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Keyboards - Dvorak or Qwerty? 378

Posted by Cliff from the the-quest-for-faster-typing-speeds dept.
A voice from the mass of Slashdot Anonymous Cowards asks: "A friend of mine has been using a dovark keyboard for about 3 months. He says that his that it has increased his speed almost double. From what I understand the qwerty keyboard was designed to slow people down when they used type writters. Now, since they are on computers, why is the world (US) not using them ? Do you think it is worth using it. I work as a computer tech. if I go to fix some guys computer, is he going to look at me strange becuase I can't type on a qwerty keyboard. I wanted to see everyones opinion on this one. " Um. Are you going to look at me funny because I can't type on a Dvorak keyboard? Do they even make Dvorak keyboards for computers? If so, where can I find such a beast?
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Keyboards - Dvorak or Qwerty? More

Keyboards - Dvorak or Qwerty?

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  • depends on what you mean by touch type... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    i don't consider myself touch type, because i don't use the correct form (i.e. i don't always use the right fingers for each key, i don't sit down with my index fingers on F and J...). but i can type moderately fast, faster than most people i know. i think he meant that he could type quickly, but it wasn't the way you'd learn to if you took a typing course...it's just that he types so much he knows where every key is. if you switched to a different keyboard layout, you would be slower for at least a while (depending on how much you type...if you don't have to type a lot it might be weeks or months before you got up to speed). after that, i don't think it would really matter, actually. i guess you could design an efficiency-conscience keyboard by taking, for instance, the entire OED and figuring out which letters were most common, and then arranging them to minimize the amount of movement (so your index fingers would naturally go to E and T, with other common letters close by, eventually getting to X, Z, and other uncommonly used letters on the edges). but i don't think that it would really increase your speed much, unless you STARTED OUT on such a keyboard. the benefit of several years on a qwerty probably outweighs the better design of the keyboard... so yeah, i guess typing speed is more limited by hardware, not wetware...

  • Of course there are Dvorak keyboards. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Geesh. You people. I swear. Look at: http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/contspec.html Not only can you get dual-labeled qwerty/dvorak keyboards, but it comes on the finest keyboard *I* have ever used, and I've used a few. In one week of using one of these things, I went from 'ow, it hurts to type for more than 10 minutes' to 'What - 5000 lines already?' Highly recommended. And it only slowed me down for about a week while I learned it. Afterwards, I'd say I sped up by about half.

  • Re:Opinion, and where to get them (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sorry, something just made me chuckle when reading the following comment: "I bought mine for 70 bucks two years ago, and now I see that they're only 50 bucks. Well worth the investment." The word "investment" seems to refer to a $20 loss! "Dvorak keyboards are worth $0" Yes, I know what you really meant. ;)
  • "It works, everyone uses it, and it's a headache to learn a new system" Hmm, sounds like FUD from a certain software company about a certain operating system I know of. Doesn't seem like much of a reason to stay with the old system, IMHO. If one way works better, don't stay with the old way cuz you're used to it, if we all did that, most of us would still be using ::shudder:: Windows. Ew.

  • Re:DVORAK efficiency is a myth (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From the StraightDope (www.straightdope.com): Dear Cecil: I recently started a job that requires lots of work at a typewriter-style keyboard, and, being of a logical bent, I am struck by how little sense the arrangement of letters on the keyboard makes. A common complaint. But last night, when I mentioned the matter to my wife after a long hard day at the office, she casually mentioned that she "read somewhere" (and of course does not remember where) that the keyboard was deliberately designed to put the most-used letters in the worst places. Could this be true? Is this the ultimate expression of man's inhumanity to man? --T.P., Wilmette, Illinois Dear T.: If you ask me, Cocoa Puffs are the ultimate expression of man's inhumanity to man, but I suppose there will always be differences of opinion on this point. As for the typewriter keyboard, your spouse's story is not far from the painful truth. The QWERTY keyboard, so called for the top row of letters on its left-hand side, was devised to make things easy for the typewriter, not the typist. In what is generally considered the first practical typewriter--designed by an American inventor named Christopher Sholes and a group of cohorts in the late 1860s--the type, arranged in a sort of circular basket under the carriage, was prone to frequent jamming at typing speeds in excess of hunt-and-peck. (Another problem, by the way, was that type met paper on the underside of the cylinder, so the typist couldn't read the fruits of his or her labors without lifting up the carriage.) To solve the jamming problem, Sholes and company, who had originally arranged their keyboard in alphabetical order, decided to put the most commonly used letters (or what they thought were the most commonly used letters) as far apart as possible in the machine's innards. The next year, 1873, they turned their invention over to the Remington gun company of New York State, and their keyboard has been standard ever since, despite the fact that succeeding improvements in typewriter design quickly rendered it ridiculous. Of course, a superior system exists. It's called the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, or DSK, after inventor August Dvorak, who developed it while a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. Among other improvements, the DSK puts all vowels in the "home row" of keys--the second row from the bottom--and favors the right hand slightly. Numerous studies have proved that it can be learned quite easily even by experienced typists, and that it makes for faster, less fatiguing, and more accurate typing than the conventional system. But habit, apparently, dies hard in the typing biz--the DSK was patented in 1932. KEYBOARD SCAM EXPOSED! Dear Cecil: You and others have commented on the received "history" of the QWERTY [i.e., conventional] typewriter keyboard design and remarked on the supposed superiority of the Dvorak keyboard, which puts all the vowels in the "home row" and slightly favors the right hand. The time has come to put this myth to rest. Enclosed is an article from the Journal of Law and Economics. Enjoy. --Scott Koslow, assistant professor of marketing, University of Texas at Dallas Dear Scott: OK, doc, you got me dead to rights. The origin of the QWERTY keyboard, so named because that's what the top row of letter keys spells out, is one of those oft-told tales about how we get stuck with an oddball standard because of a short-sighted decision by some mope(s) in the dawning days of a new technology. According to legend, the seemingly random layout of today's keyboards has its origins in the limitations of the first typewriters. The early machines were crude and prone to jamming if you typed too fast. The QWERTY keyboard was designed to place the most commonly used letters on the opposite sides of the keyboard, making jamming mechanically less likely. Legend has it that the QWERTY keyboard was also made intentionally clumsy (only one vowel in the home row, for instance) in order to slow down typists and further reduce the possibility of jamming. Within a relatively short time, of course, typewriter engineering had improved sufficiently that jamming was no longer a major concern. But by then, the story goes, people were used to the QWERTY keyboard and we've been stuck with it ever since, even in the face of allegedly superior alternatives such as the Dvorak keyboard. Advocates say research proves the Dvorak is easy to learn and makes typing faster and more accurate. But it's never made much headway because of the crushing power of standards, even stupid ones. Baloney, say the authors of the article you enclose, S.J. Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis. They point out that (1) the research demonstrating the superiority of the Dvorak keyboard is sparse and methodologically suspect; (2) a sizable body of work suggests that in fact the Dvorak offers little practical advantage over the QWERTY; (3) at least one study indicates that placing commonly used keys far apart, as with the QWERTY, actually speeds typing, since you frequently alternate hands; and (4) the QWERTY keyboard did not become a standard overnight but beat out several competing keyboards over a period of years. Thus it may be fairly said to represent the considered choice of the marketplace. It saddens me to know I helped to perpetuate the myth of Dvorak superiority, but I will sleep better at night knowing I have rectified matters at last. --CECIL ADAMS

  • Re:First Post :) (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Having been insired by this article to give Dvorak a try, I just followed one of the links to get a print-out of the Dvorak layout, told Win95 that I had a Dvorak keyboard and started typing.

    The first thing I noticed was that I was slow. That is something that would change with time though.
    The second thing I noticed was that most of the words I was typing fell naturally to the 'home' position. In case you haven't noticed, most typing on a Qwerty keyboard requires real gymnastics of the fingers. Almost every word requires a stretch in one direction or another. Most of the mis-types I make as a use-taught (rather than tutor-taught) touch-typist are due to tired hands not stretching far enough.

    I'm only 22, but already I get sore hands after a day of coding and report writing. The sooner I can get some speed up on this more-relaxed keyboard layout the better.

    Duncan.

