[DUG] OT Mouse

[Phil Scadden]

 >"designed to prevent jams" is only partly true.  Yes, the most 
commonly used keys are physically far >apart but that reflected the fact 
that when originally designed they were attached to levers - it was 
 >keeping those levers apart that resulted in the letters being apart, 
not a desire to slow typists down per >se.

I agree that design was to keep levers apart. I never claimed it was to 
slow typists down (earlier responder did). Slowing down typists MAY be a 
side-effect. However, typing speed (aside from slowdowns due to jammed 
levers) was not the primary design goal. Qwerty is not optimised for speed.
Dvorak keyboards by contrast were designed for comfort and speed.


> In a nutshell, in the early days of the technology touch typing 
> contests were actually quite common ... as a keyboard designed to slow 
> people down QWERTY should have been a failure in such contests, 
> against other layouts not designed to slow people down, right ?
And in those early days, a keyboard layout that caused jams would lose 
out to one that didnt but I am unaware of contests in early days on 
alternatives to QWERTY.

A contest now on boards with typists of similar experience on both would 
be more interesting.


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