jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) (01/13/89)
Having spent 7.5 years as a medical secretary, and still making
much of my living via keyboard, this is a subject I've kept an eye
on for several years, and I've also wondered why the Dvorak wasn't
more popular. For instance, if memory serves properly, at one time
it was used to establish 31 of the 33 world typing records (I don't
know how there came to be 33 different world typing records ... I
can only assume WPM over various lengths of time, highest accuracy
%age, and the like), and I'm sure analogous gains could be made
in computer keying. Also, the learning time on the Dvorak is
apparently only about 25-50% of the learning time on the standard
keyboard.
My only guess is that most people simply don't *know* about the
Dvorak and others. But in this age of detachable keyboards, there
might be money to be made in aggressively marketing them, along with
an inexpensive training course to make it attractive to firms with
several keyboardists.
If anyone wants to put up the capital, I'll supply the PR! {|:-)]
Jeff Daiell
INDEPENDENCE FOR TEXAS!
--
"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good...
O Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."
--- The Animalsbogartc@handel.colostate.edu. (Chris Bogart) (01/14/89)
In article <2717@ficc.uu.net> jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) writes: > >... I've also wondered why the Dvorak wasn't >more popular. ... >... Also, the learning time on the Dvorak is >apparently only about 25-50% of the learning time on the standard >keyboard. >My only guess is that most people simply don't *know* about the >Dvorak and others. But in this age of detachable keyboards, there > >Jeff Daiell The Apple //c's keyboard is switchable to Dvorak, by pushing in a button and moving all the keys around. I did that once, and re-learned to type in Dvorak. I liked it; it seemed easier to learn than qwerty had been. Then one day I had to use the terminals in the computer center, because the modems were down. I found I could no longer type qwerty, and had to hunt and peck. To switch to Dvorak, we would have to change all the keyboards everywhere at the same time, because the average typist probably couldn't learn to switch back and forth very easily. I finally switched my apple back to qwerty. Chris Bogart bogartc@handel.cs.colostate.edu
jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) (01/14/89)
In article <984@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>, Chris Bogart writes: > > The Apple //c's keyboard is switchable to Dvorak ... > I did that once, and re-learned to type > in Dvorak. ... > Then one day I had to use the terminals in the computer center, because the > modems were down. ... I could no longer type qwerty, and had to hunt > and peck. To switch to Dvorak, we would have to change all the keyboards > everywhere at the same time, because the average typist probably couldn't > learn to switch back and forth very easily. I finally switched my apple > back to qwerty. Two possible solutions here. One would be a keyboard that translated one's Dvorak keying into qwerty for the computer's benefit. The other would be a program that would let the computer accept either. As stated earlier, if someone wants to provide the funding, I'll provide the PR. Is there also someone to provide the programming/ engineering? Let get rich! Jeff Daiell INDEPENDENCE FOR TEXAS! -- "You should see me when I'm rested." -- from "Brigadoon"
garye@hpdsla.HP.COM (Gary Ericson) (01/17/89)
> In article <984@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>, Chris Bogart writes: >> [stuff deleted about not being able to go back and forth between qwerty >> Dvorak] > > Two possible solutions here. One would be a keyboard that translated > one's Dvorak keying into qwerty for the computer's benefit. The other > would be a program that would let the computer accept either. > > Jeff Daiell -------- The problem with straying from qwerty is, of course, the incredible social momentum that keyboard layout has. If you walk up to a machine with a keyboard, it will probably be qwerty (except many handheld devices that use alphabetic layout). But the detachable keyboard concept makes me wonder why you couldn't carry your keyboard with you and plug it in to the machine you wanted to use. The keyboard could be any layout but would send characters to the machine as if it were qwerty (do keyboards just send ASCII like they used to, or do PC keyboards send some encoding to indicate the key position, letting the computer figure out what key it is?). Whether this idea was useful to you would depend on how many different machines you tend to use (especially ones that wouldn't accept your personal keyboard) and how intense your use of them was (i.e., would it hurt you to hunt and peck). Gary Ericson - Hewlett-Packard, Workstation Technology Division phone: (408)746-5098 mailstop: 101N email: gary@hpdsla9.hp.com
jsloan@thor.UUCP (John Sloan) (01/19/89)
How about software down-loadable keyboards with keytop displays? Your startup file downloads QUERTY or Dvorak or whatever software into the keyboard and the keytops assume the correct characters. This also means that every key could be a "softkey". With high resolution LCD displays, functions keys could display their usage, which could change if such keys were context sensitive depending on the application or mode. John Sloan +1 513 259 1384 ...!ucsd!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrpcd!wright!jsloan Wright State University Research Center jsloan%wright.edu@relay.cs.net 3171 Research Blvd., Kettering, OH 45420 ...!osu-cis!wright!jsloan Logical Disclaimer: belong(opinions,jsloan). belong(opinions,_):-!,fail.