  • cecil adams / straight dope answer (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Check out Cece's comments on Dvorak vs Qwerty. [straightdope.com]

    Fighting Ignorance since 1973!

  • Re:QWERTY = outdated/English changes (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think that probably, the English language has changed to match the Qwerty keyboard.

    Those words that are especially hard in it have been dropped, those that are easier have become more fasioinable.

    Live languages change all the time, so this isn't really that surprising.

  • Ketyboard (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    mo pralbem jhere!

  • Words from a native Dvorak typist (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Being blessed with a nerd father I learned to type simultaneously on Dvorak and Qwerty. I already knew some Qwerty, obviously, but couldn't type any faster than 20 WPM. As soon as I knew all the letters I began to leave the computer set on Dvorak. I could still type a little faster in Qwerty, but Dvorak *felt* much better (and I'm not referring to wrist strain or anything, which obviously wasn't an issue). Dvorak just feels a lot more natural.

    I do type significantly faster in Dvorak now, although I have probably used Qwerty keyboards as much as Dvorak. For me the issue wasn't speed, accuracy, or time to learn - I use Dvorak because it is less awkward. This factor is very hard to quantify, but nonetheless quite significant!

    Some people have Qwerty too deeply ingrained to switch comfortably. If you are one of them, don't! The speed isn't really that important (unless you're a really fast thinker also). What's more important is what allows you to interface more naturally with your computer. When I type in Dvorak it feels like my fingers are dancing over the home row. Qwerty feels like playing twister!

    Bottom line: give Dvorak a try for a month or two, and see what feels better after that period.

    Nobody should care either way (except your poor aching wrists, hehe).

    Another issue raised is that it is hard to acquire a Dvorak keyboard. I actually think it's a bad idea to have one. If you are relearning to type (even if you look at the keys now), it isn't hard to learn w/o seeing the keys. I found Mavis Beacon does an excellent job of teaching Dvorak - and it even runs under Wine (!). Another thing you can do is simply tape letters over your keyboard or buy a Dvoark overlay. Once again, I'd recommend against this - but you shouldn't need it long term. Let your fingers memorize the key positions, not your eyes. Think of it as a chance to start over w/ better typing technique :) Trust me, you'll be happier with your eyes on the screen rather than the keybard!

    -Seth

  • Dvorak Keyboards (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @02:04PM (#1633062)
    In most cases you don't need to buy a new keyboard to use dvorak. There are many programs to remap your keyboard, check out Switch Your Computer to Dvorak [ccsi.com]. If you're using unix xmodmap can be used in an instant.

    If you would like to buy a hardwired keyboard check out Hard-Wired Keyboards [ccsi.com].

    Recently I got a Kinesis [kinesis-ergo.com] ergonomic keyboard that it hot swappable between qwerty and dvorak. It's also an ergo keyboard and the best peripheral for my computer I've ever bought. I highly recommend their contoured keyboards.

    Something that you may want to keep in mind is that a lot of unix command line commands are optimized for qwerty, like ls, as well as emacs and vi.

  • Okay, the subject line will get me a wierd look to begin with. What I would really like to see is a one handed keyboard layout (based somewhere mid center on the keyboard). I often find myself typing with only one hand (more laughing from anyone reading this) Not just for that, but for mouse / coffee / anything else with my other hand. I find typing with one hand, either left or right, doesn't matter is possible with qwerty, but a pain in the butt. Real world example (without purchasing phone headset) say you are talking on the phone, you can try balancing it on your shoulder, which kind of works but leaves you totally lopsided and goes against all computer posture standards. Typing becomes labored, (ENTER ONE HANDED KEYBOARD LAYOUT) Right now im sitting with my feet on my desk, keyboard on knees and both hands typing, if I want to get a drink or call someone im stuck with a tough layout. (ENTER ONE HANDED KEYBOARD LAYOUT) Anyone know if such a keyboard setup exists? That would make my life quite simple.

  • Yes, there are keyboards with a "native" dvorak layout. There are also (or you can make) transparent stickers to put on the keys so you can see both the dvorak and qwerty meanings of the keys.

    You can also often manually remove the keys from the keyboard and rearrange them. However, this is often not sensible, because the keys in modern keyboards have a contour that makes them only really fit their original place.

    In any case, all of these are really not necessary, and could even be considered harmful. Dvorak, unlike qwerty, is designed for touch-typing. You aren't even supposed to look at the keyboard when typing. So when you don't see the letters anywhere, you are forced to learn them by heart. Yes, it's hell for a month or so, but then you get used to it pretty quickly.

    As for the relative merits of dvorak, I recommend it heartily. Dvorak may not be the "perfect" keyboard layout, but at least it has a sensible idea behind it. The only merit of qwerty nowadays is that everyone knows it. This "merit" finds a convenient analogue from the software world in M$ products.

    As for myself, I've been using dvorak for about two years now. It took me a couple of months to learn it acceptably fluently, and currently I get a bit over 70 wps. Then again, I didn't know qwerty touch-typing when I started, so I had less to unlearn. YMMV.

    Hope this helps.

  • It's actually pretty easy to change the keyboard layout on Windows boxes (and you can do it all with the mouse, so you don't have to worry about finding the right keys ;-)

    Get to the keyboard control panel, select the "Language" tab, and change the layout from 'United States' (or whatever it is) to 'United States-Dvorak' The keymap changes immediately..

    Of course, it might be nice for someone to make a single-click systray application..
    --
  • *shrug* I tend to consider those programs 'broken' since they don't understand arrow keys or anything (but it does suck when you come across them..)

    Programs like that should not map directly to the assumed keyboard layout.. In the very least, there should be an easy way to change the settings..
    --
  • My mom has been a desktop publisher since I was born. When I was born, she took leave for 17 years to raise me, and practiced desktop publishing for the whole time. Eventually, she become so fast at typing, she was able to type over 200 wpm. We had wondered if she could break the world record, so we sat down at timed here. Continuously typing "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." (followed by two spaces, and repeated) yieled a time of 227 wpm (over a period of 1 minute). We never really followed through with it because she was always so busy, she never had the time to attempt to break it officially. However, my World Record book was from 1991, so I'm unsure as to what the time is. She uses QWERTY and the proper hand layout. As for me, I never took a typing class, and my fingers have just memorized where all the keys are. Even though my hands are all over the keyboard hitting keys in unison, it never really looked that pretty. I can type about 90-100 wpm this style. I'm sorta scared to try DVORAK, b/c I have to use my school's computers and all.


    A neat idea for DVORAK users, would be to create a small program that changes the registry value on the Windows 9x machines automatically. Just run the program, and go at it. This makes switching from one computer to the next easier. Also, maybe a thin, plastic cover that you could fit over standard win9x keyboards; however, this would be impossible because many keyboards come in wierd shapes. The latter idea isn't really needed because most DVORAK users would know where the keys are located and wouldn't have to look down.


    Anyways, just thought ya'll would like to know that DVORAK isn't always the fastest...;) I doubt DVORAK would let her type 300 wpm...:) MmMmM...efficiency.

  • Programming with Dvorak (Score:3)

    by Jordy ( 440 ) <jordan.snocap@com> on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @05:16PM (#1633068) Homepage
    After reading a bit on how the dvorak layout reduces the amount of distance your fingers have to travel, I thought it might be a good idea to try and learn it.

    However, after attempting to write code with a dvorak keyboard, I switched right back over. While the placement of such keys as "{};&>.[]+=-*%!" is not exactly optimal on a qwerty keyboard, they are much easier to hit on qwerty than dvorak.

    Unix commands which aren't necessarily english also seem to be easier to type on qwerty for some reason ls, ps, pwd, chgrp, ftp, etc...

    Hopefully keyboards will be outdated by some decent voice recognition software or human neural interface before my hands cramp up and die from all the typing I do.

    --
  • On my 1984 Apple //c it's even easier. There's a button on the keyboard to switch back and forth (it's hardware-based...when you switch to Dvorak, the key labeled "s" now sends a "o" charcode, "d" sends an "e" charcode and so on with the other keys).

