM for more then 1 minute? Unless you're typing up essays and letters all day, I can't really see how the extra 10 WPM you might get out of a DVORAK would actually help. Especially considering you would have to stop from time to time to think about what you are writing. Not to mention the frustration when you actually have to use another computer with a QWERTY keyboard, at which point you are completely lost.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Good idea though. Knock the price down by 70% and I'd try one
I'd have to reconfigure all of my first person shooters!
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
The _keyboard_ requires Win95 or above? No USB keyboard drivers for other OSes? Give me a break..
I can't find the any key!!!!
okay, on a theoretical level, I understand why you might want to bother with a keyboard layout that optimizes input speed. BUT, even on a QWERTY layout board, all 26 letters are easily in reach of the home row, and hitting any one letter with the appropriate finger really doesn't seem to be particularly problematic. Draw from that the ability to hit any number of keys rapidly in series with different fingers also is not particularly problematic. Funny that.
I concede that there may be a few exceptions to the rule where one finger, or one hand, is used more often for a particular word or phrase, and that may cause a temporary decrease in efficiency, but I'll argue that for almost all of the time such circumstances are not the norm. And I don't think that such efficiency bottlenecks are unique to QWERTY.
so, what I guess I'm getting at is, is there really any realistic benefit to switching to any of these new layouts? Is 80 or 90 WPM on a QWERTY layout board not fast enough for you? What are you typing so voraciously that you require WPMs into the hundreds? Personally, I like to stop and think about what I'm writing periodically, so there's plenty of "buffer" time in which I could be typing, but I'm not.
QWERTY is fine as is, IMHO. It's become the standard, and it's important to stick with some standards if they do the job well. The inefficiencies that'll be caused by having multiple standards for something as ubiquitous as the computer keyboard will, again IMHO, outweigh any perceived benefits.
-matt
No shit, Sherlock, but like I said, unless you've got a massive cache of peer-reviewed studies heretofore unknown to mankind, anecdotes are all we've got. I'd say it's very well established that RSI exists, and like I said, I've only heard one kind of story, plus my own experience of reduced stress on the hand, which is why I invited counter-anectdotes. I note none appeared. "Proves" nothing, but again, all we've got.
In the lieu of science, even those of us with a highly scientific bent are not required to shove our heads into the sand and yell that we can't possibly know anything, anyhow, not even for personal use. I've inherited something-or-other from my dad that seems to make it difficult to absorb iron. It doesn't have a name that I know of, let alone a scientific treatment. But rather than shove my head in the sand, I take iron pills. (A lot; typically on the order of 700% of my RDA, and I can handle even more than that, whereas even 350%, one pill I take, makes everybody else I know who has tried one sick to their stomach, even if taken with a meal.) I'd rather have a scientific treatment, but as there won't be one anytime soon, I am not obligated to yell "I can't know what to do!" and suffer a lifetime of permanent anemia just so I can feel Scientific.
So, nuts to your "bull".
Oh, and nobody I know of says it "heals" or "cures" RSI, it just causes it to flare up less and be less of a problem. (Somebody probably does, but I am not responsible for them. I certainly didn't.)
I program in java, but on my norwegian locale keyboard the brace characters '{' and '}' are hidden with an 'Alt-Gr 7' and 'Alt-Gr 0' combo. WTF?
In addition I want to send CAPS LOCK to the hell it truly deserves and use the real estate it occupies for something useful.
Switching to a new layout is not going to be accepted easily, even if it does become a new standard. Especially for us touch-typists. I think a good idea for implementing a new standard layout (I'm not saying this is The One) would be to have a keyboard with qwerty on one side, but then you could flip it over and use the new one (be it this alphabetical fancy coloured one, PLUM or any other). That way qwerty fans could still experiment, while new users (the kids, etc.) could learn the new standard, without having to do any keyboard swapping.
GnomeSkull
http://jdouglasmedia.com/
-ducks-
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
I agree that the benefits are marginal if your not a touch typist though.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
I say:
I switched because less finger travel made my hands less tired at the same typing speed. I still use both layouts, but if I am typing a lot, I will use dvorak.
