weaver@spdcc.COM (Read Weaver) (07/18/89)
In article <Jul.15.19.50.08.1989.17361@topaz.rutgers.edu> shoopak@topaz.rutgers.edu (Maverick) writes: >Does anybody know the layout for the "Dovarac (sp?)" keyboard? > >It was before QWERTY, but too fast for manuals. Hmm. I don't think it was before qwerty, but yes, qwerty was designed specifically to slow down typists (because the early machines jammed). I've used the Dvorak layout for about a year and like it (tho' I haven't found the rave testimonials to be borne out in my experience). (Too bad it doesn't help with sentence structure.) ("It" meaning keyboard layout.) (Someone stop me.) The layout: (wish me luck). / , . P Y F G C R L A O E U I D H T N S ; ' Q J K X B M W V Z The shifted characters are /-? '-" ;-: The top row stays the same The extra keys on computer keyboards stay the same (or change if you want) ____________________ I'm looking up to heaven for some clear sign Read Weaver Of who to kill now, or who to let be weaver@ursa-major.spdcc.com --Evelyn Maria Harris {ima,harvard,rayss,linus,m2c}!spdcc!weaver
Horne-Scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) (07/19/89)
In article <3771@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM>, weaver@spdcc (Read Weaver) writes: > In article <Jul.15.19.50.08.1989.17361@topaz.rutgers.edu> shoopak@topaz.rutgers.edu (Maverick) writes: > >Does anybody know the layout for the "Dovarac (sp?)" keyboard? > > > >It was before QWERTY, but too fast for manuals. > > Hmm. I don't think it was before qwerty, but yes, qwerty was designed > specifically to slow down typists (because the early machines jammed). QWERTY came long before Dvorak. Yes, QWERTY was designed to slow down typists to prevent them from jamming the machines. (It doesn't fulfill that purpose, though: I can jam a manual typewriter.) Oddly enough, some keys very often pressed in sequence are located next to each other (_e.g._, `e' and `r', `i' and `o'). So why aren't we all typing on Dvorak keyboards today, now that we have computer terminals that don't ``jam''? Old habits die hard.... Alas, alack.... > I've used the Dvorak layout for about a year and like it (tho' I haven't > found the rave testimonials to be borne out in my experience). (Too > bad it doesn't help with sentence structure.) ("It" meaning keyboard > layout.) (Someone stop me.) (My [frequent] nested parentheses [and brackets (and parentheses within brackets [and....])] aren't much better....) > The layout: (wish me luck). > > / , . P Y F G C R L > A O E U I D H T N S ; > ' Q J K X B M W V Z > > The shifted characters are /-? '-" ;-: > The top row stays the same ?????????????????????????? > The extra keys on computer keyboards stay the same (or change if you want) Does it really? I'm pretty sure that it looks something like 9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8 0 But I leave it as is on my Dvorak set-up (as well as the other punctuation marks, which are supposed to be in different positions from their QWERTY ones): since mine is the only DSK terminal that I use, I might as well modify it as I please.... --Scott Scott Horne Hacker-in-Chief, Yale CS Dept Facility horne@cs.Yale.edu ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne Home: 203 789-0877 SnailMail: Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520 Work: 203 432-1260 Summer residence: 175 Dwight St, New Haven, CT Dare I speak for the amorphous gallimaufry of intellectual thought called Yale?
