marks%Cascade@sri-unix.UUCP (09/18/84)
From: Stuart Marks <marks@Cascade>
[Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
There has been some recent discussion of alternatives to the
typewriter keyboard layout we all know so well. Among the top
contenders to the current (Sholes or "qwerty") layout is the Dvorak
Simplified Keyboard, of which some of you may already have heard.
I have recently discovered another alternative layout. Here is its
description, reproduced verbatim (or, as accurately as I can type!).
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Yours Truhg
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Although the typewriter is certainly a useful device, it is subject
to much simplification. Its one big defect we can cure at once; if the
most commonly used letters were the most easily reached keys, speed
would be greatly increased. For instance, the most commonly used
letter is E; therefore, let us call the symbol under the right index
finger ("j") E. Let the symbol "e" equal the letter J. In a likj
fashion, thj right indjx fingjr should hit T so ljt "f" mjan T, and
vicj vjrsa. Rjvjrsj "m" and "d," "a" and "k." Ks you noficj, fyping
is now duich jksijr. Now swifch "o" knm "l," fhjn "p" knm "h." "I"
knm "g" spluom fpjn bj rjvjrsjm. Fpgs cldhojfjs frknsgfgln; fyhgni nlw
cldjs dlrj nkfurkooy knm ducp dlrj qugcaoy.
-- Figjr
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Reproduced from the Stanford Chaparral, April 1955, p. 11.