When I first thought about switching, I created an Excel macro to count finger reaches in QWERTY phrases and one for Dvorak. I also started making a list of common words that can be typed on the home row in each. In both of these endeavors, Dvorak won. roughly 25-30% less finger travel, more in some phrases. Many more common words on the home row.
Here http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/ is a company that makes ergo keyboards with vertical rows, QWERTY, Dvorak, or both.
History says:
The slant of the columns on the keyboard is an artifact left over from mechanical typewriters.
For those not acquainted with the story of the keyboards, here's a short version:
http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/jcb/Dvorak/
I have nothing witty to fill this space with yet.
There is no way that anyone that ACTUALLY uses the computer on a regular basis is going to buy this keyboard. There is no way that someone is going to go through the trouble of learning how to type on a different keyboard. I just graduated from high school about 2 years ago, and they really pressed typing to the students, if they really think that someone is going to learn how to type with one keyboard they are nuts; but to switch to a compleaty different keyboard is not going to happen. The only people this would be good for is the elderly who never had to use a typewriter and just want that $50 computer they dont know how to use it, and just want it to email family and play card games. Other than that, I would be rather surprised if this sells.
Are you absentminded?
Before some over-zealous mod decides this is a Troll, (a) turn on your sense of humor, (b) realize that I am a long-time Mac user, and (c) I already RTFA, and know it's an IBM-compatible only keyboard.
Do not touch -Willie
is here:9
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/8/28/21547/206
he describes some qualities of human hands and letter frequency, suggests some qualities an ideal keyboard should have, and looks at the two top religions.. err.. layouts.
I have nothing witty to fill this space with yet.
Q W E
A S D
XF86Config:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "XFree86 Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
Option "DontZap" "True" #To avoid the zapping of the server
EndSection
Zed: Nothing is ever easy
Can I surf for porn one handed with this? I mean, that's what we all really want, right?
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
If this becomes standard I will have to remap all my keys for Quake/UT/BF1942...
Whay wont anyone think of the children!!!!
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
Everything else aside... if you are a 'vi' user, then this keyboard will likely drive you mad. Why? Because you use the "hjkl" keys in edit mode as arrow keys.
On the qwerty kbd, they are the home row, and they are used constantly for moving your cursor around. The mouse takes your hand too far from the keyboard. Even the dedicated arrow keys take your hand away from the keyboard. I use the hjkl keys constantly when editing.
(to be fair, ANY non-qwerty keyboard will be horrible for a dedicated vi user, for the same reason.)
It sounds like a low-quality implementation. Especially with redundant A's in the deafult design spec.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
You know, I heard about the dvorak (or however it's spelled) alignment and, having OS X which supports it, I manually took my keys off and rearranged them from qwerty to dvorak. I used it for a week before giving up. I'm back to qwerty again.
The problem really was that dvorak is not laid out to make words easily. All the major keys are on one line of keys, what they call their home row, which you'd think would be nice. But try and spell something quickly and you'll find that the letters for normal words do not flow right; there is no rhythm to it.
That's a real problem. When you type you need to build a rhythm to keep a decent speed going. It really is not a matter of learning the key board: I had the dvorak pattern memorized with 2 days. The qwerty pattern keeps your hands taking turns, left, right, left, right, left, right, et cetera, for the most part.
Also, standard english words are much harder to type out in dvorak once you get past the 3 letter words. The letters are placed so that you have to take your hand away from the keyboard to strike the right letter, unless you want to do a strange twisting of the fingers to hit that certain key.
Not that I'm pro qwerty either, but there is a reason that it's lasted so long. It may have been made to be slow on type writers, but it's also very ergonomic when it comes to actual english words and rhythm.
This even becomes more true when it comes to programming. It's far easier to reach the colon/semi-colon, greater/less than, brackets/braces, parentheses, and plus/minus/underscore keys on my standard qwerty keyboard, than it is on the dvorak layout. Again it goes towards rhythm. There are far less wasted strokes when programming in the qwerty layout.
