How do we get from QWERTY to the future?

[_MeDotOrg]

Chances are you are typing on a QWERTY keyboard.


(The name comes from the first six characters on the top letter row).

The QWERTY keyboard was developed in 1873 and used in the commercially successful Remington typewriters. Early manual typewriters could jam when keys in close proximity were pressed closely together, so QWERTY keyboards were developed to prevent jamming. For example, the 'a' key is the only vowel on the home row, and that is relegated to most users' weakest finger.

Most of us are no longer typing on 19th Century mechanical typewriters. The physical limitations that defined the QWERTY keyboard are no longer its raison d'etre. Each time we use a QWERTY keyboard, our hands are paying a debt to the limitations of 19th mechanical design. Why?

This is one place where computer design has stuck resolutely with the past. It seems like it should be possible to design both computer BIOS and operating systems that can use more than one keyboard design.

It just seems like there could be some sort of industry consortium that could come up with a design that could be implemented.

The goal would be a computer that could use either the QWERTY or new design keyboard. QWERTY use would fade as generations of new typists learned on an easier keyboard.

This seems to be on of those issues where it is possible to see the future (a better keyboard would be clearly easy to design) but can't see how to get there because of the transition.

[_cinepro]

It's already been invented, and any modern OS (Windows, Mac, Linux etc.) can easily use it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard



It's not an unusual example of the most popular market-chosen option not being the "best" or ideal. In this case, there is a huge amount of inertia that keeps the QWERTY keyboards in place.

[_Analytics]

It's already been invented, and any modern OS (Windows, Mac, Linux etc.) can easily use it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard



It's not an unusual example of the most popular market-chosen option not being the "best" or ideal. In this case, there is a huge amount of inertia that keeps the QWERTY keyboards in place.

The thread should be retitled, "American Free-Market Capitalism Has Failed!!!!"

[_moksha]

I had a Dvorak keyboard back in the '80s. I remember that I would have preferred keys in a different arrangement, but it still made more sense than the QWERTY keyboard. Change here would be as difficult as the US Congress adopting the metric system. It could be helped if the evil empire pledged to continue making a dvorak version of the Microsoft keyboard.

[_Quasimodo]

I have one of those old mechanical typewriters that still works (1920's, I think). It's remarkable how much finger strength is required to type a character. Secretaries in those days must have developed very strong hands.

When electric typewriters were invented (sixty years ago?) I imagine that it provided an opportunity to switch from QWERTY. Never happened. I think too many people were used to the old system by that time for a change to be acceptable.

It would be so easy technically to start making that change now. Buy a new keyboard with a better configuration for a few dollars, install some new software and away you go. I think, though, that you might have the same problem with people being used to the old system and not wanting to go through the learning curve required to teach your fingers the new placements. Who has the time?

I wonder if anyone has done a study on how long it takes a good typist to relearn a new finger placement?

I'm also wondering if keyboards, themselves, are on the road to extinction. Voice recognition software is getting so good these days. I can imagine a time when people only dictate to their computers (or whatever) and no one types.

[_subgenius]

Voice recognition is an example that makes this an issue tantamount to worrying about converting a wood stove to a coal stove.

[_Quasimodo]

Voice recognition is an example that makes this an issue tantamount to worrying about converting a wood stove to a coal stove.

+1