Dvorak Simplified Keyboard

[Radec]

Have been considering switching to Dvorak.
I can type around 20 words a min.
I have to look at what i'm typing.
And I dont have the positioning.

So instead of improving my qwerty, I think i might go dvorak.
Only downside for me is gaming

 

[GiraffePencils]

I use dvorak, most games support it tbh, those that don't I have a hotkey setup to change between the two, so the controls are in their qwerty positions and i change to type in a button press

 

[thep02]

IIRC we only have QWERTY to slow us down, typists were too quick for their equipment.

This.

 

[dowie]

IIRC we only have QWERTY to slow us down, typists were too quick for their equipment.

not quite... the keys were arranged to reduce collisions not specifically to slow anyone down

as to whether a Dvorak is faster I believe its still open to debate... personally I don't see much use in learning a new layout

 

[Brian18741]

IIRC we only have QWERTY to slow us down, typists were too quick for their equipment.

I think it was actually to speed typists up. IIRC it was something to do with the layout of the QWERTY keyboard allowed for the least collisions between typebars as the most commonly used letters were further apart. Although this problem only occurred early in the typewriters history as there was no standard layout.

I read somewhere that QWERTY had no real design thought behind it but was more a gimmick for sales as you could write typewriter using only the top keys!

However after a quick bit of googling it would appear the theory that the keys are spaceed to avoid jams has been debunked.

Most of us were taught that the man who invented the keyboard created the QWERTY design to slow typists down. The faster someone typed, the more often the typewriter jammed, so Christopher Scholes put common letters in hard-to-reach spots.

This popular theory was just debunked. According to a new story in The Smithsonian, the QWERTY keyboard was actually created based on the advice of telegraph operators. The first keyboards were being used by telegraph operators to translate morse code, and the keyboards were built for that.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/06/qwerty-keyboard_n_3223611.html

 

[Phantom Shadow]

However after a quick bit of googling it would appear the theory that the keys are spaceed to avoid jams has been debunked.

It is saying that 'QWERTY is to slow us down' has been debunked. As said above, QWERTY isn't to specifically slow us down, but to put common letter combinations in places so as to reduce the amount of collisions. QWERTY looks pretty similar to the first design in that article, so maybe not entirely due to mechanical issues but it does look to at least be partly down to the collisions problem, with a few changes to not make typing too awkward.

Maybe qwerty does slow us down a bit, but at 100+wpm I don't really need to learn another keyboard layout.

 

[Brian18741]

I think that's what it all boils down to, why bother?!

 

[Phantom Shadow]

If you really want to type quickly, go for a stenographer keyboard.

 

[JonJ678]

I used Dvorak for a year or so and quite liked it. Eventually gave up because I periodically needed to type on other peoples keyboards and experienced considerable confusion changing from one to the other.

 

[Eurofighter]

It isn't worth it.

 

[Burnsy2023]

I have a friend that used a Colemak layout for a while. She preferred that over dvorak

 

[Radec]

Decided to learn dvorak.
Might aswell since im so rubbish, I have to look at the keyboard to type this in qwerty

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

I assume WASD and ESDF remain unchanged for fluid motion in first person shooters?

 

[Sin_Chase]

Have been considering switching to Dvorak.
I can type around 20 words a min.
I have to look at what i'm typing.
And I dont have the positioning.

So instead of improving my qwerty, I think i might go dvorak.
Only downside for me is gaming

20 words a minute? WHAT?! That's like...single finger typing slow.

Dvorak just seems like a poor idea, mainly because the second you need to use another system it's 99.99% sure to be a qwerty layout.

 

[ScoTTyBEEE]

All the worlds typing records are performed on Dvorak so it's definitely quicker.

The best keyboard to learn for general use and not just typing is Colemak. This design leaves ZXC in the same location so you can still cut/copy/paste which is heavily used in modern keyboards.

If you want to type quicker then change backspace to the caps lock key. This is the biggest change you can make.

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

It took me four hours to work out where the backspace key was so no.

 

[ubersonic]

I had enough toruble with an iMac keyboard and the @ and " switch lol

As said above, QWERTY isn't to specifically slow us down, but to put common letter combinations in places so as to reduce the amount of collisions.

That's the same thing, lol.

I see what you're thinking, that by I.E moving Q and P to opposite ends the mechanical hammers would be as far apart as possible but it doesn't actually work like that as their not located directly under the keys, moving the keys had little effect on the mechanicals and more on the human element, slightly increasing the time between keystrokes on the common keys.

 

[MooMoo444]

I've been mentally conditioned to use QWERTY my whole life. Even if DVORAK is faster, it'd take me 20 years to get QWERTY out of my system.

 

[ScoTTyBEEE]

Wasn't another reason for QWERTY so that the word TYPEWRITER was all on one line and could be typed out quickly for their demonstrations?

 

[Ryan-3]

I'd give Colemak and Dvorak a go, but i'd never be able to stick with either. Everything is in Qwerty so it would do my head in changing between them.