leichter@CS.YALE.EDU (Jerry Leichter) (08/15/89)
Read Weaver repeats, and Scott Horne echoes, a classic "urban myth": >Yes, QWERTY was designed to slow down typists to prevent them from jamming >the machines. (It doesn't fulfill that purpose, though: I can jam a manual >typewriter.) The QWERTY keyboard, also known as the Scholes keyboard after its inventor, was NOT intended to slow the typist down. Scholes was indeed trying to avoid jamming, but by improving the machine, not by crippling the typist. The classic typewriter had a basket of keys. When successive keys both near the center of the basket were struck the likelyhood of a jam was highest. What Scholes did was to study letter pair frequencies and try to arrange things so that many common pairs of letters would cause the successive keys to come from opposite sides of the basket. Failing that, he at least made common successive pairs NOT come from near the center of the basket. Since the basket and the keys were connected by mechanical linkages, there were severe constraints on key placement. Hence Scholes ended up creating the keyboard we use to this day. > Oddly enough, some keys very often pressed in sequence are >located next to each other (_e.g._, `e' and `r', `i' and `o'). > What's important is not how close the KEYS are, it's how close the correspon- ding levers (or whatever they are called) are in the basket. Also, again, successive keys near the periphery are not as big of a problem, since they angle between them will cause them to diverge fairly quickly. >So why aren't we all typing on Dvorak keyboards today, now that we have >computer terminals that don't ``jam''? Old habits die hard.... Alas, >alack.... > Convention is a big part of it. But there is another part: The Dvorak key- board has taken on an almost mystical attraction to "scientific" types, who feel that a logically better solution has been denied for silly social reasons. The facts, however, are by no means clear. The experiments showing the superiority of the Dvorak keyboard are mainly old, were done by people who were actively trying to prove that superiority, and are not up to modern experimental standards. Recent data - I've been told the references by some- one who works in the field, but I'm afraid I don't have them - show that there is actually only a small difference in typing speed between Dvorak and Scholes typists. (Even if you believe the old data, BTW, it didn't really answer the right question. It was claimed that the fastest typists on a Dvorak keyboard were significantly faster than the fastest typists on a Scholes. However, this was at levels that very, very few people ever attain, and says nothing about how average typists will do on the two keyboards.) Part of the reason for the lack of difference between the keyboards is that Dvorak carefully created a keyboard based on the best scientific data and model of typing then available. But it turns out that that model is just plain wrong! Dvorak assumed that typing was accomplished by striking a series of individual keys. So he placed the common keys near the center, where they could be reached with the least movement. However, actual measurement of skilled typists shows that they type n characters of running English text sig- nificantly faster than n times the time it takes them to type one character. What they are actually doing is typing pairs and even triplets of common char- acters as a unit, much faster than they could type the individual characters that make up the unit. A side-effect of the Scholes layout is to place many of the common "units" on alternating hands, which makes typing them easier. Dvorak, on the other hand, tends to place many units under the SAME hand, which interferes with typing. This "typing in units" effect was described in a Scientific American article a couple of years ago. Dvorak fans often seem like fans of "universal languages": If only we had a logically designed universal language to replace English, Russian, Chinese and all the rest, we could all talk and eliminate misunderstandings and war. And if we only all used a logically designed keyboard we'd all type much faster. 'Tain't so. If you REALLY want to type much faster, learn to use a chorded keyboard. It takes a lot of training - court recordors train for YEARS - but you can get impressive results. -- Jerry
kodiak@amiga.UUCP (Robert R. Burns) (08/15/89)
In article <66814@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Horne-Scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) writes: )In article <3771@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM>, weaver@spdcc (Read Weaver) writes: )> In article <Jul.15.19.50.08.1989.17361@topaz.rutgers.edu> shoopak@topaz.rutgers.edu (Maverick) writes: )> >Does anybody know the layout for the "Dovarac (sp?)" keyboard? )> The layout: (wish me luck). )> )> / , . P Y F G C R L )> A O E U I D H T N S ; )> ' Q J K X B M W V Z )> )> The shifted characters are /-? '-" ;-: )> The top row stays the same ) ?????????????????????????? )> The extra keys on computer keyboards stay the same (or change if you want) ) )Does it really? I'm pretty sure that it looks something like ) ) 9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8 0 The Amiga implementation of the applicable ANSI standard for *alternate* layout of keys on a keyboard (i.e. "dvorak", not "querty") is... * `~ 1! 2@ 3# 4$ 5% 6^ 7& 8* 9( 0) \| =+ }{ 7 8 9 * '" ,< .> pP yY fF gG cC rR lL /? ][ 4 5 6 * aA oO eE uU iI dD hH tT nN sS -_ 1 2 3 * ;: qQ jJ kK xX bB mM wW vV zZ 0 . * *--------------------------------------------------------------------- * * for reference, here's USA * * `~ 1! 2@ 3# 4$ 5% 6^ 7& 8* 9( 0) -_ =+ \| 7 8 9 * qQ wW eE rR tT yY uU iI oO pP [{ ]} 4 5 6 * aA sS dD fF gG hH jJ kK lL ;: '" 1 2 3 * zZ xX cC vV bB nN mM ,< .> /? 0 . ^lifted from the MC68000 assembler source comments :-) I suspect the differences are due to the fact that the standards only address a subset of the key positions: it's been 5 years so I don't guarantee the details. - Kodiak -- Bob Burns, amiga!kodiak _ | /_ _|. _ | Commodore __ |_) _ |_ _ )' |<(_)(_)|(_\|< /\ | ||| _` /\ |_)(_\| )(_\ | | \ Software ___/..\|\/|||__|/..\___ Faith