1. Home
  2. Model Railroad Forum
  3. OT: Model keyboard

OT: Model keyboard

I know this post dosn't belong in this newsgroup, just trying to give this idea some exposure.

Aset keyboard It has been said that the most common letters were taken off the home row of the first typewriter keyboard to slow down the typist and prevent jamming. On a Dvorak keyboard almost sixty percent of average text is typed from the home keys. Transposing the letters 'etni' with 'dfjk' would put more than 55% of text on the home keys, up from only 26% on the qwerty layout. Thats more than twice the text typed without lifting a finger.

The change is quite pleasant and easy to learn. I hope you will pass this on.

To put e, t, n and i back where they belong, there is a keyboard remapping program that is free, downloads quickly and is very easy to use. I am typing this post on a keyboard remapped to the 'etni' transposition layout. The program is called 'Keytweak 2.11' and can be googled up by that name. It is available from several sites, including PC magazine.

1) After you have loaded the program click start. 2) Click the "KeyTweak" icon and a graphic of a keyboard will appear. 3) Click the "Full Teach Mode" at the bottom of the screen. 4) A box will appear. Click "Begin Teach Mode". 5) Press the key you want to reassign, then the key you want it reassigned to, in this case D to E. 6) Click "Remap Key#1 to Key#2" 7) The box will disappear and the scancodes of the keys will appear in the "Pending Changes" window at the bottom right. 8) Follow the same procedure (from 3) for E to D, and the remaining six remaps. 9) Click "Apply" and you will be asked if you want to turn off the computer to apply the changes. At the top there is also a clickable "Restore Defaults" to give you back your qwerty layout. I was able to remap in under three minutes and restore qwerty in thirty seconds, not including the restart.

You can try out the sample lines of text below to discover that your fingers already know where etni should go.

nineteen lean little saints settle in a nest jkjdfddj ldaj lkffld sakjfs sdffld kj a jdsf

an alien eats an ant antenna in atlanta aj alkdj dafs aj ajf ajfdjja kj aflajfa

elite sense entails a siesta in a satin seat dlkfd sdjsd djfakls a skdsfa kj a safkj sdaf

a stain is seen at a linen sale a sfakj ks sddj af a lkjdj sald

a latent latin talent tast tests in seattle a lafdjf lafkj faldjf fasf fdsfs kj sdaffld

insane santa sails in sea salt kjsajd sajfa sakls kj sda salf

Many thanks,

Reply to
skearney
Loading thread data ...

And this has WHAT to do with model railroading?????

Reply to
Railfan

As the OP stated in both his opening comments and the subject line (OT). As such I deleted his post as fast as I throw out the garbage {;^)

Brian

Reply to
Brian Smith

The problem that any of those programs have is that they only work on the one computer that has the software installed. You still have to handle the querty keyboards that are on all of the other computers that you don't control. This makes things difficult for yourself as you now have to learn two different keystrokes and which is more difficult than learning to use the one keyboard layout at a good high rate of speed. I played with this back in the '70s and came up frustrated that I had to learn another system for typing. This impacted my usage of the querty keyboard layout as well as the usage of the special keyboard on my computer.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Reply to
Bob May

"Bob May" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news-1.nethere.net:

Dvorak keyboards are a wonderful idea, but it is a Catch-22. They won't catch on until there are enough people trained to use them. No one will be interested in doing the training until there are enough of the keyboards in circulation to make it worthwhile. Looks like we are stuck with QWERTY!

BTW, a trivia tidbit. The QWERTY layout was developed specifically to slow down the typist because the first typewriters were prone to key jams from the operator going too fast.

(From a programmer who is a full-time keyboard pounder.)

Reply to
Norman Morgan

This web site says otherwise:

formatting link
Quoting in part:

"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. 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."

And:

"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."

Reply to
Ken Rice

Like going from a telephone keypad to a calculator keypad??? :>))

TOM

-----------------

Reply to
Tom7601

Tom7601 wrote in news:v0Lhe.54240$tQ.32791@fed1read06:

Go from a telephone keypad to a calculator keypad that is for an RPN calculator. RPN calculators have no equals.

Reply to
Larry Stevens

My ex-wife said the same thing about herself... :>))

Reply to
TOM

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.