    If modern computer were like that, it'd be nice. That way, I could learn Dvorak and completely forget QWERTY, and if I wanted to use a public terminal or a friend's computer, I'd just press the button to switch, and toggle back when I was done. Unfortunately, modern computers aren't as good as my Apple =)
  • The only reason I haven't bothered to learn DVORAK is that too much of my favorite software has dependancies on keyboard layout (for example, VI using HJKL for the cursor movement, or using the QWE/ASD/ZXC keys for a nine-key directional pad in some video games) This software is very QWERTY dependant.

    The other problem is that those xmodmap solutions don't do you a bit of good on the console screen.

  • Not to kick the dead horse more but while we're on the subject of keyboards I just want to put out another kinesis endorsement. They make some damn fine switchable (Dvorak and QWERTY both on the same keyboard) that are also ergonomically sculpted.


    I don't have any hand injuries but I have noticed the difference.




    http://www.kinesis-ergo.com

    check out the contour

  • Yes! Dvorak layout is a COMMUNIST conspiracy to replace us from the God-given QWERTY layout, which is what the ancient biblical scribes used to record the Word to paper in the first place.

    Once they convert us over to Dvorak, then there's nothing to stop them from changing over to Metric, free software, the French language, and Godless communism!

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
  • Dvorak makes a dog's breakfast out of your vi command layout. For starters, hjkl movement keys end up scrambled.

    An alternate keyboard layout might be manageable for people who only type text, but more difficult for users who use keyboard driven programs. Part of the problem is that when you type commands in a program like vi, you don't think of the letter that you are typing. When I want the cursor to go up, I just do it, I don't think ``okay, going up means letter K''. The motivation to move the cursor automatically translates to the right key. I suspect that even if I learned to type words instinctively on a Dvorak keyboard, I would still be tripped up when it came to editor commands.
  • So it's entirely about how the strokes are physically distributed: They're NOT. Every key (regardless of where it is on the keyboard or in the typewriter) is on a lever which hits the paper at EXACTLY THE SAME PLACE.

    Yes, it is true that the hammers ultimately hit at the same place. However, a jam occurs before the hammers actually strike the paper. Those hammers that are close together are more likely to jam because of the acute angle between their paths. There is simply more opportunity for them to hit each other. Hammers that are far apart have a much smaller opportunity for jamming, since their paths intersect much more obliquely. Get it? When I was a child I would play with these typewriters, trying to see under circumstances I could produce a jam. I distinctly remember that it was far easier to produce a jam by simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, striking keys whose hammers are close together than to produce a jam using keys that are far apart. The timing had to be much tighter. You could type an alternating sequence of letters far apart very quickly without jamming, but not so for letters close together. So distribution obviously matters.

  • From what I understand, QWERTY was supposedly designed to prevent jamming, not necessarily to slow typists down. Or perhaps to maximize speed while minizming jamming. The left to right hand alternation actually helps your speed---or so I have seen it argued in the Dvorak-vs-QWERTY articles that have been linked from /.

    The problems on old typewriters occur when you strike two keys that are in close proximity at about the same time; that's when the type heads get all stuck together. So it's not entirely about speed but about how the strokes are physically distributed. It's not hard to see that a design which distributes the load to prevent jamming could also have a beneficial effect on typing efficiency.
  • Go to FOLDOC [ic.ac.uk], and look up the term ``race condition''.
  • I had the same problem, but I just did a Cont-Alt-F2 to get back to a console shell and found xmodmap.us and did a:
    xmodmap /usr/share/xmodmap/xmodmap.us

    Don't know if it helps, you probably got it fixed by now.

    When you don't know where any of the keys are, cut and paste is your friend ;-)

  • People know QWERTY and are comfortable with it. It's not the best out there but it works for most people. The cost of retraining all those touch typists out there would be astronomical. If a switch were made what would happen in the transition period? Would each console have two keyboards?

    Just because a "better" way is developed isn't allways enough if the "old" way works passibly well.

  • Cost of change outweighs ease of use (Score:3)

    by Foaf ( 1882 ) on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @02:02PM (#1633079) Homepage
    A quick google search [google.com] gets back just over 1000 links on Dvorak keyboards, including this place [fentek-ind.com] which sells them. Lot's of people make alternative style keyboards and many more swear by them.

    In The Design/Psychology of Everyday Things Don Norman does a comparison of various keyboard types including qwerty, Dvorak and Chorded keyboards. Most, if not all of the alternatives rate higher than qwerty in terms of typing speed and training.

    Norman also points out that no matter how good a new kind of keyboard is, it will never replace the standard qwerty style. It would simply cost too much money. Retraining users, replacing hardware, rewriting software (in some cases), rewriting documentation etc. It all adds up. There are similar reasons why the metric systems hasn't been adopted world wide.

    Also, how much more efficient does a keyboard have to be to justify a change in keys? IMHO, the qwerty keyboard is good enough. I look forward to the day when I don't have to tap away on this anymore. Bring on what-you-see-is-what-you-think!
    ----------------- --------------------------------------

  • If two layouts are somewhat similar, they *can* slow you down and increase your error rate. For two or three years, I used both German and U.S. layouts (where maybe six or eight letter/punctuation keys are different, as i remember) on different machines. They slowed me down a bit and i would make certain types of errors in both systems.

    Similarly, i have toggled to and from environments where i had to use either the IBM or Mac layouts for Arabic. They're about forty percent different for letters and frequent diacritics. The confusion between the two and constant quick thinking about where such and such a key is on the system i was using meant that i never really got fast typing in Arabic. I tell you this as someone who actually was in a typing competition in high school!

    I imagine that this is much less of a problem when the layouts are *very* different, as might be the case with QWERTY and DVORAK.

  • You raise a good point (which keyboard would be better *specifically for programming*). Dvorak keyboards were designed with the most common letters on the home row, and the common vowels on one hand and common consonants on the other (to encourage alternation). But a number of the common Unix commands were shortened (to reduce typing and teletype ribbon consumption :-) by removing the vowels. On the Dvorak keyboard, this would eliminating the use of one hand's home row altogether.

    Therefore I would suspect that using a Dvorak keyboard to type at a shell prompt might not buy you much ... (think cd, cp, ls, bc, mv, rm, gcc, gdb, ftp, etc).

    (This isn't to say that I don't believe in the Dvorak keyboard... I only tried it once, when I knew the Qwerty layout and was moderately fast but not a speed daemon-- by remapping my Commodore 64 keyboard of all things!-- and within a few few hours I had my Dvorak speed up to my Qwerty speed or better. But at the present time I switch between systems too often to want to try Dvorak again).
  • Didn't we just see a huge article describing exactly the level of bullshit on the meter about this dvorak stuff? I've got a bunch of friends who have gone to dvorak, and none of them have shown much improvement over qwerty that I can see.
  • The benefits of Dvorak keyboards are in a position similar to that of Linux's reliability: the best evidence is anecdotal.

    Let me add to the pile of anecdotal evidence. A year ago, I came down with carpal tunnel syndrom. Not wanting to become unemployed, I took a number of drastic actions, including learning to type dvorak and getting Dvorak keyboards for all my computer (I'm sorry, but keycaps suck, especially since Windoze NT doesn't activate your keymap until you are logged in).

    My Carpal got better.

    Two months ago, I took the leap, became radically overpayed and inredibly worthless, and started consulting. My main client does not really allow for me to use an alternate keyboard without a lot of stress.

    My carpal is back.

    I know, I know, that's not conclusive. But I will tell you that typing Dvorak /feels/ more natural and more comfortable. It is certainly better than the "Natural Keyboard". Also, I was able to learn dvorak to get up to my normal (90 wpm) speed in about 4 weeks.

