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From: walk@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Todd Walk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: New Macintosh LC & Classic keyboards...
Message-ID: <1990Dec17.192021.29850@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 17 Dec 90 19:20:21 GMT
References: <246@alchemy.UUCP>
Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Lines: 46

hzink@alchemy.UUCP (Harry K. Zink) writes:

>I would really like to know who at Apple is responsible for the new keyboard 
>layout of the LC and Classic keyboards?  I have never seen a more useless and 
>in my opinion utterly stupid act.

>From the talks I had with several Apple people at the recent Mac LC it seems 
>that no one is really happy with this 'new' layout either.  

>I fail to see th reason behind it.  It sure is not for the all powerful excuse 
>of saving manufacturing costs.  It obviously wasn't to adhere to some strange 
>IBM specified standard, as happened with the extended keyboard (which has the 
>ctrl and shft-lock keys in the 'wrong' places).  Now the caps-lock/ctrl 
>problem wasn't that big a deal since the caps can always be rewired and Apple 
>obviously took the idea from the PC style keyboards.

>Where does the idea for these news things come from.  Of all possible layouts, 
>I have never seen the ESC anywhere but where we are used to it (of course, I 
>also do not claim to know all standards).  Yet, what I afil to see is why would
>apple deliberately chnage the keyboard when the entire line finally had some 
>sort of homogenous layout?  This way it will be an additional obstavle for 
>users that have tos witch between the LC, Classic and the rest of the line 
>(granted, the ESC and tilde keys do not get too much traffic, but that is just 
>one more reason why I don't see why they had to switch them.)

>Of course, the sensible thing is to just get a standard keyboard and toss the 
>new one out - even though it has a nicer feeling and look to it in my opinion.

>So, does anyone have any ideas as to this?

>Harry

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> -----------------------------+------------------------------------------------
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Look at a program called Escape.  One option switches the escape and tilde    
keys.  It costs $20-$30 (I'm going to wait for someone to come out with a 
shareware or PD version).  I really believe that the person responsible for
this problem should be fired!  (After all, that person had to WORK to get 
this changed, otherwise it would have been easier to keep it the same.)

					Todd Walk
					walk@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu