Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 21:33:35 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199710220233.VAA14800@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: HACKER G N Sender: Lojban list From: HACKER G N Subject: Re: Dvorak (& Lojban) To: Lojban List In-Reply-To: <0EIF007309L7E3@newcastle.edu.au> X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2099 Lines: 38 John Cowan: > > But in Latin script, a B is a B, and a C is a C, and if you > > have to remember: > > > > to type a B with left-2nd-finger-down and C with > > left-3rd-finger-down on QWERTY only > Ilya Ketris: > It's not you but your fingers who remember this > once your mind is in the different typing mode. Yes, I was just thinking, if you had to think out consciously which finger went where in just one typing mode, you couldn't type very fast. Whenever you learn a new physical skill, there reaches a certain point where your body remembers it quite independently of whether YOU do. I often have to think about exactly where on the keyboard a QWERTY key is to know it intellectually, but if you sit me down on a QWERTY keyboard I can type using that key automatically, and at 70 words a minute! As for the Dvorak keyboard, thanks go to all the people who wrote to me telling me how I could configure my own keyboard to Dvorak. I have now been experimenting with Dvorak for 6 days including today, and I have found and downloaded a set of 29 Dvorak lessons from the Internet - I am currently on lesson 6. I was amazed at just how quickly I could pick up Dvorak - I had the new letter positions intellectually memorised in the first evening! - and as far as being able to maintain both QWERTY and Dvorak skills at once, I have from the beginning been concerned with using Dvorak only necessarily in lessons, until my speed in it is comparable with my QWERTY speed. I will type diary entries in Dvorak - slowly but surely - but for my uni work I have to use QWERTY still, because it's too important to stuff up with a keyboard with which I'm not yet fully fluent, obviously. And so far I can say that my speed in Dvorak just keeps picking up, but my QWERTY skills have not diminished in the slightest! In fact, I think they're a little bit faster and more accurate than they were before, because of the extra emphasis I've been giving to correct posture and movement of fingers on the keyboard in Dvorak. Geoff