Advocating Dvorak

zeroweb writes "A group of three faithful Dvorak promoters have launched new website at DvZine.org. The big thing here is a Comic (available in print, pdf and html) describing the history of QWERTY and Dvorak, how and why one should make the switch, and real-life stories of the converted. If you are thinking about making the switch, this could push you over the edge. My favorite line: "It could be the difference between working in your garden at 70 or wearing wrist braces at 40." As someone who started wearing wrist braces at 23, I couldn't agree more - I read this comic, changed my keyboard layout and have been happier ever since."

Comments

So.... who wants to tell him?

[Grey Ninja]

By tell him, I mean tell him that the Qwerty being designed to slow down your typing is nothing more than a myth?. The layout is actually designed to between your two hands.

Re:So.... who wants to tell him?

[mcgroarty]

How about you read the comic and let them tell YOU that instead. (Right-hand column)

Re:So.... who wants to tell him?

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

Dear god. Okay, step by step.

1.) The keys didn't jam because of speed. They jammed because they were CLOSE to one another physically; the impact head on the typewriter was related in position to the location of the key on the keyboard. Simple mechanics.

2.)By putting two letters that are often side by side (e.g. si, ti, to,an, qu, th, etc) on opposing sides of the keyboard you also made it such that the impact heads would be 'coming in' from the left and right sides, and not both from the left side or both from the right.

By doing this you prevented, in most case, two letters trying to be in the same place at the same time -- which almost invariably caused a jam on the lever-arm type-writers. And yes, I've used one.

This does not mean the keyboard was meant to slow you down. It wasn't. I was used to speed up typing.

So, please, kill the keyboard FUD and just use whatever you bloody want to.

Re:Only going to work if it became standard

[treff89]

Dude, I use Dvorak full-time at home, and wherever else possible. Since I can touch-type, I can also quickly change the drivers. EVEN IF I must type with QWERTY, I have only lost a few WPM compared to when I used it all the time. Dvorak eclipses it in terms of speed by an exponential amount. Don't be so stubborn if you haven't tried it!

Yes, of course

[ToadMan8]

First, allow me to admonish your hasty conclusion.

On this page http://www.koniaris.com/dvorak/ there is a discussion about distance of finger movement. The test document was the Unabomber's Mannifesto. The results:

* Typing the Unabomber Manifesto in QWERTY costs about 5.7km (XY).
* Typing the Unabomber Manifesto in Dvorak costs about 3.3km (XY).

In terms of planar movement Dvorak is more efficient. Then, for the pain standpoint, one must decide for themselves if moving up a row (above home row) is more comfortable, or would one rather move down a row. Personally I hate that bottom row - it compounds what rock climbing does to my wrists. I am much more pain-free on Dvoark, and I still have the ability to switch mid-sentance back to qwerty and not think about it, making other peoples' computers easy.

There are a ton of studies of varying levels of scientific valitidy. This was my first decent result of quick google search. The bottom line is it's thought out, and thus better, but people don't want to re-learn 'till QWERTY hurts them.

Re:Wait a minute...

[nazh]

Found some on this page http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/national.html, as I was looking for a norwegian layout. There is a swedish layout there aswell.

The link to the norwegian dvorak layout is a bit wrong on the mwbrooks page the correct is http://www.stenling.no/dvorak/

Dvortyboard

[delcielo]

You can get just such a thing at dvortyboards.com. There's a hardware switch in the corner, and both layouts are printed on the keys.

www.dvortyboards.com

You get geek points just for having one on your desk.

Dvorak Learning Resources

[mnemonic_]

Utilities
Dvorak Assistant - Lets you change the Windows keyboard layout without administrator access. Useful for school lab computers.

Free Dvorak Tutor Software
KP Typing Tutor (Windows)
GNU Typist (*nix)

Online Dvorak Tutorials
A Basic Course in Dvorak - No frills tutorial, just make sure you repeat the lessons until you're actually proficient. You won't learn anything drilling through them only once.
dvorak.nl tutorial - Very slick, remaps the keys for you if you want (convenient if you can't use Dvorak Assistant). Non-english languages available. Works better for experienced Dvorak typists.