I can't see a new standard that keeps all the letters in alphabetical order, and shrinks the number of keys no less, as being any better. In fact I bet it will be worse than dvorak and qwerty combined. Ease of learning is not a consideration for someone who's been typing already for over twenty years.
Now stop interrupting my productivity to show me some possible new productive layout, and let me get back to work!
My sig is as boring as you...
Why do we keep doing this? I mean, why do we start these flame wars such as vim v.s. emacs or QWERTY v.s. DVORAK or Python v.s. Perl v.s. Ruby?
We all know that these arguments are not winnable in any way shape or form. Basically, the fights started many years ago and have yet to define a winner.
GNU Free Software and the Open Source movement are all about choice! There is little need to have market leaders like in the past with flame wars over Word Perfect v.s. Microsoft Word. The whole idea of starting flame wars in the computer field was to promote 'mind share'. The concept that when most people think of a word processor it will point to your product instead of the competition. i.e. Microsoft did not have 'mind share' with Word. When someone thought word processor they thought Word Perfect (at the time frame of the MS vs WP battle). Hence the naming of Word, Microsoft Word. It increased the mind share to associate 'Word' with Microsoft rather then the competitor's Word Perfect. In fact, some people didn't know the difference.
The battle for a text editor or programming language or keyboard layout is not that much different. The thinking seems to be that if one can mention their chosen method frequently enough then mind share will follow. Why must there be evangelical followers who attempt to convert others? I mean, it's a freaking text editor (use what works for you!).
---------
Personal Opinion on QWERTY vs. DVORAK
---------
QWERTY is by far the current standard in keyboard layout. Most computer users cannot touch-type but those who do mostly type using the QWERTY layout. Now, I don't care if DVORAK makes you more efficient or reduces RSI, etc. It will drive people bananas to try to re-train their fingers to handle touch typing DVORAK.
Want to use DVORAK? That's your problem, society has chosen QWERTY. You still have choice, change the layout on your operating system and pop the key-caps to reposition to DVORAK. However, if you are at work and you don't personally own the keyboard, then you should buy your own keyboard and then keep your original one for when Tech Support shows up at your desk. Nothing is more frustrating to a QWERTY touch typist then to start typing QWERTY and get DVORAK characters. The first time I had this happen (and it's only happened twice in 10 years) I had no idea what was wrong. If you do want to use DVORAK at work, buy your own keyboard, change the key-caps so it's obviously DVORAK and keep your original keyboard around for when someone else want's to use the computer. Even better, tape a note to the keyboard denoting it's DVORAK or use yellow keycaps for the DVORAK keys...
This is why DVORAK will never take over from QWERTY! The argument is not worth the effort. It's like suddenly switching which side of the road you drive on! People would freak out. This is why HDTV hasn't taken over yet. People would have to throw out millions of televisions and upgrade, not gonna happen overnight.
In order for any technology to take over for an earlier yet standard technology it has to be on the order of magnitude at least better then twice as good as the standard. Otherwise, it's not worth the tremendous effort to change. Unless DVORAK makes me more then twice as fast as I can type now, it's not worth it. The studies out are flawed as flawed as political polling. A test just like a poll can be skewed to any outcome desired.
YAAD
(right back at 'cha)
...else of another keyboard with twenty-six functions on each key?
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
And, of course, who defends QWERTY to the
extreme has never possibly even tried DVORAK.
Must be those knowledge by proxy that are so common nowadays..
Zed: Nothing is ever easy
This keyboard is useless! Without the long Any Key at the bottom of my keyboard how will I respond to the "Press Any Key" query??
You can troll all you want for qewrty or dvorak layout. You all seem to be missing a fundamental piece of the picture though.
When discussing what layout recquires least handmovement and so on, you all seem to assume everyone in the world types in english, or that all other languages in the world has the same basic construction of words with the same sounds.
Let me inform you, as I'm not even from a country where english is native language and am somewhat capable in at least three other languages, that this is definetly not the case. My effiency when it comes to words per minute is very dependent on what language I write. Not because I have to stop and think about the language, but because the keyboard mapping may be practical for that language or not.
