Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
Monday, November 13th, 2006 - 1:03pm
I was playing Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory last night, the 4th stage where you had to deal with Dvorak. I searched around after Grimsdottir mentioned "infinite state machine" and managed to come upon this:
wikipedia wrote:
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (pronounced /'dvorÃ…k/) is a keyboard layout patented in 1936 by Dr. August Dvorak, a professor of Education at the University of Washington, and William Dealey as an alternative to the more common QWERTY layout. It has also been called the Simplified Keyboard or American Simplified Keyboard, but is commonly known as the Dvorak keyboard or Dvorak layout. The Dvorak keyboard layout was not widely adopted prior to the computer age. Currently, all major Operating Systems (such as Apple Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux and BSD) ship with Dvorak keyboard layout in addition to the standard QWERTY layout.
I'm sure i'm one of the few who has never heard of Dvorak. Are there any Dvorak users here? I'm curious as to its claims of much improved efficiency while typing as in all honesty, i've never heard of Dvorak before and I can't think of a single person who uses it or has mentioned it since I started using PCs. It seems pretty interesting, thinking about popping the keys off an old keyboard and giving it a try later today.
I remember Dvorak as one of the options in a very old text editor that was popular around these parts of the world. But I basically liked this in your post:
Who says games don't teach you anything?
It's not Wandering Toast. Except in TF2, where it usually is.
The Wikipedia has a good read on this one, would quote some of it, but it all seems equally useful/interesting.
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A couple years ago a friend of mine wanted to learn the Dvorak keyboard layout. I think it took him close to two years to master it. After all that time he was only able to type about 4-5 words per minute faster using the Dvorak layout and found that it was a hassle to switch back and forth when using a computer other than his own.
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Funny, I started Chaos Theory last week and just finished last night. (I encountered a bug during the very very end where during an in-game cut scene the game would hard-lock my computer. Managed to finish the scene on my 6th or so reboot.)
Certis wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:
I type everyday on a Dvorak keyboard. I was able to get functional in about a month. I took almost a year for me to be as proficient of a QWERTY typer. I think I actually type better on Dvorak, because I properly learned how to touch type from the start instead of years of working on QWERTY.
This is the keyboard that I use, although I can type in Dvorak on a standard keyboard as well.
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From what I've read, Dvorak keyboards aren't any better than QWERTY, though in fairness the studies were a bit tainted, in that it's a lot harder to find people with no experience on QWERTY.
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Bear wrote:
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I'm more of a QWERTZ man myself. Then there's also AZERTY, but that's just silly.
I've got an AZERTY keyboard somewhere in my closet left over from when I lived in France, and I must say I dearly miss all of those accented keys whenever I'm writing in French. So really any keyboard layout should depend on how its used, but now that I'm used to QWERTY I don't think I ever want to go through the process of adapting to a different layout again.
Alas, the only spare keyboard I have laying around seems to be completely unfunctional. Need to pick up a cheap keyboard now.
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Belgium uses azerty too, probably the only country next to France to be as stupid. I was thrilled when I found a Qwerty keyboard somewhere in Belgium, since it obsoletes the need to remap the wasd every new game.
Roo wrote:
Dysplastic wrote:
Do you use QWERTY at all? For your job or anything else? I'm curious as i'd like to learn Dvorak, but i'm not sure how well it would mesh with my current QWERTY knowledge.
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I never understood why exactly is AZERTY superior to QWERTY for a French speaker, apart from the French resentment to anything foreign. French are... French.
Then again, down here there is a strange custom of having QWERTZ layout instead of QWERTY. Add in the Windows ability to switch the two layouts at its own free will in unpredictable intervals - hilarity (and rage) ensues.
It's not Wandering Toast. Except in TF2, where it usually is.
French has more accents and stuff on their letters, for that it's more handy. Perhaps. But the key layout... I know how to type with both, and I see absolutely no difference in efficiency, errors or speed. At all.
Yeah, French will be French.
Roo wrote:
Dysplastic wrote:
I use QWERTY at home. I find that as long as I keep typing on a QWERTY board on a somewhat regular basis, that I don't have any trouble retaining my QWERTY skill.
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There's one reason ---> é (and the other accented letters)
Stick that key on a QWERTY keyboard and I'd use it over an AZERTY any day. Another solution would be to just get a Switzerland QWERTZ keyboard which has all the French accented letters.
And all this time I thought John C. invented that keyboard....
Ahh, a touchstream user! I had my eye on one of those a couple of years ago, but decided against it. How do you like it? Do you use their "gesture" mouse?
I absolutely love it. It pains me to think that I can't get a new one (and I really worry about breaking the one I have). It's really easy on the wrists, you can mouse with it as well as type, and the gesture support and programmability is great. The ability to gesture with the keyboard is really amazing. For example, I have Copy (Ctrl+C) mapped to tapping my thumb and middle finger on the board, and Paste (Ctrl+V) mapped to a tap&slide of my thumb and middle finger.
You can really program the keyboard to do anything. I don't like the position of the "L" key on the keyboard because it's hard to reach. I can go into the utility and "move" the key a few mm down so it's easier to hit. All of the programming is stored in firmware, so you don't need any special drivers or software when you plug it in.
There was a pretty steep learning curve, switching from QWERTY to Dvorak, and losing the tactile feedback of a keystroke that you get from a normal keyboard, but now, I can type over 60 WPM on this board now, and completely by touch. There are some raised bumps on the "home" row so that you can know where your fingers are.
I'd buy another one or two if the company was still in business. It's a really remarkable piece of technology.
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