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From: pardo@june.cs.washington.edu (David Keppel)
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.windows.misc,comp.misc,comp.periphs
Subject: Re: User Interface Standards -- *Keyboards!*
Keywords: keyboards,standardize,plug-n-play,freedom
Message-ID: <8721@june.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 14 Jul 89 00:31:22 GMT
References: <115518@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Reply-To: pardo@june.cs.washington.edu (David Keppel)
Organization: University of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle
Lines: 42

jcb@frisbee.Sun.COM (Jim Becker) writes:
>[Standardize *keyboards*!]

There are at least two issues.  One is where the physical keys sit,
and one is the binding of a physical key to a logical character.

In most respects, a lot of keyboards are similar but not *quite* the
same in their placement of the keys.  Examples of major screw-ups
include the `Shift' key on the original IBM-PC keyboard, which was
simply shaped wrong.  It was hard to hit, whether you were using it as
a `Shift' key or as anything else.

The other consideration is key binding.  Note that the (in)famous DEC
keyboard has screwy bindings but pretty normal placement.  The default
key bindings for X have the seqence [Shift .] produce the "<" token,
rather than the default `.'.  With sufficient rebinding capabilities,
any kind of rebinding is possible, in software, to suit the user's
taste.  The only problem is that the key caps may not agree with the
keys being struck.  Somebody has built a prototype of a keyboard that
has LCDs in each keycap, but it is probably expensive and/or
unavailable.  The Xerox solution is to have keymaps that can be
displayed in the corner of your screen.  Cheaper and almost as
effective.

BTW, the DEC keyboard is the result of an effort by DEC to produce an
internationally standardized keyboard.  They had to try to unify
several DOZEN keyboard standards (U.S., English, French, German, and
so on) to give a keyboard that had the minimum change from country to
country. Unfortunately, the ESC and "<" and ">" keys got lost.  After
using the DEC keyboards for a while, the things that bother me are the
placement of the relational operators and the lack of a right-hand
Meta key.  I am not bothered by the ESC key.

Steven Roberts (author of ``Computing Across America'') has a keyboard
built in to the handlebar of his bicycle.  Now *that* is an
alternative keyboard!  He types articles as he cruises the desolate
highways of Kansas...

	;-D on  ( Oh dear, where's the door key? )  Pardo
-- 
		    pardo@cs.washington.edu
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