From bob@RATTLESNAKE.COM Mon Mar 19 04:17:56 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: bob@rattlesnake.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 19 Mar 2001 12:17:55 -0000 Received: (qmail 93784 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2001 12:17:55 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 19 Mar 2001 12:17:55 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO megalith.rattlesnake.com) (140.186.114.245) by mta2 with SMTP; 19 Mar 2001 12:17:54 -0000 Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.111) for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Mon, 19 Mar 2001 07:17:47 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 07:17:47 -0500 (EST) To: Matthew.S.Ford@Rose-Hulman.Edu Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com In-reply-to: <3AB57BB0.20509@Rose-Hulman.Edu> (Matthew.S.Ford@Rose-Hulman.Edu) Subject: Re: [lojban] The Dvorak of Lojban? Reply-to: bob@rattlesnake.com References: <3AB57BB0.20509@Rose-Hulman.Edu> X-eGroups-From: "Robert J. Chassell" From: "Robert J. Chassell" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 5996 I am curious if anyone has tried remapping his keys on his keyboard to something more pleasing for Lojban. A sort of Dvorak for Lojban. I do not know much about Dvorak and how it makes typing nicer for English. First, the Dvorak keymapping; on my system you have choices: * A left handed keymapping, for if your right hand is amputated, or if you are using it for another task than typing (and are therefore `situationally handicapped'). * A right handed keymap, * The ANSI standard keymap for two hands, and * The most common keymap, which is what most people use. (According to Marcus Brooks, "ANSI places both square brackets on the same key (requiring a shift for one), omits curly brackets (which usually end up both on the same key too), and leaves the +/= key on the topmost row." Why the ANSI committee did this, I don't know.) Here is Marcus Brooks; diagram of the standard Dvorak layout; other keys -- mostly the number keys -- are the same as in QWERTY: Shifted: { } " < > P Y F G C R L ? + A O E U I D H T N S _ : Q J K X B M W V Z Lowercase: [ ] ' , . p y f g c r l / = a o e u i d h t n s - ; q j k x b m w v z The advantage of the Dvorak layout is that you need to move your fingers less; most of the keys you use are on the central row. Also, English writers tend to alternate hands as they type a vowel follow by a consonant followed by another vowel, and so on. And, most interestingly, some of the sequences of consonants are typed in the `natural finger order' which is outer or smallest finger inward. Thus, you are more likely to type a `th' as in `the' than an `ht' or an `sn' as in `snow' than an `ns'. When we suffered through a batch of poorly designed keyboards, and several people I worked with got repetitive stress injuries from typing on them, we found that those who used Dvorak keymappings suffered less. According to a study by Aetna insurance some years ago, it takes about 2/3rd the time for novices (in their case, executives who used to depend on secretaries) to learn to type on a Dvorak keyboard to some reasonable speed such as 50 words per minute than on a QWERTY keyboard. Others claim that the advantages of Dvorak keyboards are exaggerated. I don't believe that -- at least for my kind of typing and for the kinds of typing done by programmers developing GNU Linux -- the Dvorak was superior. The problem with the Dvorak keyboard is that most people already know how to type on a QWERTY keyboard and do not want to relearn. And the advantage of relearning is low, especially on a computer, which is after all a `super-typewriter' in that you can readily edit your errors, change your mind, insert or move paragraphs anywhere you wish (and with this paragraph, as it happens). The Dvorak keyboard improves the process of typing a modicum. That was all you could do with technology in the days of the typewriter. Computers, regardless of keybinding, improve the process of writing. In the days before computers, I purchased a Dvorak keyboard typewriter learned and used it happily. But then I started working for a computer company whose equipment did not provide ready keymappings, and which used a QWERTY layout. So I relearned QWERTY. Eventually the company realized that it wanted to sell machines in France and Germany and other countries with different keymaps in the US and revised its software, but by then I had relearned QWERTY and did not want to re-relearn Dvorak. As for Lojban ...it may not make much sense until most of what I type is in Lojban. But I am still curious. I hate to say it, but a Dvorak keymapping may be as poor for Lojban as the QWERTY keymapping. The `l' key, for example, is off the center row. It is where the `p' key is on a QWERTY keyboard. The Dvorak keymapping is designed for English, not any other language. Incidentally, in addition to keymappings, I find I have two Dvorak typing courses on my system. I have never looked at either of them. See: Marcus Brooks http://www.mwbrooks.com/ Pete's Dvorak Keyboard http://www.ai.mit.edu/~szilagyi/dvorak.html Critical review of Dvorak http://www.reason.com/9606/Fe.QWERTY.html -- Robert J. Chassell bob@rattlesnake.com Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com