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Lenovo Tinkers With Larger Delete and Escape Keys
Slatterz writes "After a year's research, Lenovo boffins have decided the time is right to install larger Delete and Escape keys on their updated ThinkPad laptop T400s range. While it is a small change, it is fairly radical to tinker with an area of hardware which has been largely unchanged since the 19th century. What convinced them to make the size-change was doing some tests on users to see which keys they use the most. They found that on average, people used the Escape and Delete keys 700 times per week, yet those were the only non-letter keys that Lenovo hasn't made any bigger." The article says Caps Lock may be next on the agenda; death is too good for Caps Lock.
Pfft. Deletee kye? I never usses taht aneemore.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
and, more importantly, reduce calls during your off hours because a user locked out his/her account due to CAPS LOCK being on when entering a password.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
I am happy to see some thought go in to "routine" matters like this -- too often I feel that laptop keyboards have abominable designs, such as shrunken space bars and control keys, miniscule arrow keys, or nonstandard placement of arrow keys, etc.
However, I would say the esc enlargement on my Lenovo is unneeded -- its location above the other keys means it is struck accurately. I would venture to say the same for the delete key, which I could locate with my eyes closed by its characteristic placement. I think the aesthetics of the vertical extension of these keys is going to be negative.
For my money, I wish they would just lay off the IBM keyboard design. Thinkpads should not have a Windows key. :)
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
Lenovo has adware in their updates, but they might sell a laptop without a caps lock key! It's like they're simultaneously the worst and best computer company at the same time.
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
Yep, the key to the left of "A" should be Ctrl. That is one think about the OLPC XO-1 keyboard I like. The actual keys are crap, though.
They had laptops or typewriters with function and modifier keys in the 19th century?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Show me a keyboard that even HAD the Delete or Escape keys, idiot. Hell, when I learned to type, you had to use a lowercase L for the digit 1, and a capital O for the digit zero. Exclamation point was "apostrophe, backspace, period."
[
The article says Caps Lock may be next on the agenda; death is too good for Caps Lock.
If Lenovo is going to do it - Caps Lock will die a death and no one will notice. It is better for the industry to let Apple do what it does best and let the Caps lock die at Apple's hand. They will sell a iCapsLock add-on for $30 to stir up things even further and the caps lock death will then be rightly celebrated by the loads of forum posts and bickering by people newly realizing how much they miss the Caps lock now that it is gone.
is cruise control for cool
This is a ridiculous story as HP already messed with keyboards.
Try checking out the HP laptop keyboards on Canadian laptops. Dear god the layout on those things is terrible. The old QWERTY stuff is in the right place but punctuation etc... Is all over the place. Absolutely horrendous keyboards. I wound up having to use a USB keyboard with it as the default keyboard is damn near unusable unless you like doing a LOT of deleting and retyping of stuff.
"...They found that on average, people used the Escape and Delete keys 700 times per week..."
are meaningless unless they (Lenovo) tell us what type of keyboard layout the tested computers had or even what applications people used. By the way, who constituted what they refer to as "people?"
How else would they use vi and emacs?
Sam ty sig.
HP/Compaqs are probably the worst computers on the market today. I don't know why anybody would buy one. Horrible quality control and service, no XP drivers for any of the newer units...UGH! Lenovos are probably my favorites if for no other reason than the mouse "track point" nub thingy and they're still easily available with XP. I hope they tinker with smaller price tags some day.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
They had laptops or typewriters with function and modifier keys in the 19th century?
Yeah, of course!
What do you think Ada Lovelace, the first programmer, used to code with?
I am anarch of all I survey.
So let me get this straight.
The best way to improve keying accuracy is to create even more derivative keyboard layouts?
I'd guess the del key might even afford to be *smaller* as it is used more often and hence more easily remembered.
I would have had a bit more sympathy if the article had said they'd placed it in a more accessible location ala space bar (rather than off to one side of the main keymap).
Maybe they could create a "Lenovo" key to sit between the "Windows" key and a new "Dave was here!" key. Then I can loan them my 16 button hexdecimal mouse[1].
Xix.
[1] Otherwise known as a digitizing puck
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I've got a couple Goldtouch keyboards that have a great improvement: extra Delete and Backspace keys on the left hand side of the keyboard. It's very helpful when you've got your right hand on the mouse.
Also, Goldtouch moved the Windows and Right Click/Context Menu keys off of the main area into a separate space. Both of these are great improvements.
Your design to a real part online: Big Blue Saw
That's because it's optimized for Canadian, not American.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
Here's a better idea Lenovo: enlarge the: U, O, Y, K, C, U, F keys. ;)
Lenovo has boffins? What the heck are they, creatures from Lord of the Rings? Some kind of exotic bird? Wait, the dictionary says it's BRITISH SLANG. Well, you can just keep your esoteric BRITISH SLANG over there on your little island, buster, because we don't need no stinking BRITISH SLANG over here in America, or the rest of the world for that matter. If you can't write in standard English so English speakers around the world can understand it, just press your DELETE key (no matter what size it is) and go do something else. *grumble* damned Recoats *grumble*
Yep, the key to the left of "A" should be Ctrl.
