henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (06/14/88)
Several pieces of private mail have challenged my assertion that the
qwerty (Sholes) keyboard was not designed to slow down the typist.
Herewith some excerpts from a 24 Feb 1982 contribution to the Editor-
People mailing list by Donald Norman -- a name that should be familiar
to anyone who knows anything about computer-human-interaction work:
"The Sholes keyboard (aka "qwerty") was designed for a
typewriter so as to minimize the jamming of typebars as
they moved to the platen. This caused the placement of
frequent pairs as far from one another as possible. In
fact, this SPEEDS typing because typing on alternate hands
is faster than on the same hand (list of references and
reprints of papers available on demand: see, for example,
Rumelhart & Norman in the next Cognitive Science). This
point wasn't appreciated at the time because nobody thought
of using all ten fingers, and typing without looking at the
keyboard was unheard of...
"There have been hundreds of studies comparing Dvorak
arrangements with Sholes arrangements. Dvorak fans claim
massive improvements in speed... However, experiments done
by neutral parties tend to put the improvement around the
5 to 10% range -- not worth the effort... you can get a far
greater improvement in typing speed by moving the RETURN key,
either to where it can be reached without distorting the hand
(say by the left thumb...) or by having automatic RETURNs...
"If you want to improve typing speed, don't tinker with the
current key layout, but do dramatic re-arrangements [e.g. chord
keyboards]."
--
"For perfect safety... sit on a fence| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
and watch the birds." --Wilbur Wright| {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henrycosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) (06/15/88)
One other consideration further blunts the Dvorak arguments: they made a _lot_ more sense in the world of mechanical typewriters. When having 'a' on your left pinky *was* a nuisance simply because most folk had trouble getting enough _smooth_ strength to type it cleanly and quickly. With electronic kbds, strength isn't an issue. __ / ) Bernie Cosell /--< _ __ __ o _ BBN Labs, Cambridge, MA 02238 /___/_(<_/ (_/) )_(_(<_ cosell@bbn.com
johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor) (06/17/88)
In article <1988Jun13.195851.1729@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: > "If you want to improve typing speed, don't tinker with the > current key layout, but do dramatic re-arrangements [e.g. chord > keyboards]." >-- How about foot pedals? Namely shift, cntrl, ESC (for EMACS), and return. One of these days, when I find a good footswitch, I performing some surgery on my terminal. I'll let the world know what happens... Has anybody else tried this??? -- John Gregor johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@pyramid.COM All the world's indeed a stage, and we all merely players. Performers and portrayers. Each the other's audience outside the guilded cage. --RUSH
kevin@ttidca.TTI.COM (Kevin Carothers) (06/21/88)
in article (????) johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor): >How about foot pedals? Namely shift, cntrl, ESC (for EMACS), and return. > >One of these days, when I find a good footswitch, I performing some >surgery on my terminal. I'll let the world know what happens... > >Has anybody else tried this??? >> There *IS* (or *was* ?) a company that was producing a foot pedal "ESC" switch (they advertised in "The DEC Professional, and possibly "Hardcopy" magazines). This worked quite well (I'm told) with EDT on PDP-11's, and it was only advertised VT-100 compatible. It actually seems rather more useful to design a footswitch that would make the next character typed a "CTL" character, because this is the key that requires "goofy-handing" most often... Unfortunately, given the async-serial characteristics of most (ie; "non-IBM") type computer terminals, this is, to my understanding, a rather (as we in the computer business say) non-trivial problem. _ , __ ' ) / / ) _/_ / /-< _ , __o ____ / __. __ ____/ /_ _ __ _ / ) </_\/ <__/ / <_ (__/ (_/|_/ (_(_) (__/ /_</_/ (_/_)_ ========================================================================= The Name: Kevin Carothers !{csun,psivax,rdlvax,trwrb}!ttidca!kevin The Place: Citicorp/Transaction Technologies The Biz: Consumer & Commercial banking systems The Quote: fortune: Command not not available during prime-time - My System Administrator
