Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hpdslab!hpdsla!garye
From: garye@hpdsla.HP.COM (Gary Ericson)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Alternative Keyboards
Message-ID: <400009@hpdsla.HP.COM>
Date: 17 Jan 89 00:02:48 GMT
References: <2717@ficc.uu.net>
Organization: HP - Pacific Technology Park
Lines: 28

> In article <984@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU>, Chris Bogart writes:
>> [stuff deleted about not being able to go back and forth between qwerty
>>  Dvorak]
> 
> Two possible solutions here.  One would be a keyboard that translated
> one's Dvorak keying into qwerty for the computer's benefit.  The other
> would be a program that would let the computer accept either.  
> 
> Jeff Daiell
--------

The problem with straying from qwerty is, of course, the incredible social
momentum that keyboard layout has.  If you walk up to a machine with a
keyboard, it will probably be qwerty (except many handheld devices that use
alphabetic layout).  But the detachable keyboard concept makes me wonder
why you couldn't carry your keyboard with you and plug it in to the machine
you wanted to use.  The keyboard could be any layout but would send
characters to the machine as if it were qwerty (do keyboards just send ASCII 
like they used to, or do PC keyboards send some encoding to indicate the key 
position, letting the computer figure out what key it is?).  

Whether this idea was useful to you would depend on how many different machines
you tend to use (especially ones that wouldn't accept your personal keyboard)
and how intense your use of them was (i.e., would it hurt you to hunt and
peck).

Gary Ericson - Hewlett-Packard, Workstation Technology Division
               phone: (408)746-5098  mailstop: 101N  email: gary@hpdsla9.hp.com