    Give it a try -- if you don't like, all ou've lost is an xmodmap command! If you do like it, you've saved your wrists.
  • How do you like that for a lock-in?
  • Absolutely. I, in fact, have developed a car that runs on water and can travel at significant fractions of c. (100 AU to the gallon, btw)

    However, one of the design issues which there is not way around, is that you can only steer it with your toes. Someday a solution to this might be found, but right now it's sitting idle in my front yard on top of the edible cinderblocks.
  • I think that the Dvorak layout is more comfortable. I've been using it on a Kinesis [kinesis-ergo.com] Classic QD for over a year now and every time I type on a qwerty keyboard I notice how annoying it was. I really doubt my speed has increased much. I'm certainly not any slower.
  • I read somewhere that the QWERTY keyboard is designed the way it is because typewriter salesmen could type the word "typewriter" using only the letters on the first row of the keyboard. Is there any truth to this?
  • I fully agree with petrov's assessment. I tried out dvorak a while back. I was able to type decently after only a few days, but switching back and forth was tough. I code for a living, and often have to use QA's keyboards, so it was particularly difficult. And I think QA woulda killed me if they couldn't type on my machine :)
  • Which has a funny coincidence with the net's most popular reason for typing one-handed :)

  • The QWERTY layout was designed to put letters that are often adjacent in English words under opposite hands (or something remarkably like that; I am not a typewriter historian). This was necessary to prevent the jamming that happens when you type two adjacent characters on a manual typewriter: the little arms try to go on near-congruent paths to the same point, failing miserably, causing you to get typewriter ink on your nice cuffs when you unstick them. This had the effect of allowing much faster typing without jamming, and much faster typing period because so many common words and syllables were now typed with alternating hands.

    Mr Dvorak's own studies found his layout to be a great improvement over QWERTY. I don't buy it, myself - it seems to me that the QWERTY layout is near optimal for English, people are used to it, it's not a bad deal. I'm sticking with it.

  • I use a Contured Kinesis [kinesis-ergo.com] keyboard set to use the Dvorak layout. I still use QWERTY on my flat keyboards. That has allowed me to switch easily between the two. The keystrokes are different on the Kinesis, so I just intuitively know that I should use the Dvorak layout. Sure, it took me a couple months to get up to speed on it and I wouldn't say that I'm any faster on it than I was on QWERTY, but it just seems more logical. It also helps that the Kinesis has both the QWERTY and Dvorak legends on the keys. . .

    Another poster commented that programming on it is a pain. That was my first thought too, but after a couple months I got used to it. The period and quotes are in a much more logical place and I think I use those more often than {} anyway.

    Finally, I think most unix commands got their esoteric names based purely on the QWERTY keyboard (like ls which is two home row strokes on opposet hands, but not that easy on the Dvorak). Good keyboards let you remap anyway, and there are always aliases.

    -"Zow"

  • NO. it was arranged such that we can type QWERTY really fast while discussing this same old crap over and over... sheesh QWERTY is a bit slower inherantly but they are ubiquitous... switch to DVORAK if you want... see if i care!

  • Re:First Post :) (Score:3)

    by DrZaius ( 6588 ) <gary.richardson+slashdot@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @02:04PM (#1633094) Homepage
    80 words a minute and you aren't touch? I would have to say that is an all out lie, but you never know.. Logistically, your mind would have to be working pretty hard to concentrate on what you were type and looking for the right keys to press at the same time.

    And it is all personal preference. I have seen reports that say dvorak is no faster, if not slower, than qwerty. Then again, I have also seen reports that say NT is more stable than Linux.

    Those who seem to type way faster using dvorak keyboards are probably like that because they were fast on qwerty already, but then read about this amazing dvorak thing and worked really hard at getting good at that. It has more to do with personal drive than the keyboard layout in this situation.

    Not to mention the fact that you have to take into consideration which keys that you press most often (I am talking about vocabulary and such).

    If you want to type fast, go to a swap meet and find the clickiest, most responsive keyboard you can find.

    And I would like to take this chance to say that Slashdot has seen this discussion about 150 times already. Too bad slashdot is not accumulative knowledge wise. I bet you could find this whole discussion already done with in the archives if you simply typed 'dvorak keyboard' into the little search field. Save Ask Slashdot for real, unanswered questions.
  • The famous studies done during World War II which supposedly showed how much quicker the Dvorak layout was compared to QWERTY, even on manual typewriters, were subsidized by none other than the inventor of the Dvorak keyboard, which makes them suspect. An issue of The Economist [economist.com] had an article on this topic a few months back.

  • My grandma was a typist. She typed with two fingers on a manual (MANUAL! NO CHIPS) typewriter. I think she could do around 40WPM.

    If you take away all the effort needed to press the keys, I think you can easily double the speed.

    <brag> Oh... and I can touch-type at about 100-120WPM. </brag>

    --

  • I switched to dvorak a while back and now prefer it. Some notes:
    • My typing speed didn't noticably improve. I was pretty fast on qwerty, and I'm pretty fast on dvorak.
    • My hands don't bother me (RSI stuff) as much when I use dvorak, I think it's cause I'm not stretching all over the keyboard
    • if you are in an environment where you are using other peoples boxen (e.g. sysadmin stuff in Windows shop, or university comp labs), then it's a pain until you learn both (which surprisingly took me a good bit longer than just switching)
    • It's pretty easy to pop the keys off a normal keyboard and rearrange them in a dvorak arrangement. for an ergo keyboard, you'll need to use stickers or paint.
    • It's next to impossible to login (as you can't see your password) with the keyboard set to the wrong setting
    • it only took about 2 weeks to forget qwerty and be good on dvorak. it took about 4 months to be comfortable using both, :-( it's like speaking two languages, it just takes a mind shift when you sit down.
    bottom line: if you use your own workstation exclusively, then switch. If you have to hop machines, then stick with Qwerty.

    --sam
  • Do the search, follow the links, read the making of the myths. Like the man says, it's learning to type that does the trick in a switchover, not the keyboard itself. The horse is dead, flesh is stripped, bones have been pulverized, all that's left is the urban legend.

    --
  • If you're really interested in either increasing typing speed or decreasing typing injury (they're intrinsically linked) you should look into other kinds of keyboards.

    My personal favorite (except for the cost, of course) is the DataHand [datahand.com] which significantly decreases finger travel distance as well as pressure you need to apply. (those things will help you type faster.) It also lets you keep your wrists straight, which will help to reduce injury.

    The DataHand is primarily designed to reduce injury, but once you learn it well, you'll be able to type faster; mostly due to shorter finger travel distance.

    It's designed with an almost QWERTY layout, but you can always set it up as Dvorak and stick little notes onto the template (I think they'll even sell it to you with a Dvorak template.) The built in "mouse" is okay for cut-n-paste, but I'd suggest using it in addition to another pointing device (I prefer trackballs -- less arm movement required, even if they do suck for quake) (you can do this with GPM, under Linux) for when you're doing more mouse-intensive activities. (Like netscape)

    If you're a computer programmer (like myself) and something like that could lengthen your career by one month, the cost is worth it. It's more likely to increase a career by, at least, several years.
  • Before the QWERTY keyboard layout it was straight alphabetic. QWERTY was specifically designed to space keys that were hit in combination frequently away from each other, so that a rapid typist wouldn't jam the arms as often as occured otherwise. This means that there was a tendency for common combinations to actually be on opposite hands (which is good for typing speed), but also a tendency for common letters not to be on the home row. For instance, 'e' is the single most commonly used letter in English. If I were to design a keyboard for rapidity of hitting keys, I'd put the 'e' key directly underneath a finger, not in a place one had to reach for it. "J" is fairly uncommon, but it's got one of the 4 best locations on the keyboard. (index and middle finger are strongest, and home row is shortest reach.)

    The speed up for Dvorak over QWERTY isn't double, however, it's a small-ish percentage. It really isn't enough for an entire industry to switch (with all the costs of that). And, of course, momentum is hard to overcome. Nobody wants to build Dvorak keyboards if everybody knows QWERTY, and nobody wants to learn Dvorak if QWERTY keyboards are all that's available.

    (The small-ish percentage increase in efficiency might be worth it if you get paid by the typed word or if you're developing RSI problems.)
  • I miss the wheel in Linux....

    Try out imwheel. http://solaris1.mysolution.com/~jcatk i/imwheel/ [mysolution.com]

  • Oh, come on, what's a few hundred million dollars between friends? It's not as though Congress doesn't give NASA as much money as it asks for, and John Q Public is so happy that his tax dollars are used in space that the odd accident isn't worth worrying about. Right? Anyway, didn't Congress adopt the metric system in the nineteenth century? Just taking the Americans a little while to get it sorted out. Don't be so hard on them.
  • One reason that I prefer qwerty is that I can move my fingers to widely varying parts of the keyboard frequently.

