OT: keyboard layouts

[Taavi Burns]

On Sat, Dec 13, 2003 at 02:46:12PM -0500, Henry Spencer wrote:
> Mainly, the very high costs of conversion, including a lengthy period of
> operating both.  As with a number of other things, having everybody do
> things the same reasonably-good way is much more important than finding
> the absolutely optimal way. 

Agreed.  But at what point do the long-term benefits of that marginal
improvement overcome the initial cost of switching?  If we're still all
using qwerty in 1000 years, might it not be better to deal with 10 years
of confusion now, even if just for an extra 1%?  Over 1000 years, 1% is
a lot of work.

> > what does a Maltron layout look like?  Is it even physically similar to
> > the keyboards we use today?
> 
> Only very loosely.  It's closer to the "natural" keyboards.  On each end,
> there is a sort of shallow bowl of finger keys.  Below and inward from
> that, tilted backward, on each side is a small array of thumb keys (which
> includes assorted shifts and movement keys, the space key, and the E key). 

That sounds a lot like one of the Kinesis keyboards.

> You might perhaps be able to come up with a vaguely Maltron-ish remapping
> of the standard layout.  The thumb areas would be tricky.

It's still a qwerty, though.  I don't see how a logical remapping of
a standard keyboard to some approximation of that would be of any use.

> The cost of conversion, however, suggests that at most one switchover is
> acceptable.

You're saying that no switchover (to Dvoark) is acceptable.  How much
better does something have to be for it to be worth it?

> <http://www.keytools-ergonomics.co.uk/advice/onehanded.asp> concludes that
> unless a one-handed typist was previously a fast two-handed typist, the
> overwhelmingly best choice is one-handed typing on a standard Qwerty
> keyboard, simply because it avoids needing special accommodations for that
> one person.  (And if he or she was a fast two-handed typist, there are
> one-handed variants of Qwerty which may be preferred.)
> 
> In any case, if you're buying a custom keyboard, there are one-handed
> Maltron keyboards which are probably preferable over anything Dvorak.

The beautiful thing about the Dvorak is that you DON'T need to go out
and buy anything special.  Windows can be configured to switch between
qwerty and Dvorak using ALT-LEFTSHIFT.  Does it get any simpler than that?
I'm pretty sure that KDE can do things as simply as that, too, as should
any other properly hotkeyed wm.

Any public terminal will have the keys clearly labeled if it cannot
be remapped.  I do believe that someone else mentioned that he has few
problems switching between using a Dvorak and qwerty layout, making
the analogy to the different fingerings required by people who play
multiple musical instruments.  Anecdotal evidence for sure, but then
I don't buy the reasons for not using a one-handed Dvorak in the case
of a physical disability.

Yes, I'm a geek and a musician and have an Engineering degree.  I
understand that I find joy in the journey at least as much as the
destination, and that's not the case for most people who just want
to get the job done.  But if other people don't care, who will?

Should I go install Windows?

-- 
taa
/*eof*/
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