Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!hoptoad!tim From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Keyboard design (Was: Re: Xerox sues Apple!) Message-ID: <9386@hoptoad.uucp> Date: 24 Dec 89 01:17:38 GMT References: <172@comcon.UUCP> <7326@ficc.uu.net> <9320@hoptoad.uucp> <7340@ficc.uu.net> <9375@hoptoad.uucp> <5215@skinner.nprdc.arpa> Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco Lines: 34 In article <9375@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes: >>Keyboards *are* hard to learn. Most people take a long time to learn >>to type with acceptable speed and accuracy. But at least the keys that >>are of different type from the others (such as shift, control, etc.) do >>have distinctive shapes and locations, and all the keys have clear >>labels as to their function. In article <5215@skinner.nprdc.arpa> malloy@nprdc.arpa (Sean Malloy) writes: >It is to laugh. A single counterexample to disprove your premise: > >[proves he has nothing better to do than draw keyboards with ASCII] > >Now, the keyboard for my Sun at work has the same Control and Shift >keys as the OmniKey, but the Caps Lock key is where the Alt key is, >and the key that was the Caps Lock key is an odd function I haven't >figured out yet. Not to mention that the '~' / '`' and '|' / '\' keys >are in different places, along with the key, on all three >keyboards. I have to fall back to hunt-and-peck whenever I have to use >the PS/2 keyboard -- at least I have enough experience with the Sun >and OmniKey keyboards to be able to make the switch between them. > >Keyboards standardized? Joke on! Who ever said that keyboards were standardized? You are bashing a straw man. All you've done is *proven* my assertion -- that keyboards are hard to learn. Even going from one to another is hard, to say nothing of learning them in the first place. And please refrain from blatantly misrepresenting people's arguments. -- Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com "Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion." - Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"