Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!orcenl!rbodamer From: rbodamer@oracle.nl (Roger Bodamer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn Subject: Re: Archimedes keyboard Keywords: Keyboard, defunct Message-ID: <1257@nlsun1.oracle.nl> Date: 26 Feb 91 11:02:22 GMT References: <1991Feb19.160812.20483@cns.umist.ac.uk> <1991Feb25.202045.2240@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Reply-To: rbodamer@oracle.nl (Roger Bodamer) Organization: Oracle Europe Lines: 61 In article <1991Feb25.202045.2240@watdragon.waterloo.edu> gcwillia@daisy.waterloo.edu (Graeme Williams) writes: >In article mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) writes: >>vanaards%t7@uk.ac.man.cs writes: >> >>What is the point of making the keyboard look just like a PC keyboard, if you >>then make the backspace key perform a CTRL-H and the Delete key perform a >>Backspace?! AAAAARGH! >> >Its proper the way it is. The PC way of doing things is quite illogical. Sure. But even if it is illogical, a few million of users are used to it which might be a very good reason to be compatible with them. >(Unix systems also seem to do things the PC way, but that isn't a good >reason to follow - Unix is nearly as ugly as a PC. #IRONY ON Sure !! Unix sucks !! Basic Rules !! Why invent anything beyond Arthur or RiscOs ?? #IRONY OFF >One crowd that does do things properly are Digital with their > VAX/VMS systems.) Let me see, I'm sitting behind a vax workstation now. I don't see a key labelled 'delete'. Let's try the backspace ( upper right ) Ah, it deletes the character to the left. Great. Why doesn't that work on a standard archimedes 310 ? When I bought my archimeds (305) some 3 years ago I couldn't find a way of switching the effect of these keys (backspace and delete) which really annoyed me a lot. >I understand your frustration, I get frustrated swapping betwixt >machines too. Only I view things the other way: "WHY WHY WHY can't IBM >and Unix systems do things logically? - Are they so incompetent?" > See the IRONY ON/OFF section. BTW Are you using a velotype ? Study has learned that if you type on a velotype your productivity will go up by 300%. They did it because they redesigned the keyboard which they found clumsy and inefficient. The fact that almost nobody uses it ( in spite of the real productivity gain ) is that Joe user is very conservative in changing from one development to the other. And he is right. So even if Acorn has a absolutly brilliant id with their placement of keys, changes that this placement will be adapted as the new standard are 0, NULL, ( noppes. dutch :-). They got a lot of things right at Acorn, but also some things wrong. The two things I dislike the most is the OS interface, CD, DIR, CAT which to me have all different meanings than I'm used to, and the file system. ( dots as separators, file name length etc ) But we all know what they did right, don't we ? :-) I can live with the keyboard because I'm beyond annoyance (tm). Roger. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roger Bodamer | Wherever you go, Oracle Europe, Development | There you are. rbodamer@oracle.nl |