Aucb.518
fa.editor-p
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!C70:editor-people
Tue Feb 23 17:11:34 1982
QWERTY was designed to slow typing down!
>From lauren@UCLA-Security Tue Feb 23 17:09:22 1982
The QWERTY story is generally well known -- but I personally see little
chance of alternate keyboard arrangements becoming popular in the near
future, for the obvious "chicken vs. egg" reasons.
But as long as we're talking alternates, I'd like to see more
experimentation with the IBM "Chord" keyboard. There are VERY
few of these around, but the one I've played with was quite
impressive. In case you are unfamiliar with this beauty, it only
has 14 keys, set up like this:
X X X X X
X X X X X
X X X X
The lower four keys are for the thumb. The remaining fingers use
the upper 10 [illustration is for a right-handed setup]. The keyboard
is operated totally with one hand, and sets of one, two (digrams),
or three (trigrams) keys can be operated at once. Very high typing
speeds can be attained. IBM has already even worked out training
programs for learning to use these units! The design allows for
user programming of the many unused combinations for special
purposes.
Overall, I find the device to be fascinating. Unfortunately, they are
impossible to buy -- IBM will not sell them. The full, detailed
mechanical specs have been published, however, and if I could find somebody
capable of casting plastic to manufacture the four types of keys needed
for the unit, I'd have a bunch of them tossed together for interested
parties...
--Lauren--
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