Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!samsung!caen!spool.mu.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!msp33327 From: msp33327@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael S. Pereckas) Newsgroups: comp.human-factors Subject: Re: ap, Windows BASIC Message-ID: <1991Jun28.160146.16950@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: 28 Jun 91 16:01:46 GMT References: <81437@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> Sender: usenet@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News) Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 32 In <81437@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> gorman@acsu.buffalo.edu (anne-marie k gorman) writes: >Actually, from the point of view of the phone company, teh upside-down keypad >is very well designed. Back when push-button phones were being invented, >extensive testing was carried out to see which configuration of buttons gave >the lowest number of incorrectly dialed numbers. Since the phone company >gives you credit when you dial a wrong number, but it still cost them money >to put the call through, they wanted to minimize their costs by minimizing >teh number of calls that they would have to issue credits for. Their experi- >ments showed that the 'upside-down' layout minimized errors, even though it >was different from teh 'standard' adding-machine style layout. I for one mess up on phone keypads all the time. I'm always hitting 3 when I mean 9, or whatever. In any case, the reasons for choosing the telephone layout back in the semi-distant past may have been good, but why must *all* phones today use it? Why can't I get any phone with a keypad laid out like the computers and calculators that I and so many other people use so much? Why not a little switch so I can have it either way, like the switch on the bottom of my Northgate computer keyboard to swap the caps lock and control from the historically correct layout to the usable layout? Of course, then you'd have a keycap problem. I'm sure that could be overcome. We could call it the programmer's phone. The phone mortal lusers wouldn't understand. -- < Michael Pereckas <> m-pereckas@uiuc.edu <> Just another student... > ``You can be real patient if you don't have a central nervous system'' ---Dr. Ronald Pine