Alfred de Tavares wrote: "BTW does'n Miguel refer to 'TRISTAO'? How come the mistake? I have examined my keyboard carefully: 'T' & 'C* are in the outside parallels. I suppose all keyboards are uniformly standard?"
----- Dear Alfred, The QWERTY keyboard layout that we are all familiar with has been the subject of a lot of debate. There are many alternative layouts available, the most famous being the DVORAK layout. See a sample of a standard DVORAK keyboard layout at: http://www.computerhope.com/help/keyboard.htm You notice the "T" is immediately below the "C". That could explain why Belinda/Miguel meant "Tristao" and typed "Cristao". Everything you need to know about DVORAK - and related links at: http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/index.html Variations of DVORAK for single hand typists etc http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/dvlayout.aspx A timeline of the development of the keyboard http://cse.stanford.edu/class/sophomore-college/projects-01/human-computer- interaction/origins.htm And latest advances in the field... Predictive keyboards http://www.compliancepipeline.com/159900361 ----- But my namesake Cecil Adams explains it best at: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_248.html 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. CECIL ADAMS ------- This information has been brought to you by: Cecil Pinto Trivia News Service ======
