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From: raveling@Unify.com (Paul Raveling)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Keyboard layouts (was Re: Chord Keyboards)
Message-ID: <1991Jun17.113255@Unify.com>
Date: 17 Jun 91 18:32:55 GMT
References: <1991Jun12.161454.6519@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>
Sender: news@Unify.Com (news admin)
Reply-To: raveling@Unify.com (Paul Raveling)
Organization: Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA, USA
Lines: 128

In article <1991Jun12.161454.6519@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>,
levene@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Robert A. Levene) writes:
> 
> Considering that for the past 60 years people have stuck to the
Sholes
> (QWERTY) keyboard layout over the Dvorak (DSK), I'm not optimistic
> that chord keyboards will be popular, ...

	The conclusion is true, but not all of us have stuck to these
	layouts.  I've been using my own layout quite successfully
	for a bit more than a decade now, and find it more satisfactory
	than either QWERTY or Dvorak.

	The key principles that I use are:

	    --	Frequency of use for each finger should be approximately
		proportional to its length.  This assumes that strength
		and dexterity are partly a function of finger size.
		(Dvorak violates this, particularly with its placement
		of A and S).

	    --  Finger motion should be minimized by clustering
		the most frequently used characters in or near
		home position.

	    --  Vowels and the most frequently used consonants should
		be assiqned to opposite hands to maximize left/right
		alternation.

	Lesser principles are:

	    --	vowels should go on the right hand, since on the average
		an individual vowel's frequency of use is higher than
		that of an individual consonant's.  The expectation is
		that most people's musculature and dexterity is better
		in the right hand than the left; this is natural for
		right-handed people, but may also be true for lefties
		since so many tools are designed for right-handed use.
		This is another principle that Dvorak violates.

	    --  For characters that are used infrequently, placement
		doesn't matter much.  It's easier to leave most special
		characters wherever they are -- any gain in efficiency
		tends to get swallowed by learing overhead.  Exceptions
		are frequently used specials such as period, comma,
		colon, and semicolon.

	    --	Sometimes it's necessary to make up for design blunders
		from the keyboard designers.  E.g., on a Sun type 4
		I moved ~ & ` to the line feed key & mapped their old key
		to return because it's hard to reach over it to the real
		Return key.  I'm about set to move Caps Lock up where
		the Pause key is (under the Caps Lock LED) because I
		rest my hand on it accidentally often enough to be
		a pain in the whatnot.

	For comparison I'll append a rendition of these 3 variants
	as they appeared on an HP 9000/300 series workstation's keyboard.
	Only special characters have moved to suit the Sun Type 4
	keyboard that I'm using now or the PC/AT clone at home.


------------------
Paul Raveling
Raveling@Unify.com



	Raveling:

	------------------------------------------------------------
	| ~ | ! | @ | # | $ | % | ^ | & | * | ( | ) | _ | + | Back |
	| ` | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | - | = |space |
	------------------------------------------------------------
	|      |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | : | { | } | | |
	| Tab  | Z | W | D | T | F | U | O | I | Y | ; | [ | ] | \ |
	------------------------------------------------------------
	|    |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | . | " |     |
	|Caps|Ctl| X | G | R | S | L | B | E | A | H | , | ' |Retrn|
	------------------------------------------------------------
	|DEL|      |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | > | ? |       |
	|ESC|Shift | Q | V | C | P | J | N | M | K | < | / | Shift |
	------------------------------------------------------------
	          |    |                               |    |
	          |Meta|           (Space)             |Meta|
	          -------------------------------------------



	Dvorak:

	------------------------------------------------------------
	| ~ | ! | @ | # | $ | % | ^ | & | * | ( | ) | { | + | Back |
	| ` | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | [ | = |space |
	------------------------------------------------------------
	|      | " | < | > |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | ? | } | | |
	| Tab  | ' | , | . | P | Y | F | G | C | R | L | / | ] | \ |
	------------------------------------------------------------
	|    |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | _ |     |
	|Caps|Ctl| A | O | E | U | I | D | H | T | N | S | - |Retrn|
	------------------------------------------------------------
	|DEL|      | : |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |       |
	|ESC|Shift | ; | Q | J | K | X | B | M | W | V | Z | Shift |
	------------------------------------------------------------
	          |    |                               |    |
	          |Meta|           (Space)             |Meta|
	          -------------------------------------------



	QWERTY:

	------------------------------------------------------------
	| ~ | ! | @ | # | $ | % | ^ | & | * | ( | ) | _ | + | Back |
	| ` | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | - | = |space |
	------------------------------------------------------------
	|      |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | { | } | | |
	| Tab  | Q | W | E | R | T | Y | U | I | O | P | [ | ] | \ |
	------------------------------------------------------------
	|    |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | : | " |     |
	|Caps|Ctl| A | S | D | F | G | H | J | K | L | ; | ' |Retrn|
	------------------------------------------------------------
	|DEL|      |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | < | > | ? |       |
	|ESC|Shift | Z | X | C | V | B | N | M | , | . | / | Shift |
	------------------------------------------------------------
	          |    |                               |    |
	          |Meta|           (Space)             |Meta|
	          -------------------------------------------