Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!dg!quokka!quirk
From: quirk@quokka.rtp.dg.com (Peter Quirk)
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc
Subject: Re: Standard keyboard
Keywords: QWERTY
Message-ID: <1275@dg.dg.com>
Date: 1 Feb 91 22:46:48 GMT
References: <742@caslon.cs.arizona.edu> <2700@wn1.sci.kun.nl>
Sender: root@dg.dg.com
Reply-To: quirk@quokka.rtp.dg.com (Peter Quirk)
Organization: Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC
Lines: 23

The rearrangement of the alphabetical keys on a foreign keyboard is nothing compared
to the placement of the special characters used in UNIX. For example, the
right curly bracket /}/ is located in the third quadrant of the third key
to the right of the /L/ on the French-Canadian 102-key PC-AT keyboard, while it's on
the front of the same key on the Spanish keyboard (ALT-L combination instead of
ALT-GR combination?), and it's on the front of the zero key on the Norwegian
keyboard.

I can't find it at all on the Italian or Swiss keyboard (have to use a digraph),
while it's located on the front of the +/= key on the French keyboard.

It's all very well to complain about placement of keys, but the basic problem
is that there aren't enough keys on any keyboards. Too many keys are doing double
and triple duty.

Also, while the QWERTY keyboard is not well-designed for English letter
frequencies, any design that is better will be wrong for other languages.
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Quirk			Internet: quirk@quokka.webo.dg.com
Data General Corporation	Phone:    +1 (508)898 4679
3400 Computer Drive		Fax:	  +1 (508)898 2684
Westboro, MA, USA 01581