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Aucb.518 fa.editor-p utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!C70:editor-people Tue Feb 23 17:11:34 1982 QWERTY was designed to slow typing down! >From lauren@UCLA-Security Tue Feb 23 17:09:22 1982 The QWERTY story is generally well known -- but I personally see little chance of alternate keyboard arrangements becoming popular in the near future, for the obvious "chicken vs. egg" reasons.

But as long as we're talking alternates, I'd like to see more experimentation with the IBM "Chord" keyboard. There are VERY few of these around, but the one I've played with was quite impressive. In case you are unfamiliar with this beauty, it only has 14 keys, set up like this:

X X X X X X X X X X

X X X X

The lower four keys are for the thumb. The remaining fingers use the upper 10 [illustration is for a right-handed setup]. The keyboard is operated totally with one hand, and sets of one, two (digrams), or three (trigrams) keys can be operated at once. Very high typing speeds can be attained. IBM has already even worked out training programs for learning to use these units! The design allows for user programming of the many unused combinations for special purposes.

Overall, I find the device to be fascinating. Unfortunately, they are impossible to buy -- IBM will not sell them. The full, detailed mechanical specs have been published, however, and if I could find somebody capable of casting plastic to manufacture the four types of keys needed for the unit, I'd have a bunch of them tossed together for interested parties...

--Lauren--

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