So all you idiots trolling about qwerty or dvorak, would you please shut up? If you take into account that different languages relies on regular use of character combinations different from your english, you should easily be able to realize there is no such thing as an ultimate(tm) keyboard layout.
So please shut up, and try to think before you crap out any more nonsense.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Looks like a perfect match for the Fisher-Price Windows XP default GUI scheme...
This article is pure advertisement. Most likely the "anonymous reader" who submitted it is the inventor of this patented keyboard (can you actually patent key arrangement ? even in the US ?)
Didn't passages like "After 130 years of typing the same way the keyboard has finally grown up" and "The New Standard Keyboard is a bold departure from current designs and will compete directly with standard QWERTY models as a replacement keyboard for users who value user-friendliness over arbitrary standardization" really ring any bells ?
Some of the "advantages" mentioned in the article:
What do you stare at when typing, the keyboard or the screen ?
Funny, it looks like normal flat alignment to me.
Ditto for my qwerty.
How is this an advantage ? It makes it harder to navigate the keyboard by feel, that's all.
This might actually be important, since with only half the keys it's going to be though trying to fit shortcuts in.
You know, you don't have to memorize all of them, since not all the keys are used equally often.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Typing really quickly is not an issue for most people. Unless you pre-write your code on a scratch pad then type them in, you aren't going to be typing at anything > 70-80 wpm. The only people who need to do this are those in the steno pool, but they aren't necessary anymore because everyone does their own typing.
Maybe some of you can write 10,000 lines of code in a day and have it run perfectly, but most of us can't. Of course, the whole point of the tools that we create is to make it possible to not write 100 lines of code that will do the same thing as the 10,000.
People who write directly into the computer typically can't input too quickly. An average typist like me (50wpm) can easily start getting ahead of their thoughts.
God: "I don't leave footprints!"
Look! You can type "typewriter" with one row of letters only! It has to be a subliminal product advertisement! It has to be!
That's what makes "faith healing" or "alternative healing" seem to work. At least 80% of their patients would have healed anyway.
To truly understand why "faith healing" and "alternative healing" and other placebos seem to work (though often times, only temporarilly), you have to understand that most of these symptoms that are healed by such things are psychosomatic in nature. The true cause of the symptoms is basically psychological (not saying that the actual symptoms aren't physical, though). For starters read this document and see my other post. Sure, you may say this is just another "alternative healing" but this is the only one I've found that makes sense if you take the time to read up on it. It all kind fits together once you understand it.
dfjlewoe angoeinase
What will Command/Control-Z become? (much less anything else!)
--- Das einzige, das wir zu fürchten haben, ist die Furcht selbst.
I still can't see the ANY key!
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
but personally, I think there is NO way, this could actually speed up typing at all. Reasons: :)) :)
- Alphabetical placing (opposing to the frequency-based) makes easier to find a letter, but anyone with a moderate typing skill does not need to find the keys, only to reach them.
- Cursor arrows in the middle (means you need two hands to navigate efficiently, and there is no way I could learn to play Doom 3 on that
- numeric keypad is removed, and each number requires 2 buttons to press: that's a huge disadvantage.
- No function keys. (maybe with a second key? maybe FNC-A equals F1, then Ctrl-Fnc-A equals Ctrl-F1) That's just lame.
- colors are actually good
Yeah, free Ipod! He is innocent!
Or at least it wouldn't merit such negative discussion on Slashdot. Sheesh... you guys call the iPod Shuffle "revolutionary" and berate this?
What's with vi using k,h,l,j anyway?
Play Dance Dance Revolution for a while, and you will understand vi's HJKL layout.
An alternative railway guage has been announced. Proponents expect the world to switch to the new guage due to its increased cornering performance and load bearing capacity.
