Poll: Dvorak simplified keyboard and how it improved my life.

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smegmar

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Some time ago I was wildly pressing "random article" button on wikipedia, (I was basically doing stumbleupon before stumbleupon was invented.) most of the things I came across were useless factoids about some schools football team, or as species of goo that wasn't special at all.
Then on day I hit this beauty { http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_simplified_keyboard }.

So here's what I found and I'll try keep it short. why are the keys on your keyboard all jumbled up..the answer I always got was that so salesmen could spell typewriter from the top row and to eliminate typebar clashes. Now days both of those reason are pretty useless but we still use QWERTY keyboard, But did you know a man named August Dvorak made a keyboard layout specifically to improve typing speed, reducing errors and resisting strain on typing hands.

I started using Dvorak right after reading the article, and though it took me some time to get used to it, now I type faster then anyone I know. Recently a friend of mine was browsing flash games and came across some little typing game. spell words correctly fast enough and the little ship on screen will shoot incoming asteroids. So he was really getting into it and I was watching all the time. His hands were in pain, he was making mistakes and barely looking at the screen at all. He died once too many and I asked for a go. His best score was somewhere in the 4000's and on level 7. On my first go I got to level 8. Second attempt level 11, third attempt level 13 the final level in the game. Needless to say he was impressed and a bit confused, he hadn't noticed I had changed the keyboard setting to Dvorak.


So now after that I feel great, I want to share Dvorak with everyone. I think everyone should have try it, and more people should think about the layout of keys and why we use input devices the way we do.

Benefits of Dvorak
Improved typing speed
Less typo's
Less risk of Carpal tunnel syndrome
improved security (no one else can type anything on your keyboard)
win at typing flash games.

Here's a quick breakdown of Dvorak to try get your head around it.

typing from the top row left to right

q w e r t y u i o p ----------------------------------------------- ' , . p y f g c r l

a s d f g h j k l ; ----------------------------------------------- a o e u i d h t n s

z x c v b n m , . / ----------------------------------------------- ; q j k x b m w v z
 

smegmar

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an excerpt from the wiki page.................

In 1933, Dvorak started entering typists trained on his keyboard into the International Commercial Schools Contest, which were typing contests sponsored by typewriter manufacturers consisting of professional and amateur contests. The professional contests had typists sponsored by typewriter companies to advertise their machines. Ten times from 1934?41, Dvorak?s typists won first in their class events. In the 1935 contest alone, nine Dvorak typists won twenty awards. Dvorak typists were so successful that in 1937 the Contest Committee barred Dvorak?s typists for being ?unfair competition? until Dvorak protested. In addition, QWERTY typists did not want to be placed near Dvorak typists.

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In the 1930s, the Tacoma, Washington, school district ran an experimental program in typing to determine whether to hold Dvorak layout classes. The experiment used 2,700 students to learn the Dvorak layout, and the district found that the Dvorak layout students learned the keyboard in one-third the time it took to learn QWERTY.

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Writer Barbara Blackburn was the fastest English language typist in the world, according to The Guinness Book of World Records. Using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, she was able to maintain 150 words per minute (wpm) for 50 minutes, and 170 wpm for shorter periods. She has been clocked at a peak speed of 212 wpm. Blackburn, who failed her QWERTY typing class in high school, first encountered the Dvorak keyboard in 1938, quickly learned to achieve very high speeds, and occasionally toured giving speed-typing demonstrations during her secretarial career
 

SckizoBoy

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Ummm... why's this in the Advice Forum?

Besides, I type fine as it is, have no need to type faster as neither my work nor hobby doesn't require it, and most around me get by with crap word processing... Besides, my keys are in hiragana!
 

Zantos

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I don't like where the semi-colon is. It's stressful enough following them through without it being all the way down there.
 

SckizoBoy

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Christian Fernandez said:
SckizoBoy said:
Ummm... why's this in the Advice Forum?

Besides, I type fine as it is, have no need to type faster as neither my work nor hobby doesn't require it, and most around me get by with crap word processing... Besides, my keys are in hiragana!
すごい!俺もだよ。
Innit?! It was just a keyboard I frankensteined onto my netbook purely for shits and giggles. It's about to die on me, which is a pity. I enjoyed confusing people when they tried to type with it. *tee hee*