wjc@ho5cad.stars.flab.Fujitsu.JUNET (Bill Carpenter) (06/21/88)
In article <556@ecrcvax.UUCP> johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor) writes: > How about foot pedals? Namely shift, cntrl, ESC (for EMACS), and return. > > One of these days, when I find a good footswitch, I performing some > surgery on my terminal. I'll let the world know what happens... > > Has anybody else tried this??? About 100 years ago, I went so far as to buy a foot switch from Radio Shack (I think they were selling them as some kind of remote control for tape recorders or something). I had the idea of wiring up the keyboard of my Osborne I so that the footpeddle would be the same as "control". That was in the good old days when there wasn't a tiny computer inside most keyboards (ie, there were just contact switches and even the debouncing was done in the big part of the terminal). Well, I never got around to it, since it was just a curiosity anyhow. I doubt that I'd like moving my foot among multiple foot switches, though. My pinky hops considerably faster than my piggies. -- Bill Carpenter att!ho5cad!wjc or attmail!bill (201-949/c233)-8392 HO 1L-410 -- -- Bill Carpenter att!ho5cad!wjc or attmail!bill (201-949/c233)-8392 HO 1L-410
ralphw@ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu (Ralph Hyre) (06/28/88)
In article <241@pvab.UUCP> robert@pvab.UUCP (Robert Claeson) writes: >In article <Jun.5.02.10.06.1988.3586@constance.rutgers.edu>, gaynor@constance.rutgers.edu (Silver) writes: > >> It's amazing that keyboard layouts have not been standardized. > >I saw some prototype layout for some ISO or some-such standard >one or two years ago. It looked much like the IBM AT-3 or maybe >DEC VT220 keyboard. Omigod, could it be that the ESC-key-in-the-right place isn't even a standard somewhere? Better get cracking! I assumed that it would at least be some sort of ANSI standard, since DEC's VT100 sported was ANSI-compatible escape sequences. Now that its defacto-standardness is going away I'm real sad. Feel free to add to this list, so I know what equipment to avoid. I'm rating more by layout than feel: Good Bad Worse DEC VT100 TTY KSR33 VT220 Apple //e Apple ][+ Apple extended keyboard IBM PC IBM PC/AT PC/RT (and probably all PS/2's) Apple standard keyboard Mac/Mac+ New PC/AT (AT-3 type) (for Mac SE, Mac ][, and Apple //GS) Sun-3 Symbolics LISMs -- - Ralph W. Hyre, Jr. Internet: ralphw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu Phone:(412)268-{2847,3275} CMU-{BUGS,DARK} Amateur Packet Radio: N3FGW@W2XO, or c/o W3VC, CMU Radio Club, Pittsburgh, PA
davidra@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (David A. Rabson) (06/28/88)
Ralph Hyre rates various keyboards by layout (not taking things like the VT100's unreliablity and stiffness into account). I agree with all of his classifications but one: the PC/RT (rated worse-than-bad). The keyboard as labeled is horrible, but it's so easy to remap SHIFT-LOCK to control and "`" to ESCAPE that it hardly matters. Try to do that with the VT200 series. We should do whatever we can to encourage hardware designers to implement such soft keyboards; this means no mechanical shift-lock keys, among other things. davidra@helios.tn.cornell.edu David Rabson Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics Clark Hall, Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853-2501
msb@sq.uucp (Mark Brader) (07/03/88)
> We should do whatever we can to encourage hardware designers to implement > such soft keyboards; this means no mechanical shift-lock keys, among > other things. Argh, no! Give me back my VT100 where I could *tell* the state of the shift lock without having to look all over the keyboard for an LED! And don't talk to me about status lines, either. Tactile feedback, please. Of course, it should be *shift* lock, not *caps* lock as is so common today. I don't want to use the shift key for the ()'s in "a = FOO(BAR(b));"... The real point here is -- for every opinion somebody holds about keyboards, someone else holds the opposite opinion just as strongly. As such, this is a topic more fitted for talk.* than comp.*, and I suggest that it die quickly. Mark Brader, Toronto sed -e "s;??\\([-=(/)'<!>]\\);?\\\\?\\1;g" utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com will fix them... -- Karl Heuer