Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!abvax!iccgcc!herrickd From: herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (daniel lance herrick) Newsgroups: comp.std.misc Subject: Re: Standard keyboard Message-ID: <3044.27a95dd7@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> Date: 1 Feb 91 17:23:50 GMT References: <742@caslon.cs.arizona.edu> <1991Jan29.122813.11619@tsa.co.uk> Lines: 21 In article , prk@planet.bt.co.uk (Peter Knight) writes: > All this talk of standard keyboards reminds me of the mess up around > telephone and calculator keyboards. > > Back in the mists of time, the CCITT, the telecoms standards body, > set a standard layout for telephone keypads, with '1' at the top-left. > > When pocket calculators came into existance, they seemed to standardise > on a keyboard with '1' at the bottom-left, ie ignoring the CCITT standard. > CCITT (or AT&T) ignored the long standing arrangement on mechanical ten key calculators, which had the one key near the zero key, and invented a new conflicting arrangement that put the nine key near the oh key. The calculators, with a lever to pull to work the works, predate the transistor and all thought about non-rotary "dialing". The new, electronic, calculator manufacturers stuck with the sensible precedent. dan herrick herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com