    With Dvorak, which I have tried briefly, I barely seems to move my hands sometimes.

    Now with RSI, isn't it supposed to be worse if you don't vary what you're doing as much? With QWERTY I find that movement is constant.
  • We all know that Happy Hacking Keyboard [pfuca.com] is a really good product except that it isn't shipped in a proper Dvorak configuration. I will not buy one as long as I can't get one properly configured with a Dvorak look. Not that I look at the keys, it's more like a principle for me.

    Please send them a mail [mailto] and tell them what we want, or we will never be able to buy one.

  • First a bit of background is needed. For those of you who have used dvorak and qwerty on a Microsoft operating system you know how awkward it is. With windows you can have multiple keyboard layouts and change between them with an icon in the systray. Most programs when they start up or open a new window seem to request the default keyboard rather than the current keyboard and some programs refuse to change to any keyboard that isn't the default. Dvorak works fine so long as it is the default.

    A friend of mine is a convert and he runs an NT network (and hates it). The domain controller/fileserver with 20+ gigs of NTFS raid 0 disk in it had both qwerty and dvorak keyboard layouts set up on it. His clueless boss needed to log in after the screen was locked so he pressed ctrl-alt-delete, typed in the domain administrators password. Wrong password. Mmmm. Try again. Nope still wrong password. Try really carefully. Wrong password. Machines obviously fallen over. Switch off, switch back on again.... Wait nearly an hour and a half for chkdsk to finish and still have no clue as to what went wrong.

    BTW I also use dvorak after having learned to touch type qwerty at high school. Using dvorak in the hunt and peck style (even if it is really fast) is a total waste of time, you may as well be using qwerty. As previous posters have said, dvorak just feels better and IMHO seems to put less strain on wrists and hands.

  • Hmm, there is a limeric about this guy called Nero. Can't remember how it went, tho. Can somebody help me out. :)
  • I also spend a lot of time working on other peoples computers and still constantly (just yesterday) get comments on how fast my typing is. (although admitably my DVORAK isn't *that* much faster, it's more a comfort thing; I've been on DVORAK for almost a year)

    Essentially I have an acer ergo keyboard that I set as DVORAK (don't worry about the keys! How often do you look at your keys in qwerty? Also when learning to type don't you remeber continually getting scolded for looking at the keys? Just attach a dvorak diagram to the monitor while your learning, take it off after a couple weeks!)

    My qwerty on this keyboard is slower than a cheetah; who lost it's legs. It's slightly anoying when I boot back to dos, but at that point I just look at the keys. Other than that I'm always in DVORAK. When I go to someone else's standard keyboard (or even an ms-ergo keyboard) QWERTY still comes totally naturally.
  • Is there any place that sells these at a decent price online? I couldn't find them at buycomp/pricewatch/shopper... not even the qwerty...
  • "Funny how everybody in the world except the U.S. seems to have managed to switch."

    This is incorrect. Most countries have always had the metric system in place, hence there was no reason to convert. Only the British colonies adopted the non-metric system, which makes your statement erroneous.

    Ironically, this is the argument I have about Linux. The OS maybe free, but I will cost way too much to switch over.


    --Ivan, weenie NT4 user, Jon Katz hater: bite me!

  • I tried dvorak for 2 1/2 months. I tracked my speed. (I type average 95-100wpm on qwerty, and when I really try on a good keyboard, I can average about 110wpm. My burst record is 131 wpm for 200 characters. Slower than two friends of mine still. Yes, I want more speed! Avoiding a mouse speeds me up for raw input speed anyway.

    Who the hell needs to type much faster unless they're data entry people or write more email than they should? I dont know anyone who writes verbose long unix pipes faster than they can type: mebbe they should use shorter pipes. And for coders, I really doubt that you can code at a constant 110wpm! If you can, we have a job for you.)

    Dvorak rates for my conversion effort:

    end of 1st day: 7 wpm (what a hellish day)
    end 1st week: 22wpm
    end 2nd week: 31wpm
    end 3rd week: 38wpm
    end 4th week: 43wpm
    end 5th week: 46wpm
    end 6th week: 48wpm
    end 7th week: 49wpm
    end 8th week: 50wpm
    end 9th week: 50wpm
    end 10th week: 51wpm

    I couldnt handle it anymore, and kept on naturally 'forgetting' to put my machine into dvorak mode (i was lazy and never setup my .xinitrc ;)

    Eventually I gave up because I was only at half my rate. Mebbe I just cant learn anything new cuz I've been typing qwerty for the last 19 years on computers and Im an old dog.

    Im happy with qwerty I guess, at 100-110wpm, for the most part. I wish there was something that would net me something more like 300-500wpm, but I think we'd have to move away from fingers. Mebbe not: I think keyboard chords would be better, but would be far harder to learn.

    Mathboy.
    --
    "Sometimes two [harmless] words, when put together, strike fear in the hearts of men -- Microsoft Wallet." - Dave Gilbert
  • stewardesses

    Don't ask me where I found that out... I have no idea.

    BTW my opinion on dvorak vs. qwerty is this : LEAVE ME ALONE!!! I JUST LEARNED QWERTY!!! ;-)

    - 8Complex
  • I have looked around for a few years and have yet to come across an AT or PS/2 compatible keyboard with the DVORAK layout.

    Personally, I think as long as you type well now on a QWERTY keyboard, a DVORAK keyboard should provide a bit of difficulty to start out. But once you are used to it, then switching back and forth should be a minor change when typing. The main problem I see though is not being able to use the DVORAK layout on a laptop easially. I use my laptop more then I use a desktop computer anymore, and I don't feel like pulling of all the keys, rearranging them, then figuring out a way to remap the keys under Windows and Linux.


    -----
  • It's relatively easy just to build your own, i did this to an old AT keyboard. I just took a screwdriver and followed the keymap on: http://www.cs.brown.edu/~scs/dv.html [brown.edu] from there (in win95) i just set it to dvorak, and i was on my way. I only used it like this for a week, because i was painfully slow on it (because i had never used it before), and i switched back because the rest of the world is QWERTY. I have to go to school and use their keyboards, my dad, my sister, my grandparents, my friends, they're all qwerty. There's no sense in having to learn/know 2 different keyboard layouts. It's much easier to use 1.
  • Yes, i think it is too hard for me. I know two languages, but i just don't want to take the time (like i had the time) to learn both. It's much easier to learn just one. I mean, i'm a competent typer, i type fairly fast (well, fast enough for me, i've never benchmarked myself or anything) but i'm pretty fast i'd wager, and there's no reason to switch to something different, even if it is faster, or easier. I'm plenty fast as it is, and i don't really find any problems with qwerty.
  • All you do is pop off the keys and arrange them in the dvorak pattern. Then you have to remap all the keys in your operating system - this would involve a different process depending on what operating system you use. I might be mistaken because I've never tried, but I was under the impression that it is rather trivial to do this in Windows, look around you may even find some software that'll give you schematic and remap the keys for you.

    Now, as for the benifits of the Dvorak keyboard: opinions are very mixed. I believe there were debates here on /. not too long ago about it, some say it's highly overrated, stating that true results are only a mere fraction better than Qwerty in most people. If you're already used to Qwerty, you would probably never reach your potential on a Dvorak keyboard because you'd be fighting the conditioning you already have.

    Myself... I've never had the desire to type faster because I'd just end up making mistakes more quickly :) So I'm not gonna gobble the hype.

    "I love the smell of a burnt CPU in the morning"
  • The console already supports keyboard remapping; check out "loadkeys", and the keymaps dir named in its man page. My Redhat box came with a few dvorak files: normal, one-handed (one for left-handed, one for right-handed), and the changes for ANSI's stacked braces/brackets. I haven't tried the dvorak layout with it, but Emacs was much happier after I "fixed" meta handling. :-)
  • My answer?
    • Change normal keys and shift+keys to Dvorak, but
    • leave all control+keys and alt+keys as QWERTY.
    It sounds odd, but think of it this way: once you're used to ctrl-key combinations, you stop actively thinking "Copy is ctrl-c, so control is here, and C is here"; you think "Copy!", and your fingers do the walking. The same goes (doubly so) for Emacs -- after using it for seven years, I don't think about "move to previous line" as being ctrl-p, I think about it being particular hand and finger movements.

