Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!hsdndev!husc6!popvax!conrad
From: conrad@popvax.uucp (M20400@c.nobili)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: HP-95LX Review
Summary: Why all the fuss about QWERTY keyboards?
Keywords: QWERTY , Sholes keyboard s**ks ; Dvorak , American Simplified rule
Message-ID: <6747@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 12 May 91 05:11:23 GMT
References: <51907@apple.Apple.COM> <1460013@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM> <12063@uwm.edu>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Organization: Harvard University, Office for Information Technology
Lines: 59

In article <12063@uwm.edu> anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) writes:
>Personally, I don't have a problem with small keyboards.  I've found I
>can type surprisingly well on the non-qwerty keyboard on my Psion
>Organiser.  The qwerty keyboard on the Atari Portfolio was tolerable
>for the hour or so that I played with it, although the spacebar was a
>problem.  Of course, keyboard preferance is another one of those
>personal issues.

I agree.  I never had any problem with the "alphabetical" keyboards either.  And
remember that some of us don't use QWERTY keyboards on our desktop computers 
either!  Dvorak keyboards are much superior (IMnvHO)!  Many of you people spend
so much time debating the ergonomics and feel and keys and ... of keyboards that
it amazes me that often a much more important issue is ignored.  Many of you
spend as much time talking about keyboards as you probably spend trying to type
on your QWERTY dinosaurs ;-) !  (Actually, I am convinced, from the amount of
HORRENDOUS typos that I see in this group, that many of you read and post news
from your calculators and palmtops ;-) !)  (Oh, I hope I don't offend any of
you for whom English is not your native language, or those of you who do only
have small keyboards or screens for posting....  I am sure I would fare MUCH
worse under those conditions!  I was just making an observation.  Besides, I
seem to have an error-correcting brain....)

The real solution for very small (handheld) computers would seem to me to be
chording keyboards.  I think I remember having heard something about a (Brit?)
(no offense meant -- I was near the end of the line) handheld with one?  Does
anyone know if this is true or just a figment of my fevered mind?  Are there
any standards for chording keyboards?  Anyone know why the manufacturers have
basically ignored this idea?  (OK, so the answer to that last one is probably
the same as the answer to the question about why so many of you use QWERTY....)

Personally, I am waiting for cortical jacks at the base of the skull....  ;-)

>-- 
><-:(= Anthony Stieber   anthony@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
>uwm!uwmcsd4!anthony
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P.S.:     ' , . P Y F G C R L / =
           A O E U I D H T N S -       <---  Read my home row and weep!
            ; Q J K X B M W V Z

You can do it in software easily.  You can find stuff for both DOS and Mac OS
on good ftp archives and (presumably) BBSes.  Try it!  You'll like it!  (Oh, I
guess you should also be able to make a new termcap for UNIX (I always log in
from a PC or Mac though)....)  (And I think you can do it on VM/CMS with the
SET INPUT and SET OUTPUT commands, although I never finished investigating this
method....)

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