Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!uw-entropy!dataio!pilchuck!ssc!markz
From: markz@ssc.UUCP (Mark Zenier)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore
Message-ID: <1682@ssc.UUCP>
Date: 4 Feb 89 21:25:59 GMT
References: <7143@pyr.gatech.EDU> <532@geovision.UUCP> <4575@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM> <319@itcatl.UUCP>
Organization: SSC, Inc., Seattle, WA
Lines: 16

In article <319@itcatl.UUCP>, jonathan@itcatl.UUCP (Jonathan Peterson) writes:
> 
> Is it true that the phone company designed touch-tone keyboards upside-
> down from calcutaor, etc numeric keypads because data entry people could 
> punch faster than the first generation switching systems could read?

No, I dimly remember an article in a jounal ("Ergonomics"? circa 1970) that 
they tried all sorts of keyboards and found the general public was a
few percent faster and more accurate using the 123 456 keyboard.

They also had mechanical autodialer phones with the punched cards
that could go faster than any fingers, so speed was not the issue.

Mark Zenier    uunet!nwnexus!pilchuck!ssc!markz    markz@ssc.uucp
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