Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!kth.se!news
From: ianf@draken.nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Un-Mac-like keyboard
Summary: not religion but ergonomics
Keywords: ISO ABD keyboard SANS the numeric pad badly needed
Message-ID: <1990May8.050821.20052@kth.se>
Date: 8 May 90 05:08:21 GMT
References: <230@beaver.cs.washington.edu> <40810@apple.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman)
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Lines: 65

In article <40810@apple.Apple.COM> Jeanne A. E. DeVoto (jdevoto@Apple.COM)
writes:

> It depends on your specific religious beliefs about placement of the control
> key :-).  The Apple Standard ADB keyboard has the control key above the
> shift key, and the caps lock key below.  The Apple Extended keyboard has
> these two keys reversed. Personally, I prefer the latter placement, with the
> control key at the bottom left corner of the keyboard, but you don't mention
> which placement you consider "right".

  Actually, the question has as much to do with religion as, say,
  the average volume of holes in Swiss cheese.  It's simply a matter
  of conforming to keyboard layout standards -- of which there are
  several, depending on how one defines the latter.

  I suppose that you meant to say "American Standard ADB" keyboard,
  (ie the "normal" one, not its aircraft-carrier cousin,) when you said
 "Apple Standard".  It so happens that the prevailing "market standard"
  keybord in the USA has the CTRL key above the shift key.  So Apple has
  made a decision to conform to that, when selling the large keyboards
  in America, rather than to standartize on the only other keyboard-
  layout standard -- the ISO (International Standard Organization's) one.

  Part of it is probably due to fear of meeting initial user hostility
  towards an (admittedly better laid out and more compatible with 
  future products) Apple keyboard that "differs from the others in the
  office".  Ie, kowtowing to users' conservatism and not a small deal
  of plain ignorance.  But the other part of Apple's decision not to stick
  to one "standard" keyboard in its line is undoubtedly what I would term 
  the "American General Dislike And Mistrust Of International, esp. 
 `European', Organizations".  After all -- these decisions were taken
  by men and women of flesh and blood, with clear, culturally defined,
  (here: American-tainted) preferences and prejudices, not by some omnipotent,
  infallible "Apple Product Planners" that can do no wrong.

  In Europa, with its greater many number of languages, there is also
  a higher degree of awareness and need for a standard "standard" keyboard.
  It so happens that I'm typing, and has been doing it since Nov. of 1987,
  on a Swedish ISO-layout ADB keyboard (which ought to be called "Small",
  not "Standard" in the first place anyway, to prevent confusion as to what
  the latter word might refer to), that has the CTRL key right there in the
  lower left corner, and the caps lock above the shift key.  Just as the
  ISO Keyboard Layout Standard recommends.

  I'd say the ISO keyboard layout with its potentially greater
  conformance to a standard across other hardware platforms wins hands
  down, even if average small frequency of use of the caps lock key in 
  no way justifies its size nor prime position on the keyboard, as opposed
  to that of the CTRL key in the lower-left corner of it.  Still, the latter
  is placed at a boundary of the "keyboard square", which means that it is
  far easier to distinguish by feel alone, (as are other similarly placed 
 "corner" keys) than the caps lock, squeezed between two "similar-feel"
  keys along the edge.  So ultimately we're dealing not with religion
  but with simple matters of ergonomics.

  Speaking of which -- when will Apple release the Portable's ADB keyboard,
  sans the numeric pad, in a case of its own, on its own?  Do please
  remember that not every Apple user is a public accountant-type of person, 
  that measures a product's worth accordingly to its potential use in
  bean-counting activities.  I'd say "small is more than beautiful", it
  is needed here. Realease such a key-padless ADB productr and you've got
  yourself a customer....

--Ian Feldman / ianf@nada.kth.se  ||  uunet!nada.kth.se!ianf / The "I had the
        bug narrowed down to a subrutine and then I lost all interest" hacker