Jamie Mason <jmason@utcs.utoronto.ca> (05/23/91)
In article <8755@drutx.ATT.COM> mcp@drutx.ATT.COM (Mike Paugh) writes: > What I have always been told, and this is _pure_ folklore with no > facts to back it up, is that the keypad was originally the same > as that of a ten key adding machine. People who used these machines > were so adept at using the keypad that the telephone systems would > miss digit when the person keyed them too quickly. The upside down > arrangement was used intentionally to slow people down so that the > digits could be recognized. Sounds a lot like the querty keyboard which also (according to folklore) was designed to slow people down so they would no jam typewriter keys. Of course, now we have computer keyboards on fast computers which will accept chracters faster than Superman could type. And my local switch can handle my modem dialing with DTMF tones of less than a 35ms duration. So now they are both unnecessary, and besides, we have gotten as fast with them as with the things that we typed too fast on. And now we are used to them, so we are stuck with these crippled interfaces becuase people used to be able to outtype machines. And some idiots decided to slow down the people instead of speeding up the machines. Jamie
Mark Himelfarb <markh@gamwich.hw.stratus.com> (05/23/91)
I seem to recall reading some early-1960's Bell System Technical Journal articles that addressed the configuration of the 'new' touch tone keypad. They had the present keyboard, keyboard with '1 2 3' on the bottom, even ten buttons as a fixed rotary dial. The present keypad was found to be the best combination of speed and accuracy. Mark Himelfarb Stratus Computer----------> mark_himelfarb@es.stratus.com
Brian Kantor <brian@ucsd.edu> (05/23/91)
In article <telecom11.389.6@eecs.nwu.edu> jmason@utcs.utoronto.ca (Jamie Mason) writes: > Sounds a lot like the querty keyboard which also (according to > folklore) was designed to slow people down so they would no jam > typewriter keys. As I recall, the then Bell Labs conducted research on the various configurations for the touch-tone dial, and found that the one currently used seemed to be the easiest (i.e., fastest with fewest errors) to use for a reasonable large sample of the general public. I recall reading the research results, with the scores for the various configurations, what must be nearly two decades ago. If I could recall the source, I would certainly cite it here, but my memory isn't that good. As for the QUERTY keyboard layout, it was a result of laying out the keyboard for mechanical efficiency -- so that the commonest letter pairs would be operated from opposite sides of the machine so that the type bars containing those letters would have the lowest chance to collide. If you have ever typed on a true typebar-style mechanical typewriter, you have undoubtedly had to clear a key jam, so you know why that is important. The "speed" myth is debunked in more than a few of the "urban myth" books, as well as in previous articles in this group. Is it that most people feel so frustrated with their lives that they just automatically tend to believe an explanation that seems most anti-human, or what? Brian
oberman@ptavv.llnl.gov (05/23/91)
In article <8755@drutx.ATT.COM> mcp@drutx.ATT.COM (Mike Paugh) writes: > What I have always been told, and this is _pure_ folklore with no > facts to back it up, is that the keypad was originally the same > as that of a ten key adding machine. People who used these machines > were so adept at using the keypad that the telephone systems would > miss digit when the person keyed them too quickly. The upside down > arrangement was used intentionally to slow people down so that the > digits could be recognized. This is the reverse of the true story. Bell Labs did extensive testing of keypad layouts back before the first Touch-Tone phones were buile and found that there were far fewer dialing errors from the average user when the keypad was in the top to bottom order. This is documented in an old Bell Tech Journal. I think the typical user was also faster on this arrangement, but I don't remember for sure. AT&T was concerned with errors since they cost AT&T $$$. Remember that the typical telephone user has never become proficiant with an adding machine keypad. And the number who were was far smaller in the late 50s when Bell Labs was doing the research. R. Kevin Oberman Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Internet: oberman@icdc.llnl.gov (415) 422-6955 Disclaimer: Don't take this too seriously. I just like to improve my typing and probably don't really know anything useful about anything. Especially anything gnu.
Ben Burch <dbb@aicchi.chi.aic.com> (05/25/91)
I was under the impression that there was a much more reasonable reason for the DTMF pad configuration; the alphabet! The number to letter correspondences from the rotary phones could not be changed, and any geometry other than the current one would have perversely reversed the letters! Made sense to me. Ben Burch dbb@aicchi.chi.aic.com
jgro@fernwood.mpk.ca.us> (05/30/91)
The real question is why are *Adding Machine* keypads built upside down? Since we read left-to-right and top-to-bottom, and count low-to-high, the telephone keypad would be the obvious choice for layout. Jeremy Grodberg jgro@lia.com
William Vajk <learn@tartarus.uchicago.edu> (06/10/91)
In article <telecom11.412.2@eecs.nwu.edu> Jeremy Grodberg writes: > The real question is why are *Adding Machine* keypads built upside > down? Since we read left-to-right and top-to-bottom, and count > low-to-high, the telephone keypad would be the obvious choice for > layout. Blaise Pascal built his wheeled adding machine in 1642. Perhaps an early model for the rotary dial :-) It is my understanding that the earliest push button adding machines were created circa 1850. In the case of the adding machine, 0 really is a placeholder at the beginning of the decade and is next to the number 1 for any given decade. The direction taken by the layout, bottom 0 to top 9 d oubtless had to do simplification of the mechanical design. Of course there might be some holdover from the abacus in the design, as beads are moved up to change state, eg to add. Bottom up calculation was in. And even now, standard office practice is to work the pile of paper from the bottom (the oldest) upwards. We read, in the west, top to bottom, left to right. But we don't do everything that way, and we don't always think or plan in that direction either. In the phone system as we know it today, the 0 is really a 10. In terms of rotary (pulse) dialing, ten interruptions to the circuit are sent for the digit 0. And of course we have 11 and 12 with touchtone phones as well, though they're disguised as * and #. Note the disabling of call waiting is *70 on touch tone, or 1170 on rotary dialers. Given the transition from pulse to tone dialing, it wasn't really necessary to retain the concept that 0 is 10. In fact, numerical correlations to make connections are now unnecessary. We have a computer select the lines to connect. We no longer have a series of mechanical steppers physically moving things about, which land at particular grid locations, and there make the desired connection. I see more and more sources for programmable autodialers. Many of us tend to call mostly some finite list of people. We're creatures of habit. We don't usually number these people, although with the rapid-dial services offered by some telecos it does happen that way too. But when we buy an autodialer, each colleague, associate, or friend ends up owning one of the buttons on the autodialer. In a the sea of numbers we call civilization, we can get rid of another d*mn (long live Bill Blue) number and get back to dealing with people without being required to use a number to get to them. I really like having to deal with only a single hieroglyph in order to etablish contact, instead of all those numbers. Now that we don't have to learn and remember all those numbers, I wonder what folks are going to be doing with all that freed up brain space. Bill Vajk