Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!agate!shelby!rutgers!deejay!gear!hp340!staff From: staff@hp340.sublink.ORG (Alex Martelli) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Efficient Keyboards Message-ID: <290@hp340.sublink.ORG> Date: 18 Oct 90 17:27:12 GMT References: <1990Oct15.224911.16099@nntp-server.caltech.edu> Organization: CAD.LAB, Bologna, Italia Lines: 30 marcel@cs.caltech.edu (Marcel van der Goot) writes: ... >> Most of the world uses a more efficient layout than QUERTY. >(QWERTY, I presume.) >Are you sure? Where do they do that? I only know about the situation >in The Netherlands (and USA), and the standard keyboard there is >certainly QWERTY. France uses AZERTY, mostly identical to US layout, and I doubt the slight changes are for efficiency. Some old Italian typewriters used to use QZERTY, but QWERTY's about unheard of on computers (I think some typewriters are still made that way... assuming ANY typewriters are still being sold today, that is:-). The most enraging change they generally make in national-language European keyboard is gratuitous switching-around of punctuaction, including making unavailable or hard-to-get-at such 'fancy' keys as '~', '{', '#', and so on (you can imagine how NICE that is for somebody doing Unix shell interaction, or C programming, etc... which is why I ordered an US keyboard FROM the US to replace my Italian one!!!). I don't THINK Japanese computer users make much use of altered keyboards - at least, the kanji-input system on SONY workstations is on a completely different basis than straight keyboarding (semi- clever window-based stuff, etc). -- Alex Martelli - CAD.LAB s.p.a., v. Stalingrado 45, Bologna, Italia Email: (work:) staff@cadlab.sublink.org, (home:) alex@am.sublink.org Phone: (work:) ++39 (51) 371099, (home:) ++39 (51) 250434; Fax: ++39 (51) 366964 (work only; any time of day or night).