danoc@floyd.UUCP (Dan O'Connell) (03/01/84)
You say that you want to increase your daily productivity by switching to an advanced keyboard like the Dvorak? But there are no major manufacturers that make one? Especially for your brand of micro or for your favorite mini? Well, don't get your hopes up. If any manufacturer had the guts to actually put such a keyboard into production, the complaints from typists the world over that "It's different!" would no doubt be so severe that Reagan would be forced to call out his 16-inch guns to level the company's headquarters. How could any business in it's right mind even consider production of a keyboard so different as the apparently superior Dvorak when keyboard users complain so bitterly about a few keys here and there that are placed in a non-"standard" location? By the way, what IS a standard computer terminal keyboard? Where is it defined? Is it a Selectric keyboard? So where are the Selectric's escape and control keys located? Does the Selectric have a tilde key? Or is the standard the QWERTY layout? The one that was modified in the 1800's to make it more difficult for you to type? Where did Sam Qwerty arrange HIS function keys? I'll probably get hell for putting this in net.micro. %-)> Dan "Typing on my Rainbow keyboard with my eyes closed" O'Connell AT&T Technologies @ AT&TBL Whippany NJ floyd!danoc
tbm@hocda.UUCP (T.MERRICK) (03/02/84)
The HP2621 has a hidden Dvorak keyboard. The 2621s with a blank leftmost language function key can be kicked into the "DV" mode with a cntrl shift f1 where f1 stands for that first or leftmost function key. Or did you all know that anyway? TBM
grace@yale-com.UUCP (Joseph R. Grace) (03/02/84)
To Dan and those who read Dan's disbelief in the Dvorak keyboard, Keytronics does make a Dvorak style keyboard that is compatible with the IBM PC -- in reply to WHAT BUSINESS would make such a "non-standard" keyboard. Furthermore, in this age of fully electronic keyboards and computers, I can not imagine that the qwerty layout will survive much longer (2-10 years). I hope that people will recognize its gross inefficiency and switch to the dvorak style keyboard. Sincerely, Joseph Grace.
drake%umass-cs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa (03/05/84)
From: David Drake <drake%umass-cs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa> So what's to stop companies from producing Dvorak keyboards AS WELL AS Qwerty? Why not let the buyer decide what she/he wants? And why not make both available as products of their own right, so if you don't like what you originally bought (and you have the $$$), you can go back and buy the *other* keyboard? How can that be anything but profitable to the company making computers? I hope, though, that companies don't start packaging computers with only one variety of keyboard, while at the same time selling the new-and- improved keyboard which replaces the one you HAVE to buy! "So you say you want to buy a car...but, what's this...you want ROUND wheels? Well that's going to cost extra!" Maybe, someday, companies will learn that there's an HONEST profit to be made in selling what customers really want to buy -- the next step in Burger-King philosophy! Cheers, David Drake%UMass-CS