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From: turner@webb.psych.ufl.edu (Carl Turner)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Left Handed programmers (was Sinister Hackers 8-))
Keywords: Left Hand
Message-ID: <24152@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 18 Aug 90 18:11:06 GMT
References: <1990Aug6.233133.4791@actrix.co.nz> <10401@stiatl.UUCP> <1990Aug16.080332.1572@ste.dyn.bae.co.uk> <jdarcy.650814205@zelig> <7968@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU
Reply-To: turner@webb.psych.ufl.edu (Carl Turner)
Organization: University of Florida Psychology Department
Lines: 38

In article <7968@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy) writes:
>The QWERTY keyboard favors lefties since it contains the most commonly used
>letters as well as the bulk of the control keys. In fact, the original
>carriage return (a lever on the carriage) was operated by the left hand
>as well.
>
>It could be that left-handed people are naturally attracted to the keyboard.
>
>Tom Almy

As I understand it, the QWERTY keyboard was created in such a way as to
make it somewhat difficult to use.  Typewriters (some of you youngsters
may not believe this) used to be purely mechanical devices; the early models
jammed easily if they were struck too quickly.  An optimal keyboard would
put the most-used letters in the language (ETOANISHRDLU) within easy 
reach of the first two fingers of each hand.  

Question: what would be the problems involved in offering both an optimal
computer keyboard (for the people who haven't yet learned to type) and
the old QWERTY?  

Back to the subject of left-handers....I'm pretty sure (which means I 
could probably track it down in the lit if someone paid me to do it) that
artists and poets are disproportionately left-handed.  This would fit
with the idea that was voiced in a previous post that hackers are as much
artists as they are techs.

As far as EMACS being left-hand intensive, I never really noticed that.
It just seems to me to be not right-hand intensive.  I wonder if RMS and
the others who have worked on it are left-handed.

By the way: nice pun on the words "left-handed" and "sinister."  If you
don't get the joke, look up the etymology of the word "sinister."


Carl Turner
left-handed sinister poet/artist/non-hacker  
turner@webb.psych.ufl.edu