[clug] [OT] quest for keyboards

Lana Brindley lanabrindley at gmail.com
Tue Feb 2 12:38:36 MST 2010


On 2 February 2010 23:34, Paul Wayper <paulway at mabula.net> wrote:
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>> 2010/2/2 Andreas Bauer <baueran at rsise.anu.edu.au>:
>>> Many thanks for some pointers and hints already,
>
> At the slightly cumbersome
> http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/show_image_products.php?input[category_id]=1838
> they've recently added a range of "Majestouch" keyboards which have good
> reviews.  Don't know whether they're any good though, I'm sticking to my
> Microsoft Natural 4000 keyboard.
>
> On 02/02/10 09:54, Lana Brindley wrote:
>> I considered switching to Dvorak (and still might, but the learning
>> curve frightens me).
>
> There's actually little practical evidence that Dvorak keyboards are that much
> faster.  Most of the evidence is anecdotal, or was funded by the Dvorak
> Keyboard Corporation.  The wetware physics makes sense - certainly alternating
> hands is faster than when you have to move one hand or finger to hit the same
> key - but there's lots of exceptions to rules like that in both our regular
> languages and in the odd artificial languages we call programming languages,
> markup, editing and so forth.  What we also know is that the human body is
> _very_ good at adapting and learning these patterns of movements, and not very
> good at retraining.

I was actually considering swapping just to be able to switch movement
(and therefore prevent strain) more so than through any desire to be
faster. Although I understand what you're saying, and perhaps
keyboards are all inherently evil anyway. Either way, the desire to
switch has not outweighed the desire to go through that transition
period.

>
> Serious typists use chorded keyboards.  The Hansard stenographers these days
> mostly use voice re-dictation on trained speakers along with post-dictation
> editing.

What's a chorded keyboard? (Excuse my ignorance).

L

-- 
Cheers! Lana

Don't you wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence?
There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work.
  - Gallagher

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