52 keys is useles for french users,,,we need keys wiith é,è,à,....i know we can use alt keys but at some point it gets very annoying to have to use multiples keys to have a simple accent,,,,,hopefully the 1984 (movie) idea of simplifying the keyboard will not get through,,for thos who feels the keyboard is clustered with unuse keys USE A CALCULATOR.
the good ol' abcdef keyboard layout? or for my cell phone, the reliable abc123 layout? ;)
see other standards exist but why bring anarchy in a world of peace
In years of using text editors I still haven't been able to come up with something that works faster and better for me than vi (well, vim these days). This is not for lack of trying. A major downside of vi is that it requires a QWERTY layout to really work well (because HJKL need to be adjacent or else moving the cursor becomes a world of suck). The advanatage of vi is that once you learn the "old" "archaic" key commands that use no function keys, no arrow keys, no nuthin', your speed of editing things doubles. - your hands don't have to leave "home" to move the cursor around and edit stuff.
This new keyboard looks like it would have the potential to fix that finally, by putting the arrow keys right in the middle where you can access them quickly and instantly, and the other keys where you just whack them with your thumbs and leave your fingers where they are.
Pretty cool.
Now, if only they had a version that looked professional and not colored like something from Fischer-Price. I look at the picture and it seems like it should be called "Baby's first Keyboard" or something like that.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Incidentally, it is thought that what we feel as "muscle memory" is contained in the cerebellum. This is part of the brain that processes proprioception (the sense of where your limbs are in space) and does the complex math required to do things like throw a ball at a target.
But things remembered in the cerebellem don't have to be consciously thought about.
When you're drunk, the cerebellum is hit rather hard, thus you stumble and have to look at your feet. The nose-to-finger test cops do is a test proprioception.
So you probably couldn't type your PIN if you were drunk either.
I find that every little bit of ease I can give myself increases the amount of information I enter. I notice this when I go from my Kinesis ergonomic keyboard to a standard one. I notice that I don't bother to answer some of my emails, and the ones I do answer, I kind of skip details I don't feel like typing about. So, while I don't know what my rate is, anything that makes my keyboarding faster makes me more effective.
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
close enough: http://www.typematrix.com/
Zed: Nothing is ever easy
Well, the way the keyboard looks, Mattel should have quite the market share.
-- My Mother was a Saint! -- Cisox
Is that evidence? I use qwerty, and my fingers don't hurt after a solid day.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I trust I need not explain the placebo effect to you?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Damn kids these days.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
In the olden times, the IBM 3278 keyboard had the F (PF) keys over on the left, IIRC, rather than across the top. Top F keys are too far to reach, so hardly ever used. Things like windows Alt-F4 are move-the-hand actions, painful.
I learned to type on a traditional, mechanical Underwood typewriter with a QWERTY keyboard, and you know what? The bars got jammed all the time. Every time I hear this justification of QWERTY's design, I stop and wonder: if they were going to sacrifice a quick learning curve and (arguably) a faster typing speed just to prevent jams, couldn't they at least have done a better job?
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
Just type in binary, you just need 2 keys.
The new keyboard looks like it will have a short learning curve. That may drive sales. Certainly, a person who knows only the alphabet can hunt and peck at this thing more effectively than on either querty or dvorak.
But how good is the new one once you've learned it? Will it provide actual benefits over querty for the experienced typist as dvorak promises?
In English, the top letters by frequency are etaoi nsrhl dcumf. In this keyboard, the left hand covers the first half of the alphabet (including eaihldcmf), the right hand covers the second half (including tonsru). So, the new layout gives a relatively even load to each hand. Now, what about fingers?
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Oh forget about the keyboard, that's not efficent enough for the serious FPS gamer - just plug in directly to the back of the brain with a mini d-sub connector! :^)
France has AZERTY, Germany has QWERTZ, I'm sure other layouts exist as well.
If QWERTY, Dvorak, or the layout in the article don't interest you, you can evolve your own. This guy uses genetic algorithms to do just that. The trick is coming up with a good evaluation function. He supplies code if you want to try it. Fascinating stuff...
Missing poll option: I read right to left you insensitive clod!
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
Since this seems to be designed for hunt and peck typers (ie. non-typical computer users), how is this an improvement over the dvorak and qwerty designs?
