bob@imspw6.UUCP (Bob Burch) (06/05/89)
From: Robin C. LaPasha: >Oh, then there's keymaps. I don't even know what the >Soviets use for keymaps (keyboard layouts) on computers, >but the typewriters are set _really_ differently. Wouldn't >necessarily work out phonetically without a new keymap. Russian keyboards are set up like the Dvorak keyboards with which all the speed typing records get set in English; keys which fall together in usage are together on the keyboard. My understanding is that the QWERTY keyboard was set up to achieve an opposite effect so that fast typists wouldn't be able to jam the early typewriters. Access to typewriters, copying machines etc. has always been a big deal over there. Russian handwriting on average is unbelieveably good simply because they don't dare dream of owning typewriters. They must go through holy hell with penmanship their first several years of school; the term, I believe, is "chistopicanyah", or "clean writing". I mean, those people need PCs BAD, and every PC we can sell them can probably be regarded as another nail in the coffin of communism. Ted Holden HTE