Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!usc!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!concertina!fiddler
From: fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Dvorak Keycaps?
Message-ID: <128302@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 22 Nov 89 20:15:26 GMT
References: <5054.apple.net.info-apple@pro-harvest>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Lines: 38

In article <5054.apple.net.info-apple@pro-harvest>, edward@pro-harvest.cts.COM (Edward Floden) writes:
> In-Reply-To: message from UD041948@VM1.NODAK.EDU
> 
> > Wasn't there a TV commercial a few years back for the Apple //c with some
> > lady who was a real speed typist?  She was talking about "130 words per
> > minute" speeds and that her //c had no problem catching up with her.  Was
> > she using Dvorak?
> 
> The //c has an external
> switch to reconfigure the keyboard. I'm not sure if the //c keycaps are
> interchangeable, as I don't have one to experiment with, but I think that they
> might be -- I don't think that the //c keyboard is "sculptured", as the IIe

They are.  The //c keycaps are all the same shape.  The only disadvantage to
moving your keycaps around is that the "home" keys (D and K on a qwerty keyboard)
have position bumps...puts them somewhere else.  (Some time back, a magazine
reviewer in an article on a new Apple// variant complained about the shoddy
worksmanship of Apple keyboards.  He went on to say that it took him a half
hour to grind off the "flashing" he found on the D and K keys.  Those of us
at Apple at the time were literally struck dumb by the article.)

> 
> BTW, did you know that a Dvorak layout exists in the ROM of the IIe? The
> layout isn't entirely correct (three keys are mislocated), but it's there. I
> modified my IIe to access the layout; that's when I started using Dvorak
> instead of Qwerty (aka Sholes).

*All* Apple computers (including Macs) have supported the Dvorak layout
since the Apple///.  One of the best-kept secrets of the age.  Finding out
exactly how to access the feature can be troublesome sometimes, though.

------------

"...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise
anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear
and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..."

		Plato, _Phaedrus_ 275d