    When I first tried Dvorak, I changed all keys -- and felt like an Emacs newbie for the first time in years. ("Huh? Why did the screen refresh 3 times? What, that's L now? Fsck! Where did P move to?" Also, I was learning Dvorak on a computer lab's QWERTY keyboards, so hunt & peck meant digging up docs - while still inside Dvorak.) After banging my head against this particular brick wall several times, I tried changing the control keys back. All of my hands' hotkey training worked again; and, since I don't associate those hotkeys with the letters anymore, it didn't screw me up for actual typing.

    Given, this was under X11, so breaking the keymap halfway like that was easy. I have no idea how you would go about doing so for keymaps in Windows or Macintosh.

  • Debunking myths with references (Score:4)

    by peterb ( 13831 ) on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @02:24PM (#1633126) Homepage Journal
    First of all, the QWERTY keyboard was not designed to slow down typists. It was designed to reduce mechanical problems by intelligent arrangement of the letters (maximizing the separation of the most frequently used letters), and thus the angles at which the swingarms interacted. Those few of you who (like me) have ever USED a mechanical swingarm typewriter know what i'm talking about -- the swingarms that jam are the ones that tend to be close together. But the other story sounds better, and so it gets repeated in places like Newsweek -- and, of course, Slashdot. A nice article on this myth effect can be found at http://www.ddj.com/articles/1 998/9875/9875l/9875l.htm [ddj.com]

    Second, there have been no conclusive studies that Dvorak typists are any faster than QWERTY typists. The article at http://www.reasonmag.com/9606/Fe.QWERT Y.html [reasonmag.com] gives a reasonably good summary of the non-evidence of Dvorak superiority.

    Lastly, my personal experience is that a friend who has switched to Dvorak said "It's a nightmare of pain relearning a new layout for no benefit whatsoever. Go ahead and learn Dvorak if you don't know how to type, but don't go through the psychic trauma of rewiring your fingers if you already are using QWERTY. Its not worth it."

    Anyway. Use whatever keyboard makes you happy.

    Peter

  • Don't listen to the naysayers till they actually have something constructive to say.

    We all know that Dvorak was the one who published the great results about the Dvorak keyboard. Of course the results were biased. But that doesn't mean it's a worse keyboard.

    You have only to look at a QWERTY keyboard to see that it was not designed to be easy. Notice that you can type "typewriter" using only keys on the top row. You think that is a coincidence? Also, see how many words you can type on the home row with QWERTY. Not many. How many with Dvorak (it's aoeuidhtns for those who don't know).

    I have never heard of anyone who learned Dvorak "properly" who regretted the change, myself included.

    Studies? We don't need no steeenking studies.
  • beyond.com [yahoo.com] has a keyboard that can switch between Dvorak and QWERTY, and comes with typing software to learn Dvorak.. for only $36

    Another one [pcconnection.com] for $49 at PC Connection

    a pretty wild looking one.. [yahoo.com] "Comfort Keyboard System", which is available in dvorak, qwerty, sun and mac (Sun Qwerty? Wild!)
  • As a dvorak typist, I can attest to the benefits of this layout. Though there is some hastle using other peoples' computers b/c of not knowing qwerty, I must say that it's still worth it. I have never known qwerty; I learned dvorak as my 'first language' at the age of 10. Though it's been a while since then and I can't be sure, I would estimate that it took about 2 months of practicing about a half hour a day to be able to type 40-50 wpm. Now (I don't practice, only type when there's a reason to) I type about 80wpm with very few errors. My main reason for continuing to use the dvorak keyboard is because I'm not interested in RSI or carpal tunnel syndrome, which both my parents had to have surgery for.

    To address Cliff's query diretly, YES, DVORAK keyboards are available. DvortyBoards [dvortyboards.com] makes a keyboard that is hard-wired for both dvorak and qwerty. The keyboard I use is from their company, though it's an older model. It is a MS Natural-esque keyboard with a rocker switch to switch from dvorak to qwerty. The newer model has an extra key (actually, it's borrowed from one of the legacy keys though I can't remember which one) that switches.

    For those of you using linux, this keyboard is an excellent choice. There is no need to mess with keysym files, set up bash (csh, tsch, sh, etc.) and X separately, just hit the toggle key.
    For windows users, no need to screw around with the control panels or bitch at MS when you use a dos app (dos requires a separate driver, and MS didn't think to trap keyboard events and convert to the appropriate keyboard layout before passing the key to the dos app, so all of dos is in qwerty).

    I'd cite statistics / etc. to show that dvorak is the superior layout but statistics can be so easily argued, so I'll just say that only a few thousand words can be typed on the qwerty keyboard without moving fingers to the top or bottom rows. With dvorak, over 30,000 words can be typed without moving the hands.
  • I echo the above sentiment that the best thing to do is to try it, and find out if you like it. It will take some time. I have been typing on a Dvorak board for five years or so, and I love it. I'm still as s-l-o-w as I was on a Qwerty. I never learned to type on a Querty, and really, the Dvorak keyboard feels so natural to me, as far as layout, that I didn't have to 'learn' how to touch type. It just came naturally. I haven't clocked myself, but I'd guess I tripled my productivity. It's hard to quantify the pain and suffering aspect, as I don't have any RSI, but read some material on the layout; it makes sense that you won't get it as bad/as soon because of the way the home row is arranged.

    I am a very strong advocate of the Dvorak layout, but as I alluded to before, it's not for everyone. If you're an IT type and have to mess with 50 different keyboards a day, it's probably not worth the time. I rarely have to type on other keyboards than my own, so I benefitted greatly at work and at home from switching.

    And finally, you need to know where to get one. The one I have I got here:

    http://www.dvorty.com

    I love it. It's hard-wired, and has a Dvorak - Qwerty toggle key so you can switch on the fly any time you want. It's completely hardware driven and works on ANY computer you can plug it into. It's great for multi-user households. I bought mine for 70 bucks two years ago, and now I see that they're only 50 bucks. Well worth the investment.

    If you're still not sure, pop the keys off your keyboard, rearrange them and find an xmodmap file to remap your keys. Try it out for about a month. I was admittedly pretty lame at typing before I started with Dvorak, but it took me about two weeks of medium use to get up to the same speed, and another week or two to blow my old speed away.


    -mattyj@cts.com
  • I've never used a Dvorak, but was curious enough to dig around Google [google.com] to find a place. Here's my favorite:


    DvortyBoards [dvortyboards.com] -- interesting site. They sell a switchable board (i.e. swap between Qwerty & Dvorak on the fly). US$50 plus shipping & handling. Apparently the translation is done in the keyboard itself, so it would be compatible with any OS.


    --Mid

  • Again? (Score:5)

    by eldamitri ( 19790 ) on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @02:05PM (#1633153)
    QWERTY, Dvorak and More [slashdot.org] discussed just a few days ago

    The Myth of QWERTY [slashdot.org] discussed in April


    "there once was a big guy named lou

  • show some mercy, this horse is already dead (Score:4)

    by ywwg ( 20925 ) on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @02:03PM (#1633157) Homepage
    There was an article very very recently on just this subject. Basically, the tests that proved that the Dvorak system was superior were performed by Mindcraft, or if not them, Dvorak himself. Also, it's been discovered that the alternate-hand version of typing is actually very speedy. While one finger is whacking one key, the other is moving into position. Conclusion: just stick with QWERTY. It works, everyone uses it, and it's a headache to learn a new system for a mere 4 WPM gain. The reason your friend showed such improvement is probably because he learned to type correctly on that system, instead of a bastardized typing scheme that many people learn on their own. For instance, I hit the y key with my left hand as opposed to my right, and I don't use my right pinky except to use the shift key. If I learned DVORAK, I would learn it correctly, and gain some speed.
  • I learnt dvorak once and was surprised to reach a speed of 60wpm in less than three weeks (my qwerty speed is much faster but that's because I've practiced it more). It is definately much more efficient for typing English sentences, but not much good for programming (see below).

