NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/comp/os/os2/advocacy/11527

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-03 | 1.6 KB

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Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tamsun.tamu.edu!bdubbs
From: [e-mail] (Bruce Dubbs)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: U.S. Dvorak Simplified Keyboard support
Date: 4 Jan 1993 03:56:08 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Department, Texas A&M University
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: neuron.tamu.edu

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Roger M. Wilcox) writes:
|
|Long ago, I rearranged the platic key-caps on my keyboard to get a Dvorak
|Simplified Keyboard layout (you know, AOEUIDHTNS), so that I could type
|about 40% faster than with that (yicch) QWERTY keyboard layout.  A company
|called Seasoned Systems made a Dvorak keyboard driver for MS-DOS, which I
|bought and installed and which worked just fine.  Windows bypasses the DOS
|keyboard I/O handlers, but versions 3.0 and 3.1 of Windows come with a
|U.S. Dvorak keyboard driver.

Roger, I don't doubt that you can type 40% faster with a DVORAK
keyboard than with a QWERTY keyboard.  However, I believe I saw a
research article, {\it Human Factors} if I remember correctly, that
said expert typists can only type 2-3% faster with DVORAK keyboards.
The conclusion was that the speed difference was not enough to switch
{\em for most people}.

  -- Bruce

--
Bruce Dubbs                   |  Oxymorons of note:
[e-mail]        |  Honest Politician, Political Science,
                              |  Scrupulous Lawyer