Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!unmvax!nmt.edu!john From: john@nmt.edu (John Shipman) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Efficient Keyboards Message-ID: <1990Oct14.204232.5836@nmt.edu> Date: 14 Oct 90 20:42:32 GMT References: <1990Oct13.231527.6887@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Organization: Zoological Data Processing Lines: 241 Tom Magliery (tpmg0848@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu) writes: +-- | perhaps the improvement would be faster on a different layout, | such as the critically-acclaimed (and i believe research-proven- | better) dvorak layout. but i think apathy would prevent me from | ever bothering. +-- I was recently involved in a lengthy discussion of the Dvorak keyboard in the comp.misc group. I have attached some of my postings on the subject. I would be happy to correspond with anyone who is interested in this subject. ----begin included articles---- Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Optimal keyboards Message-ID: <1990Aug25.015334.16702@nmt.edu> Carl Turner (turner@webb.psych.ufl.edu) writes: +-- | PROs: * An optimal keyboard exists--the Dvorak keyboard, named after | its designer, August Dvorak. | * It's currently implemented in hardware on Apple //c and | available as a keymap on other machines: amiga, maybe IBM's. +-- I will take some credit for the availability of the Dvorak keyboard on the //c. I've been using this keyboard for some time, and I tend to rant about it with little provocation. One day I was ranting about it to my friend Tom Root, who just happened to be working on the operating system for the //c. +-- | CONs: * No one would use it. | * Switching from QWERTY to an optimal keyboard would be | difficult especially for people who use many kinds of | equipment: they would have to wait until ALL the machines and | keyboards are reconfigured. +-- I don't know how many people use the Dvorak arrangement, but *I* use it, and I'll continue to use it because it makes typing much faster and less error-prone. I also disagree with the second point, as I constantly use QWERTY keyboards as well, and I still retain a reasonable amount of touch-typing speed on them as well. I have three Heath H19's with remapped keyboard encoder ROMs, and also an aftermarket Dvorak keyboard for my PC-XT. If I ever get a workstation, a little tinkering with the /dev/kbd driver will take care of remapping that too. I am a contractor and have to use customer equipment a lot. I do about 35-40 wpm on the QWERTY keyboard and 70-80 wpm on Dvorak, touch typing in both systems. I don't believe that learning an improved system will decrease one's speed in the inferior system. The QWERTY keyboard layout is WORSE THAN RANDOM. Scholes, the inventor of that keyboard, was a lousy mechanical engineer, so he ANTI-ENGINEERED his keyboard to compensate for problems in his typewriter. I would be happy to correspond with anyone who wants to find out more about the incredible story of these two keyboards. Here is the Dvorak keyboard layout I have been using. This layout replaces a 10 x 3 rectangular area of the normal keyboard bounded by the Q, P, Z, and / (slash) keys of the QWERTY layout: left hand | right hand ? < > P Y | F G C R L / , . p y | f g c r l A O E U I | D H T N S a o e u i | d h t n s <--home row : Q J K X | B M W V Z ; q j k x | b m w v z Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.misc Subject: Re: Dvorak keys vs. QWERT Message-ID: <1990Sep7.055025.16732@nmt.edu> Summary: Doesn't bother me to switch back and forth Wes Hardaker (hardaker@iris.UCDavis.EDU) writes: +-- | Does anyone know both keyboards, and do you have a problem | getting confused? I doubt anyone just know the Dvorak style | since there are so few keyboards that support Dvorak. I | think this would be a problem switching from one to the other, | however, or is the brain intelligent enough to seperate the | two during their respective use. +-- I converted my personal equipment to the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, but of course I often have to use QWERTY. It doesn't bother me for long, as the feel of the keyboard tends to serve as a cue to tell me which layout to use. If I start using the wrong mental set, after noticing a few typos I tend to snap into the correct set. My usual pattern is to use full touch typing on Dvorak (not looking at the keyboard at all), but during casual use of QWERTY I tend to look at the keys. If I have to use QWERTY for more than a few minutes, my touch training on QWERTY kicks in. Disclaimer: I don't know if my experience is typical. I had 18 years experience touch-typing on QWERTY when I retrained myself on the DSK, and that was ten years ago. I seldom do more than an hour or two of typing a day. My QWERTY speed never got much beyond 40 wpm, but I can generally do over 70 wpm on the DSK. Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Dvorak keyboard---advantages Message-ID: <1990Sep1.082020.3529@nmt.edu> A number of people have asked me about the advantages of the Dvorak keyboard, so here are some excerpts from the article in which I first found out about the Dvorak keyboard: ``The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard: Forty Years of Frustration,'' by Robert Parkinson, from the November 1972 issue of a magazine called _Computers_and_Automation_. ---begin quoted excerpt--- BACKGROUND ON KEYBOARD DESIGN [The QWERTY keyboard] was designed experimentally by Christopher Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter, to SLOW THE TYPIST DOWN. ...The keys on the early machines...pivoted up to strike the platen (roller) from underneath.... Since the keys had no springs on them, they fall back into place by gravity. This meant their action was very sluggish, and if two keys that were close together in one quadrant of this ``basket'' were struck rapidly, one after another, they would jam. To overcome this problem, Sholes moved the keys around experimentally until the machine seemed to operate with a minimum of jamming. What he actually did was to make many commonly-used letter sequences awkward and slow to execute. Thus, by ``anti-engineering'' his typewriter from a human factors point of view, he was able to slow it down so it would function to his satisfaction. Now, when we have [keyboards] that are mechanically quite responsive, we are still bound by the old keyboard found on those first (1873) machines. What an irony! DEFECTS Upon analysis, Dr. Dvorak found that the [QWERTY] keyboard had several defects.... Hand overload: This occurs when more than one character has to be typed by the fingers of the same hand.... The fastest and easiest strokes occur for characters on the home row and on opposite hands. Unbalanced finger loads: [QWERTY] overworks certain fingers and underworks others, all out of proportion to their capabilities (taking into account strength and dexterity of each finger.) Excess finger movement: Because of the way the characters are spread out over the whole keyboard, fingers must reach from and jump over the home row far too often....on the standard keyboard the ``home row'' is not really a home row at all since only 32% of all typing is done there. Awkward strokes: ...many high frequency letter combinations are unnecessarily complex and difficult to execute (just try typing ``December'' or ``minimum pumpkin'' without looking!). RESEARCH After several years of intensive research, during which hundreds of keyboard arrangements were studied and rejected, Dr. Dvorak received a patent for his Dvorak Simplified Keyboard in 1932. The DSK solves the basic problems inherent in the [QWERTY] keyboard. Better hand alternation: The hand overload problem is solved by maximizing alternate hand stroking. This is particularly important in maintaining rhythm. As much as possible, successive strokes should fall on alternate hands. This allows what is called ``play for position.'' That is, while a finger on one hand is in the process of stroking a key, another finger on the opposite hand can be getting into position to stroke the next key---and so on.... Dr. Dvorak solved this problem by putting the vowels (which comprise 40% of all typing) on the left hand side of the keyboard, and the major consonants which go along with those vowels on the right hand side. This guarantees good hand alternation since most syllables are made up of vowel-consonant-vowel letter sequences. / , . P Y F G C R L Top row A O E U I D H T N S Home row ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ (home finger positions) ; Q J K X B M W V Z Bottom row Better finger loads: ...the DSK arrangement precisely divides the finger loads according to relative finger capabilities. More work (70%) done on the home row: [diagram showing that on the DSK, 22% of typing is done on the top row, 70% on the home row, and 8% on the bottom row; for QWERTY, those numbers are 52%, 32%, and 18%.] Awkward strokes minimized: The rest of the characters, comprising the typing that has to be done off the home row, are placed on the DSK in positions on the remaining rows according to how hard it is to strike the keys in those rows. This is done such that the total number of awkwards strokes is minimized (the ``awkwardness'' of various types of strokes was determined using high-speed time-and-motion movies)....since awkward strokes are sometimes slower by a factor of three to one, and since the DSK reduces the number of these strokes by a factor of ten to one, one can see how it is possible to achieve a faster typing rate on this keyboard (and why Dr. Dvorak's students hold 12 out of 15 unbeaten world typing records.) --- end quoted excerpt --- The rest of this article describes the history of the keyboard, or, as the next section head says, ``If it's so good, why is nobody using it?'' However, this article is already pretty long. If enough people request it, I will post that story here. For now, though, here's a relevant quote from the end of the article: ...Dr. Frank Gilbreth (under whose direction Dr. Dvorak began the research that led to developing the DSK), the father of time and motion study, said, ``It is cheaper and more productive to design machines to fit men rather than try and force men to fit machines.'' ----end included postings---- P.S. I have already had requests from comp.misc to post the segment of the ``Computers and Automation'' article. I'm still planning to post it here when I get the time; I'll cross-post it to comp.misc also. -- John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, NM/john@jupiter.nmt.edu ``Let's go outside and commiserate with nature.'' --Dave Farber