garye@hpdsla.HP.COM (Gary Ericson) (01/21/89)
> How about software down-loadable keyboards with keytop displays? Your > startup file downloads QUERTY or Dvorak or whatever software into the > keyboard and the keytops assume the correct characters. > > John Sloan +1 513 259 1384 ...!ucsd!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrpcd!wright!jsloan > ---------- This has been talked about before and I've usually been hesitant about the idea. The advantage would be that I can transform the keyboard into the format I am familiar with (assuming the physical layout of keys is identical [size of keys and general location]). But if the keys below my fingers can change function depending on the context and I have to look at the keytops to figure out which keys to hit, then it destroys my touch-typing and I'd rather write things longhand with some handwriting recognition software (I haven't experimented with this, but I'm pretty sure writing by hand would be faster than hunting-and-pecking on a keyboard). Gary Ericson - Hewlett-Packard, Workstation Technology Division phone: (408)746-5098 mailstop: 101N email: gary@hpdsla9.hp.com
ltf@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Lance Franklin) (01/21/89)
Whatever happened to the keyboard I once saw in an long-ago Popular Electronics that was basically a hemisphere with keys placed under each finger (with the hand draped over the hemisphere) and three keys placed within reach of the thumb. Data was entered by depressing the four finger-keys (to allow 16 possible binary choices), then depressing one of the three thumb-keys (to enter the value and choose one of three character groups). Supposedly, a sufficiently practiced keyboard-operator could enter data faster with this keyboard than with the standard qwerty-operator, and it left the other hand free to flip pages, guzzle cokes and handle twinkies. Since this setup could handle only 48 possible characters, I assume it used a shift-in/shift- out mechanism to handle upper/lower case. Really, it was QUITE a few years back, so my memory of the thing is hazy. Did anybody ever build one of these things? Lance -- +-------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------+ | Lance T Franklin | | I never said that! It must be some kind of a | | ltf@killer.DALLAS.TX.US | | forgery...I gotta change that password again. | +-------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------+
doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Thompson) (01/22/89)
jd>From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) jd>> back to qwerty. jd> jd>Two possible solutions here. One would be a keyboard that translated jd>one's Dvorak keying into qwerty for the computer's benefit. jd>The other would be a program that would let the computer accept either. jd> jd> jd>As stated earlier, if someone wants to provide the funding, I'll jd>provide the PR. Is there also someone to provide the programming/ jd>engineering? Let get rich! jd> jd> jd>Jeff Daiell Either solution is simple within a given hardware/OS environment. There are some "standards" in the industry, but there are so many of them that the challenge would come from the size of the number of different keyboard/OS solutions one would have to come up with to enable Dvorak fluency to be generally usable. I'd switch to Dvorak, and have even though about doing it within the company. But then every time some "foreign" machine comes along, it's back to qwerty . . . So there is a long lead time before one could offer a "switcher" genuinely accessible compatibility with all the hardware s/he's liable to have to be able to use. There are so *many* keyboards in our workplaces and homes, typeweriters of all kinds, computers of numerous kinds, terminals, TELEX machines, etc. The technique of converting any one is pretty straightforward, and if it's a computer, as easy as "when user types "A", record "B" instead. But this has to work with all kinds of software for which we are never going to see the source code on zillions of different computers . . . Therein lies the problem. =Doug -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fido 1:221/162 -- 1:221/0 280 Phillip St., UUCP: !watmath!isishq!doug Unit B-4-11 DAS: [DEZCDT]doug Waterloo, Ontario Bitnet: fido@water Canada N2L 3X1 Internet: doug@isishq.math.fidonet.org (519) 746-5022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle) (01/25/89)
Properly, one should learn to touch-type on a blank keyboard. With many keyboards, one can pull the keytops and replace them quite easily. So one could make one's keyboard generic, if desired, by obtaining a supply of blank keytops. John Nagle "Yeah, we had some trouble with productivity with some of the old guys at first, but I put them on the typing program for half an hour a day until they come up to thirty words a minute."