    The reason you can type English sentences much faster is because dvorak was designed to take advantage of the way English words are spelt:

    1. All vowels are on the left side of the keyboard and nearly all consonants are on the right side of the keyboard. This means that (compared with qwerty) if a particular character is typed with the left hand, the next character in the word is more likely to be typed by the right hand. By alternating hands more frequently, this gives the idle hand more time to move to where its next character will be.

    2. All the common letters are on the home row so you don't have to move your hands as much. For example, look at the layout of the keyboard: http://www.ccsi.com/~mbrooks/dvorak/layout.html and work out how to type the word "the". Then compare with qwerty. I picked a small word because that makes the exercise easier. Pick a larger word if you wish and count how many times you need to stretch beyond the home row.

    3. Even when you do need to stretch beyond the home row, there are easy regions to stretch to and hard regions to stretch to. Dvorak puts all the rare characters in the hard to reach places.

    Qwerty, on the other hand seems to have been designed to make it easy to type the word "qwerty". If you're a one fingered typist.

    But back to dvorak and UNIX hackers. I said before that dvorak makes it easy to type English sentences. Anyone who programs knows that programming doesn't involve many English sentences, or even English words. The UNIX command line is full of cryptic commands with all the vowels taken out. For example "ls" on the qwerty keyboard is easy to type because you alternate hands: "l" in the right hand, and "s" in the left. Because dvorak assumes that most words have consonants separated by vowels, you end up having to type all of "ls" with one hand, and unfortunately with the same finger in this case. Since this is one of the most popular commands in UNIX, this can be irritating.

    For the moment, I have switched back to qwerty because too many things in UNIX are difficult to do with a dvorak keyboard (especially vi!). I plan to switch back to dvorak again in the future once I have an operating system as powerful as UNIX/Linux but which doesn't rely on typing in cryptic commands. For example, www.jos.org, a Java based operating system (shameless plug!).

    :-)

    --
    Ryan Heise
  • Accually in RH 6.0 its /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386/dvorak/dvorak.kmap.gz
    and /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386/us.kmap.gz

    of course still alias asdf ' ' and alias aoeu ' ' as above. :)
    (in most shells if your using bash its alias asdf=' ' for those newbies out there :)
  • Here's how to set up your Unix machine to try out the Dvorak layout. You need X windows to do this.

    First, print out a picture of the Dvorak layout. A GIF and a PDF version are on Marcus Brooks' page [ccsi.com].

    Now, follow these instructions IN ORDER (or you'll have trouble changing back to Qwerty). Download the following xmodmap scripts:
    Qwerty [wisc.edu] and Dvorak [wisc.edu]

    Then, make an alias to change back and forth easily:

    % alias asdf 'xmodmap ~/dvorak.xmodmap'
    % alias aoeu 'xmodmap ~/qwerty.xmodmap'

    I chose the alias so the same four keys are typed in either Qwerty or Dvorak mode. So just type "asdf" to toggle between them. Then you can decide for yourself and avoid all the flame-ridden commotion. :)
  • There is a very interesting paper called The Fable of the Keys [utdallas.edu] that gives some of the history of this debate, and talks about the (lack of) solid evidence that Dvorak is objectively better. Some people may well find they type faster with a Dvorak layout, but I think that part of the improvement is that they had to make an effort (along with an emotional investment) in learning to type with a new layout. How many of those people made that kind of effort when they started on QWERTY? I suspect that there are a lot of folks out there that learned to type only becase computers can't hear very well.
    --

  • Re:Cost of change outweighs ease of use (Score:3)

    by shaun ( 29783 ) on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @02:54PM (#1633186)
    > There are similar reasons why the metric
    > systems (sic) hasn't been adopted world wide.

    Funny how everybody in the world except the U.S. seems to have managed to switch.

    (-1 : Offtopic)

    Shaun
  • There is an applet, which shows the Dvorak layout and an input line, so you can try it out right away in your favorite Java enabled browser:

    http://www.dvortyboards.com/dvorak.html

  • Typing in Dvorak, I more often enter letter pairs backwards, because I have more fingers moving at a time.

    Typing in Dvorak significantly reduced the pain in my wrists. Maybe Dvorak is better. Maybe learning to type all over again helps you avoid the bad habbits you got into the first time you learned to type.

    A Dvorak keyboard is almost as good as a locking screensaver for keeping other people away from your computer.

    To type in Dvorak I look at the screen. To type QWERTY, I look at the keyboard. I cannot type in QWERTY on a keyboard labelled in Dvorak. I could type in Dvorak on a completely blank keyboard.

  • Anybody know about running Dvorak with none-American keyboard layouts? I realize that it can't really work as planned, since Dvorak is designed after the English languages use of letters, and since letters not used in English have to be moved to the side (öäå, three common letters in Swedish, are all on the right side of l and p on Swedish qwerty), but I write _mostly_ in English anyways.

    All the xmodmap scripts I have seen seem to be likely to screw up non english keyboards, however. Does Dvorak dictate the position of the non alphabetic characters?

    -
    /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
  • I made the switch to Dvorak about 1 year ago, and I'll try and give you the skinny.
    1. You don't need special hardware for a dvorak keyboard. All keyboards are the same. The only thing different is the way that the software interprets the key-presses. That said, I have seen keyboards that have a little switch and will send different signals based on your choice.
    2. To make things easier, you can either rearrange the keys or buy little stickers of letters and put them on your keys. To find the map for a dvorak keyboard, just look through a search engine. That said, I found it easier to force myself not to look at the keys while learning. This was rather easy since all of the keys were wrong.
    3. To setup your dvorak keyboard in Linux, you need to set it up in 2 different places: 1)The Console and 2) In X. For the console on a Redhat system, it is one of the special options in Linuxconf. For other distros, ask someone or look at some documentation. For X, you can either run xmodmap everytime you log in (put it in your .xinitrc) or change the correct line in your .Xdefaults file to point to the location of the modmap file (it's named dvorak.xmodmap). Again, this is my experience with Redhat. For other distros, further documentation is required.
    4. I have found dvorak to be much faster. Some say it is not, but even if it isn't, it requires a lot less moving of your hands.

    In closing, I just have to recommend to everyone the most fantastic keyboard I have ever scene: The Acer Future Keyboard [acerperipherals.com] I don't work for Acer or anything, I just think this keyboard is the best thing since sliced bread. I know it looks funny, but having a touch-pad right in the middle of the keyboard with the cursor keys is really great for everyday use (although, I admit it is terrible for playing Quake).

    Hope this helped!

  • Having used both dvorak and qwerty + microsoft ergo style keyboards and still suffered really badly with RSI, I can't suggest anything other than the Kinesis Contoured ergo keyboard [kinesis-ergo.com]; takes a while getting used to but once you are, it's fast and more comfortable than anything else. It took me 4 days of typing to get back up to 110wpm.
  • The problem with the right-to-left alternation doesn't work as well when you consider that the most often used letters (E, S, T, etc.) are on the left-hand side. Admittedly, so are Q and Z, but one of the reasons that all those letters (which should normally come fairly close together) are on the left-hand side is to force typists to use their left hands more frequently.

    Since most people are right handed, well, it slows down most typists... With older lever-based typewriters, a right-handed typist would be slower, but the left-handed person would have more jamming--it evened out, speed-wise. Nowadays, lefties have an edge w/the QWERTY layout when using computers or more modern (ball-based) typewriters, because that pesky lock-up doesn't happen.

    And, as much as a book reference w/out a hard reference is worth, there were comments in my old typing class "textbook" (and yes, I did take typing in high school, much to my chagrin) to the effect of companies choosing the QWERTY layout early on to slow down typists...

  • All you do is pop off the keys and arrange them in the dvorak pattern.

    Or just cover them up or ignore them.

    Then you have to remap all the
    keys in your operating system - this would involve a different process depending on what operating system
    you use.

    So who's up for writing a hack for the linux keyboard driver to remap the keys for DVORAK under stty control? (Assuming it isn't in there already.)

    You can do it in X but that doesn't help when you don't have X up.