No, the Dvorak layout is primarily designed to spread typing out across your hands, so that you can make full, even use of them. Most of the typing is done on the home row, which for most people is supposed to be more natural. I'd like larger keyboards, because I have gigantic hands, though it does strike me that that would probably be better for one handed typing, which I am doing now because my right hand is broken.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I saw Frogpad at MacWorld, and for a few minutes of playing around, they seemed really nice. The ergonomics were comfortable, the extra-shift-key patterns weren't too complex, and it seemed like if I wanted to spend the bucks to buy one, they'd really rock. Unfortunately they were mainly showing off the Bluetooth version, which isn't useful to me, but it was fun to watch a wearable-computing-equipment vendor come up and talk to them while I was there; they also have a USB version that's cheaper.
HalfKeyboard is another one-hander that's an immediately-obvious win. Unshifted, it's the QWERT keys; shifted it's the YUIOP keys (or POIUY, I forget which, and the shift key is the space-bar in sticky-mode for fast thumb use.) If you've spend way too much time on a standard keyboard, you immediately just KNOW where all the keys are. They were selling versions for the Palm and also USB, unfortunately for left-hand use (which is fine for a right-hander using Palm, but on a PC I'd rather type with my right hand and mouse with my left.) They also have a software driver version that works with standard PCs, letting you use either hand on a full-sized keyboard, but they wanted some ridiculous price for it, I think over $100, because they were selling to the handicapped-access market where there's a willingness to pay.
For text-only niche use, not programming, I've gotten to really like T9 Predictive Typing on cell phones. It's not always correct, but it's usually correct most of the time, and wouldn't be hard to make it adaptive so you could teach it names you type frequently.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
No, not really. Not unless you want a local salary (which to be fair, in the local economy, could afford you a reasonable lifestyle -- but forget about going home). Plus, you should consider that while your IT skills may be the bees knees, to operate in a Chinese work environment you need to speak Mandarin. Unless you do, and I mean very fluently, I wouldn't even think about it.
I don't actually work in IT -- I work in public relations. Due to management conflicts and petty company politics, though, we run our own server -- everything the IT department gets its hands on, they assert control over to a degree that would make our work impossible. When management discovered that I'd worked previously as an IT whore, they co-opted me into this. It means I get to run Linux at the office, which is a plus. But I'd really rather not work in IT at all anymore. It's a dead end, unless you want to work in the third world for the rest of your life (which I don't). For the record, I wouldn't consider China anything resembling the third world.
I mean, I guess there are a lot of IT jobs in the US still, but the competition is fierce and frankly, as I speak English, Mandarin, French and German fluently, I see a much more lucrative future in international business (read: management).
I've gotten away with using t9.
people bummed the 3650, but if you learn to two-thumb on it it's really fast to type on(for irc, web browsing etc).
problem with t9 is the tons and tons and tons of words I'd have to teach to it - and changing between languages really sucks if you have to do it after every sentence.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Hmmm.
Well, we can always hope.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The studies I've seen say that an alphabetical layout slows the users down. It takes too long to work out where the letters are systematically, which people will do if you give them a systematic layout. So the layout shouldn't be truly random, it should be deliberately unsystematic, a slightly different set which excludes alphabetic or anything like it.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It works anyway. I had bad carpal tunnel from doing data entry for inventory. It stayed troublesome no matter how manner rubber egg-shaped devices I squeezed, no matter how many metal chinese balls I rolled in my hands, no matter ... well you get the picture.
I switched to Dvorak and the carpal tunnel went away.
I regard this study more highly than any other (though, you might not).
Be careful what you wish for...
Where your treasure is there is your heart also...
Bah. And backspace by itself makes a lot of sense for right-to-left, yes?
Why not just use the keyboard that you like the most?
Man, just think. It took me only 1 year to have 40% of what I get on a stock Windows XP box... if I wanted to code and help out I perhaps could start in another 3 years after I get this system stable enough to use as a tool and not a hobbiests junk bin and broken work bench.
Bugtoo is the biggest joke but it is not all their fault... Consider Gentoo a magnifying glass into the inept nature of open source. Sure there are great examples of open source software, but the current culture is so gleefully incompetent and unprofessional that you cannot hope to get anything reliable.