Why? Because some obsolete VT-52 or obscure Wyse terminal had it there? What are you going to do with the right ctrl key if you move the left one above the shift key? Place it above the right shift key where the enter key is? Or perhaps you'd leave the right ctrl key where it is and have an asymmetric modifier key layout?
No, the real problem with keyboards is the NumLock key. The number keys and cursor control keys should never have been allowed to mix.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Oh, man. There is nothing I hate worse than typing on than one of those Logitech keyboards that shuffle that whole block around. I can never find the home or end keys!
I have a Lenovo T400 and the placement of the DEL key always annoyed me. I use a program called KeyTweak (http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/) to remap my lenovo keyboard as follows:
Right CTRL key is DEL
Those silly keys to the right and left of the up arrow are HOME and END
And finally, drum roll please... the CAPS key is mapped to the TAB key so I have a gigantic space to mash my chubby fingers when looking for a tab stop!
Straight from Lenovo: http://lenovoblogs.com/designmatters/?p=1565
One that hath name thou can not otter
I don't care much about the Delete and Escape key changes mentioned in TFA... but I think the article's author gives a glimpse of tech-naivete' by suggesting that the Caps Lock key is obsolete. Just because he doesn't see a reason for Caps Lock out there in his little business world doesn't mean the key isn't highly useful to application developers. I'll point out SQL capitalization standards as just one example.
DELETE FROM my.memory WHERE opinion = his
/
COMMIT
Down with the career politician! SUPPORT TERM LIMITS
I'm using a Dragon 32, you insenstive clod
I've been collecting vintage computer hardware for the last few months, and I gotta say, my Tandy CoCo3 (128K version) has by _far_ the best keyboard of any of the 8 or 16-bit machines I've used. I never used one back in the day, so the mint condition one I just got last month _really_ surprised me with the keyboard feel. I also got a Tandy 102 that was still in its unopened box. :)
Back to the subject of keyboards, though, to say noone has been messing with the layout of keys is to be completely unaware of computers of the last several years. Certainly there's a small player in the industry called 'Microsoft' that has been making some fairly commonly found keyboards that have the keys normally found above the arrow keys to be arranged in strange and remarkably unpleasant ways. I'm pleased to say the latest entry in their 'Natural' line has returned those keys to the proper position - the MS Natural 4000 keyboard not only unbreaks the keyboard layout changes they made in previous keyboards, but also returns the tilt to the correct location - the front, not the back (which actually makes things WORSE ergonomically). Plus it's available in beautiful, beautiful black. :)
On behalf of myself and all the other forum junkies can we please get a larger, ruggedized F5 key?
Maybe I didn't use it enough, but I always had trouble typing on one of those SUN keyboards with a few crucial keys in different places.
Sun does a couple other dumb things though, like make backspace 5 times harder to hit.
The ctrl-caps switch is really the only thing right about those keyboards.
I don't know what I'd want in its place, because for Windows typing, the common CTRL functions (X,S,V,C) are all easiest as LCTRL chords, and anchoring your left pinky to where Caps lock is to type these I think feels unnatural.
See, I disagree. After getting over the "wtf" moment with the Sun keyboard that introduced me to the ctrl-caps thing, that position felt like the most natural thing in the world. (Interestingly, the ergonomically split keyboard was much the same.)
You could also rig it up so there are TWO left ctrl keys, at least until people get used to the new location.
I've been very happy with my HP laptops and desktops and their quality control.
I wouldn't know about XP drivers, but the hardware runs current versions of Windows and Linux just fine.
Why stop there? The IBM Selectric is a bunch of new-fangled nonsense. In my telegraph office the keyboard only had one key and WE LIKED IT.
--.- . -..
Screw that. I want a mind reader. Interface directly to my tinfoil hat.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
It's bad enough listening to people talk on their cell phones, I don't need to listen to them talking to their laptops too.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Mods: Actually, he may have a point.
IIRC, Canada gets two different keyboard layouts - US English, and French-Canadian. I'm guessing someone accidentally bought a French-Canadian layout.
I could definitely use a BS key. I'm tired of writing it myself.
gameDB
Caps lock will be the end of unintended shouting
I would like you to meet my friend, Khassaki:
<Khassaki> HI EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!
<Judge-Mental> try pressing the the Caps Lock key
<Khassaki> O THANKS!!! ITS SO MUCH EASIER TO WRITE NOW!!!!!!!
<Judge-Mental> fuck me
(From http://www.bash.org/?835030)