  • How to Remap your keyboard in Windows (Score:3)

    by Chris Brewer ( 66818 ) on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @02:17PM (#1633258) Journal
    I've seen this comment a few times now in this discussion - how do I remap my keyboard?

    Win NT:
    Open Control Panel
    Open Keyboard Settings
    Click on the Input Locales
    Select your location
    Click Properties
    Choose US-Dvorak from the List

    Win9x should be similar

    Simple, innit? :)
  • There is more to life than making it go faster - Gandhi

  • No, it's not. Your "interesting paper" is FUD. (Score:3)

    by Uksi ( 68751 ) on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @04:39PM (#1633264) Homepage
    Unfortunately, one has to repat this again and agian. The article called "The Fable of the Keys" to Dvorak is what recent Microsoft's "Linux Myths Explained" to Linux. Pure FUD.

    For the Nth time, peruse this link: http://www.ccsi.com/~mbrooks/dvorak/dissent.html

    To quote a poster to a different story, "All of the current anti-Dvorak hype stems from a _single_ paper, The Fable of The Keys."

    And guess what, an overwhelming majority of posters to this story mention "The Fable of The Keys" as the only source of proof.

    Alas, many don't bother to follow the above link either, so I'll just summarize a few key points:

    - The Fable of The Keys is based on very sketchy and weak evidence. The most referred-to study in that article is the 1956 GSA study conducted by Dr. Earl Strong, who was an anti-Dvorak advocate. It's best illustrated by what Strong said a few years before the study:

    "I have developed a great deal of material on how to get this increased production on the part of typists on the standard [QWERTY] keyboard. ...I strongly feel that the present keyboard has not been fully exploited, and I am out to exploit it to its very utmost in opposition to the change to new keyboards."

    Again, to provide analogies with Microsoft vs. Linux battle, that "convincing" 1956 GSA study is same as that recent Metrowerks "Windows NT vs Linux" comparison test--paid by Microsoft, biased, etc.

    - The paper talks about "lack of solid evidence that Dvorak is objectively better." Damn, this angers me so much: so many people have reported great or just-as-good results with Dvorak, so many people reported hard, undisputable numbers that Dvorak reduces hand movements and thus has a great potential to increase typing speed and especially decrease typing injuries, that anyone talking about "lack of solid evidence for Dvorak" automatically has their IQ dropped to 20 in my mind.

    - The reason you don't see Dvorak bundled with new computers (or otherwise be popular) is because it traditionally has been difficult/expensive to switch typewriters to Dvorak. The mechanisms were often hardwired for a layout and rearranging it was quite a costly process. For a similar reason, because it was not too easy to convert from Windows to Linux (e.g. when there was no UMSDOS or friendly installation programs), Linux did not gain such a wide acceptance as it deserved to.

    - Just like the British system of measurements, QWERTY is outdated but too common to be easily replaced. QWERTY was designed to slow down (PERIOD), plus it was also designed so that salesmen could type "TYPEWRITER" using the top row only, saving them the semi-embarrasing task of hunting and pecking.

    It is really upsetting to see such FUD and crap as "The Fable of the Keys" (again, comparable to Microsoft's "Linux Myths Explained") appear on the net and gain wide acceptance.

    .

  • Re:Dvorak links? (Score:3)

    by XTaran ( 70498 ) <abe@nOspam.deuxchevaux.org> on Wednesday October 06, 1999 @02:27PM (#1633272) Homepage
    Yes and yes. :-)

    I've collected several links [uni-sb.de] to dvorak keyboard sellers and dvorak ressources.

    Due to the US-english dvorak layout is only different in the positions of the keys on the board, you may create your own dvorak keyboard by just switching your key caps around. And for X11 you can use xkeycaps and xmodmap to tell your computer that you've done that... :-) You'll find an dvorak-xmodmap at Peter Amstutz' Dvorak page [umass.edu].

    But if keyboard doesn't allow to switch the key caps around you can also relabel them...

    Dvorak Keyboard Sellers:

    The Dvorak Layout [ccsi.com] in comparison to the qwerty layout can be found at Introducing the Dvorak Keyboard [ccsi.com] .

    There are also efforts on creating non-english dvorak layouts [ccsi.com].

  • As the proud owner of both Dvorak and Qwerty keyboards, I have read a bit on the subject. First, some history. The idea behind the Dvorak keyboard is that it assigns important keystrokes evenly between hands, and orients those keys most often used to the 'home' row. Qwerty keyboards were designed so that the stream of keystrokes was alternated between hands, so that the mechanical hammers on 19th century typewriters wouldn't clash together quite so often.
    Heres where the efficiency issue gets fuzzy; The Dvorak keyboard was designed to be efficient, but the Qwerty was efficient by mistake. It seems that the alternation of hands allows the brain and hands to get a jumpstart on the next key. The travel may be greater, but the hand is already there when the key needs to be pressed. Studies have shown that the two schemes show near identical results with 'new' typists.
    Also at issue is the time spent retooling the brain to accept the new keyboard; Back in the 1950's, the US government (they were hoping to save a buck on typists) conducted a study where some Qwerty typists were trained on Dvorak keyboards, and others were re-trained on Qwerty. While both groups showed improvement, the Qwerty re-trains improved more than their newly converted Dvorak brothers/sisters (have to be PC here). What it comes down to is the fact that you are activly trying to increase your speed, and not schluffing along. I'm sure your friend was trying quite hard to learn the Dvorak layout and show to himself that it was faster! That constitutes training, in a way.
    One last myth before I submit. Many people seem to think that Qwerty survived for all the wrong reasons. Qwerty keyboards were NOT the only ones available at the onset of typewriters, nor were they produced by the biggest company. Qwerty killed quite a few other keyboards (Hit IBM's patent search; there is an ingenious one laid out like an organ, with a key for each case of letter) and mostly won on merit.
    As for myself, a dual typist? My speed on the Qwerty is faster than on the Dvorak, but only slightly. I use the Qwerty layout much more, and suppose that is the reason for the edge. I was suprised to notice that every time I walked away faster from the Dvorak my speed on the Qwerty was also marginally better. I'd be interested to find out if your mate has also noted this.
  • How about just using setxkbmap instead. The keymappings for both QWERTY and Dvorak are included in the XFree86 package without the need to download any new files. Just make the following aliases instead:

    % alias asdf 'setxkbmap dvorak'
    % alias aoeu 'setxkbmap us'
  • The idea that the qwerty keyboard was made to be slower is urban legend. Neither is faster, unless of course you ask Dvorak. My speed nearly doubled when I went to the natural type key board.
  • Yeah, and if they had there would be 1 less crashed Mars weather satelite :)
  • http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/ and http://www.dvortyboards.com/ have Dvorak keyboards. There are probably more. I have one of the dvortyboards ones, and it's ok. Don't much care for the feel of the keys, though, so I'm saving for one of the kinesis ones. Biggest benefit to me with Dvorak has been typing speed (couldn't type on qwerty at all, so that's not saying much) and comfort. Oh, and there's a bit of geek-factor to it, too. ;)
  • Both Dvorak and Querty are outdated.

    How about a keyboard that gives the proper level of attention to those character we geeks are typing every few seconds?

    Like at (@) and dot (.) and slash (/)? And for programmers, let's not forget #, %, &, = and !.

    Hell...for most geeks the stupid punctuation symbols should be on the home row!

    Speaking of home row...if we do get an Internet keyboard (around the time the US adopts the metric system) then I vote we put the slash key and the dot key be right next to each other so we all can shamelessly kiss up to our favorite news site /././././././././././././.


    che-tongue-ek

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  • Yes but not in the proper order and I was talking about when they are moved to the home row.

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  • Personally, I'm not sure why we didn't get rid of QWERTY a long time ago. QWERTY was designed to slow us down so that when we typed, the type heads wouldn't get all stuck together. Dvorak was designed to speed us up. When's the last time you were typing on a typewriter PERIOD, much less one old enough to actually have the too-fast-typing problem?
  • I used Dvorak for about nine months because my roomate used my computer without permission. I also change my windows shell to Litestep. Dvorak not only increased my typing speed in general, but I swear it doubled my speed on QWERTY. I reccomend it. It's kind of fun and people think you're more hardcore.

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