News - Fast Finger keyboard swaps out QWERTY for those who know their ABCs

[mikerr]

Wasn't QWERTY something to do with typewriters, typing speed and the hammers (or whatever the term is for the thing with the letters on) getting jammed?

If you pressed two keys (hammers) close to each other within a short space of time they would get jammed. By spacing out commonly used letters further apart (QWERTY), the typist could type FASTER, not slower.

[KidChameleon]

Extending functionality to users of txt spk, Lynn - who noticed her daughter using abbreviated words over and over again - also came up with the idea of creating shortcuts to common txt spk abbreviations across the F keys. These include LOL, ASAP, BTW and THX (click the image above for a larger view).

Woo! \o/ I do so hate having to press three keys to get a lazy message across. Now I would only have to press two!


(Pressumably you would need to hold a function key down while pressing F# keys)

[watercooled]

Yeah because pressing a function key and a single key is so much faster than going l.o.l on they keyboard isn't it? Why not just make a keyboard with one key for each abbreviation - that should cover most conversations

[MadduckUK]

why not just buy a dunces hat? it would be cheaper

[Shooty*]

What does Wiki say about the "slow down" vs "prevent jams" debate? Surely that will decide who's right.

[miniyazz]

The only sense in which QWERTY slows down typists is that it is slower than other key layouts, such as Dvorak. It is not designed to slow down typists, it is designed to speed them up. It does this by placing commonly used keys further apart to help prevent typewriter jams, as elicited earlier in the thread. This results in many words being typed each letter alternately with each hand, which is much quicker than one hand doing most of the typing, but still slower than 'runs' of letters, typed by a single hand without having to move the fingers. This kind of letter positioning was impossible on early typewriters due to jamming - and is the letter positioning maximised with layouts such as Dvorak.

[MadduckUK]

The only sense in which QWERTY slows down typists is that it is slower than other key layouts, such as Dvorak. It is not designed to slow down typists, it is designed to speed them up. It does this by placing commonly used keys further apart to help prevent typewriter jams, as elicited earlier in the thread. This results in many words being typed each letter alternately with each hand, which is much quicker than one hand doing most of the typing, but still slower than 'runs' of letters, typed by a single hand without having to move the fingers. This kind of letter positioning was impossible on early typewriters due to jamming - and is the letter positioning maximised with layouts such as Dvorak.

this, exactly this. the slowdown was a by-product of the layout not a design feature.

[shaithis]

this, exactly this. the slowdown was a by-product of the layout not a design feature.

Surely, it's a chicken-and-egg situation?

They moved the keys to stop the jams but was the positioning of the keys solely to be credited for the success? or was the new typing speed what swayed the design?

If you took a QWERTY typewriter and typed fast enough, surely you could still cause jams.....

[superscaper]

The only sense in which QWERTY slows down typists is that it is slower than other key layouts, such as Dvorak. It is not designed to slow down typists, it is designed to speed them up. It does this by placing commonly used keys further apart to help prevent typewriter jams, as elicited earlier in the thread. This results in many words being typed each letter alternately with each hand, which is much quicker than one hand doing most of the typing, but still slower than 'runs' of letters, typed by a single hand without having to move the fingers. This kind of letter positioning was impossible on early typewriters due to jamming - and is the letter positioning maximised with layouts such as Dvorak.

Not to labour the point about urban myths but has Dvorak ever been definitively shown to be faster than QWERTY? As far as I know any studies have shown no improvement in speed or efficiency. There's only anecdotal accounts. And the only study (which hasn't been successfully repeated) which did seem to show an improved speed was actually overseen by someone called August Dvorak (hardly convincingly independent ).

[MadduckUK]

If you took a QWERTY typewriter and typed fast enough, surely you could still cause jams.....

how would you set it out so it wouldn't then

[miniyazz]

Surely, it's a chicken-and-egg situation?

They moved the keys to stop the jams but was the positioning of the keys solely to be credited for the success? or was the new typing speed what swayed the design?

If you took a QWERTY typewriter and typed fast enough, surely you could still cause jams.....

You're assuming the old typing speed was faster. Anyone know what the previous keyboard layout was? If there was even a generic one?
And yes, you could stil cause jams. If ever you wanted to type "re" next to each other, for example - the keys are next to each other, with relatively high risk of jamming if you typed them too fast. Experienced typists would know this and slow down where needed. But you would cause fewer jams typing at a certain speed than with other keyboard layouts.

Not to labour the point about urban myths but has Dvorak ever been definitively shown to be faster than QWERTY? As far as I know any studies have shown no improvement in speed or efficiency. There's only anecdotal accounts. And the only study (which hasn't been successfully repeated) which did seem to show an improved speed was actually overseen by someone called August Dvorak (hardly convincingly independent ).

I'm not sure, actually. But the fastest achieved speed is significantly higher on Dvorak than on QWERTY, which given the massive userbase of QWERTY compared to Dvorak, seems more than a coincidence

[Shooty*]

Can we settle this argument by all just saying "meh", shrugging, and accepting the status quo?

Then, when someone buys this new keyboard (and, thinking about the typical hexus demographic, SOMEONE is bound to, just to try it), they can tell us what it's like.

One thought: First person shooters might be tricky, what with WASD spread all over the shop.

[MadduckUK]

One thought: First person shooters might be tricky, what with WASD spread all over the shop.

i was going to say that, then i realised it has a "normal" mode in it so thats fine. flip it to that for games

[Shooty*]

In a way, it nearly took me back to Commodore/ Spectrum days of "ZXKM" and "QAOP" respectively.

Ah, happy days.

[Lenny_Nero]

The "slow typists down" thing is complete urban myth. Just a very commonly spread one. One of the reasons QWERTY was adopted was because of its success in speed typing competitions (at no time in history has anyone wanted to actually slow down typists/typing, just reduce errors).

Care to cite this, because there would not have been many people to have the competition[s] with when C. L. Sholes was working this out in the 1860's and typewriter makers were doing such to slow down the speed because the mechanism could not keep up (and yes, to slow down the speed of the hands did make the type speed go up) and the type bar[s] would clash/jam together in the basket when using a more normal and faster (because most people learn their A.B.C's at quite an early age) range of keys like the basic abc...

As a collector of keyboards with friends who also collect typewriters I have read and re-read the history of the keyboard/typewriter more times than I can count.

Dvorak boards are faster be they right or left handed, or basic, when people stick with them, this being the real problem, I have a Dvorak board, but I cant use one anywhere else.
Also the cost of a good Dvorak board is many more times the amount of any of my Filco's (in any switch type), but I have converted one of my older Alps switched boards to Dvorak, but again, I was not willing to leave it at work and they would not pay for a good Dvorak board

[shakerist]

i like the feature where it has lol, wtf etc as a shortcut, they should have the on more keyboards