bzs@pinocchio.encore.com (Barry Shein) (01/26/89)
>This has been talked about before and I've usually been hesitant about the >idea. The advantage would be that I can transform the keyboard into the >format I am familiar with (assuming the physical layout of keys is identical >[size of keys and general location]). But if the keys below my fingers can >change function depending on the context and I have to look at the keytops to >figure out which keys to hit, then it destroys my touch-typing and I'd >rather write things longhand with some handwriting recognition software (I >haven't experimented with this, but I'm pretty sure writing by hand would >be faster than hunting-and-pecking on a keyboard). > >Gary Ericson - Hewlett-Packard, Workstation Technology Division I think the idea is that once set up you'd frequently use particular configurations and get used to it. Two obvious applications would be the ability for applications to load function key displays and foreign character sets (in the latter case I can't really think of any other acceptable approach for mixed language input where the typist is fluent at typing both languages, esp. where every char is different like cyrillic or arabic.) Even for QWERTY v DVORAK I doubt you'd switch back and forth very often. -Barry Shein, ||Encore||
sagibson@dahlia.waterloo.edu (Slime) (02/08/89)
I find that the problem with current keyboards is that you still have to remember how to spell. Wouldn't it be much more natural to use a keyboard wwith phonemes and have the computer translate the input into real (and correctly spelled) words? Such a device must already exist. Dictating machines? Do they have less or more keys? As for displays, Dynabook type. Obviously. Fast. With lots of memory. No disk. Minimum of mechanical parts. Some type of touch pad (the screen?) instead of a mouse or trackball. But that's probably religious. ** Simon
dht@drutx.ATT.COM (D. Tucker) (02/09/89)
<11350@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, sagibson@dahlia.waterloo.edu (Slime) writes: > I find that the problem with current keyboards is that you still > have to remember how to spell. Wouldn't it be much more natural > to use a keyboard wwith phonemes and have the computer translate > the input into real (and correctly spelled) words? The problem is with the English language. In Italy, they don't have spelling bees like we do. But I find the English language to have beauty and power of expression: why? It borrows from lots of langu- ages, mostly French. Our language is ever-changing, mutable and healthy. > Some type of touch pad (the screen?) instead of a mouse or trackball. > But that's probably religious. I've used a touchscreen, the keyboard is easier. I'm not a touch- typer. But as I use terminals more (I would hate to have one at home) I'm a faster typer. How many phonemes are in the English language? It would be like a Chinese typewriter, bulky but fast, if the comp- uter goes down, what will the user do? English has a lot of homonyms, like 'reel' which has two different meanings. As a verb, as a noun, two different meanings for fishing and film. Do you want to see Eric Blair's (George Orwell, it's time we give him credit for his stupendous work) _1984_ come true? Newspeak, double- plusungood. It straightjackets the mind.
128a-3cl@e260-1d.berkeley.edu (Cimarron D. Taylor </>) (02/10/89)
Phoneme alphabets and keyboards sound attractive at first glance. There are only thirty or so standard english phonemes (although their finer variations make a much longer list), so one would expect a phonemic system to be an efficient way to represent the sounds of english. Ask any linguist, though, and you will learn two problems. Different dialects would spell things differently. You don't realize just HOW differently until you start comparing phonetic spellings with people from different areas. Vowels are the most mutable. One can make out writing in most dialects, but reading is very slow in IPA (international phonetic alphabet) if the dialect isn't yours. One ends up depending on context, sounding out words, etc. Chinese is an extreme example. There are several major dialects that have diverged so much that the only way speakers can communicate is in writing. The written language is standardized and identical. Second, languages change. It would take an Elizabethan scholar to read Shakespeare if it was written in a phonetic alphabet. This is more of a long term concern, though.