wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley) (08/18/90)
All this talk of alternative keyboards is a waste of time because
people have been inventing better keyboards as long as there have been
keyboards. None of them have made much of an impact (not even the
Dvorak keyboard) because there is just too much momentum behind
QWERTY.
> and the Enter key, allllll the way over there is almost intolerable
I use ^M in place of return/enter because it's easier to reach and
because the control key is in the same place on 5 of the 6 different
keyboards that I use regularly (the exception is my old Macintosh
keyboard, which I detest because the control key is in the wrong place).
I also use ^H for backspace/delete, for the same reason.
I use EMACS-style control characters for cursor movement, because I can't
touch-type arrow keys (they are too far away and inconsistently placed).
The benefits of standardization are immense. Even though QWERTY is a
stupid layout, at least it is consistently applied across the majority
of keyboards. Would that other keys (enter, delete, backspace,
punctuation) were in the same locations on all keyboards! But no,
every keyboard designer thinks they have a better idea, and the net
result is a million different layouts for the "extra" characters.
Mitchkoopman@a.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Philip Koopman) (08/23/90)
In article <9008201426.AA05359@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley) writes: > The benefits of standardization are immense. Even though QWERTY is a > stupid layout, at least it is consistently applied across the majority > of keyboards. Would that other keys (enter, delete, backspace, > punctuation) were in the same locations on all keyboards! But no, > every keyboard designer thinks they have a better idea, and the net > result is a million different layouts for the "extra" characters. So Mitch, does this mean that the "other" keys are undefined, or implementation specific, or (I suspect) some of each? Which wordset would each key go into? (Sorry, I couldn't resist). Phil Koopman koopman@greyhound.ece.cmu.edu Arpanet 2525A Wexford Run Rd. Wexford, PA 15090 Senior scientist at Harris Semiconductor, and adjunct professor at CMU. I don't speak for them, and they don't speak for me.