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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.sci
Subject: Re: Dvorak vs. QWERTY
Message-ID: <2119@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 26-Mar-86 14:54:17 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.2119
Posted: Wed Mar 26 14:54:17 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Apr-86 04:56:32 EST
References: <435@ccivax.UUCP> <489@ccivax.UUCP> <2027@brl-smoke.ARPA> <3366@hplabsb.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.ARPA
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL)
Lines: 25
Xref: watmath net.philosophy:4792 net.sci:675

In article <3366@hplabsb.UUCP> bl@hplabsb.UUCP (Bruce T. Lowerre) writes:
>Just for the record, the Army did a study of the Dvorak keyboard back
>in the 30's or there abouts.  They took people who were not typists
>and divided them into two groups, one trained on the Dvorak and the
>other on the QWERTY keyboard.  The results?  The QWERTY keyboard was
>NO competition against the Dvorak keyboard.  The Army then took typists
>who were trained on the QWERTY keyboard and had typed for number of
>years and retrained them to use the Dvorak keyboard.  The results?  The
>QWERTY keyboard was NO competition against the Dvorak keyboard.  The
>retrained typists not only did better when retrained to use the Dvorak
>keyboard but also preferred it.  What keyboard does the Army use today?
>You guessed it.  The U.S. Army, 200 years of proud service unhampered
>by progress.

The Army is by no means the only agency using QWERTY keyboards..

I admit that our procurement regulations are so stupid that it is
next to impossible to acquire Dvorak typewriters, at least until
they become more widely available.  We have to fight such
regulations almost daily in our attempt to make progress; but we
are making progress (at BRL, at least).

One hears a lot of political talk about reforming the federal
bureaucracy, but there is very little improvement down "in the
trenches" where efficiency is really being lost.