The really fun part is how Linux folk slam Windows for being unstable, insecure and hard to use of all things.
Yup, it used to be all those things but while Linux becomes more chaotic and unstable, Windows makes constant improvement.
Go BSD!
There are three types of keyboards. The 'etaoin shrdlu' layout was around long before the Dvorak keyboard.
'Etaoin shrdlu' is the layout used by Otto Merganthaler, the inventor of the modern linotype.
See: http://etaoin.org
The letters represent the 12 most common used in English.
I'd venture a guess that as many words have been set by lino operators than as have been set by computers.
If you've ever seen a linotype operator pound away... you'll understand the similarities between Mergenthaler and many modern computer users.
The legend I heard amongst printers that Merganthaler died in an insane asylum.
Merganthaler parts often used odd threads, sometimes, left hand threads. It seems they could sell more spare parts by not using standards.
Sound familiar?
Computers often drive us nuts like the linotype drove Merganthaler nuts.
And then there is the spare parts thing.
Rehabilitated journalist and web builder No electrons were harmed during the creation of this mess
Obviously I shouldn't have tried messing around with the system and doing things that task it. It is unfair to tax a 2G+ P4 based system with such untested toys like USB input devices. It was certainly foolish to install components labled "stable" for my architecture and follow what documentation was available to the letter for configuration in a "best practices" way.
I also should never forget the golden rule of Gentoo... Gnentoo is not Windows, Gnentoo is not Windows, Gnentoo is not Windows. I ran such conceptually new and overly taxing applications such as Mozilla Firefox, OpenOffice, and GAIM so should take this as a lesson learned. All those with Windows nearby go about typing and clicking... can they NOT SEE the danger they pose by using such an OS that is so unstable and insecure?
I put my faith in a system that crashes, locks up, or produces runaway processes that eat my memory multiple times a week or perhaps even a day as it "forces me to learn Linux." Also, the inconsistent, often internally redundant and conflicting configuration files coupled with the out of date documentation and lack of "best practices" (by whatever phrase you call it) documentation also grants the me the bonus to ensure knowing each and every detail of each and every part of each and every package as well as all of that packages dependencies. The spectre of looming doom that would befall my system from malicious attacks and software as brought about a lack of "thorough" securing then forces me to learn even more about Linux.
Someone really should extend this wisdom to the Auto, Medical, Law Enforcement, and other industries to force us to ensure knowledge of all aspects possible in the Universe we live in. Ignorance should never be pardoned.
The most fundamental issue is designing a technology that allows us and others to do what they want to do, without restriction.What if you a system that works? I guess you can't please all of the people all of the time. Perhaps I will put a broken engine in my car and then upgrade the lights, paint the outside with fancy airbrush art, install an earsplitting sound system, throw in at least 4 widescreen dvd players, and perhaps even a mini-hottub. Party lights and a multi-colored laser emitter installed at various places on the outside of the car is given of course. Hydraulics was never even considered NOT to be on this baby. It may not run, but look at the work put into this awesome machine!
Don't forget the 18 inch spoiler on back!
The Gentoo philosophy is to allow this user to do what he or she wants to do, without getting in the way.My heart and lungs often get in the way of my living... if perhaps they would stop and I could remove them then I could party till the cows come home!
The Gentoo philosophy, in a paragraph, is this. Every user has work they need to do. The goal of Gentoo is to design tools and systems that allow a user to do their work pleasantly and efficiently as possible, as they see fit.Exactly... and unless your work is defined as "search internet and forums for unauthoritative and unorganized ideas for fixing your problem" and "rebuild for the 10th time your kernel or any other time killing package" then I don't see the Gentoo community having accepted any of the philosophy so far.
Gentoo is not a tool, it is a journey with no map where the island you are aiming for is a moving and often invisable target. The maintainers are all about chrome and their actions define them as not caring about practical use. Tweaking and discovering the fix for problems IS the point of Gentoo. Usage is a side-effect.