An Error I Keep Making


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Back to typewriters:

Our standard US keyboard layout is the way it is, to make common keys harder to reach.  The old-timey typewriters had one arm for each letter, and if you hit keys too fast, two arms would crash into each other and get stuck.  So rather than have optimal keyboard placement to maximize speed, we have qwerty nonsense made to keep us from typing too fast.  A few decades ago someone tried to reorder keyboards to take advantage of computers, but retraining the entire English-speaking world just didn't happen.  Pity, we'd all be typing 80-120 words per minute.

'Tis a tragedy of a magnitude almost rivaling that of the Space Shuttle rocket boosters incorporating standard-gauge railroad spacing into their design limitations.

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1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

Back to typewriters:

Our standard US keyboard layout is the way it is, to make common keys harder to reach.  The old-timey typewriters had one arm for each letter, and if you hit keys too fast, two arms would crash into each other and get stuck.  So rather than have optimal keyboard placement to maximize speed, we have qwerty nonsense made to keep us from typing too fast.  A few decades ago someone tried to reorder keyboards to take advantage of computers, but retraining the entire English-speaking world just didn't happen.  Pity, we'd all be typing 80-120 words per minute.

'Tis a tragedy of a magnitude almost rivaling that of the Space Shuttle rocket boosters incorporating standard-gauge railroad spacing into their design limitations.

This is not true.  QWERTY was designed not just to avoid jams but also to put most common letter combinations on an alternate hand pattern.  The objective was to speed the typist up, not slow them down.  When the jams became a non-issue, QWERTY remained not because of training - swappable keys became a trend not too long after the popularization of the personal computer - but because the alternate hand pattern is still superior in speed.  Yes, the QWERTY is a left-hand favorable design in the English language.  But that has been shown as not to have a negative effect in speed on computer keyboards.  Also, the lateral shift for each row is found to be comfortable even when the need for the lateral space to fire a typewriter arm is not necessary anymore.  Other languages have a slightly different configuration with a few letters put in different places depending on its common usage in that language.  I haven't clocked myself lately but I can type 80wpm on the old typewriter (last I touched that thing was when I was in my twenties and I had to use this old typewriter in a construction trailer working for these guys who are building the mega school by the Perry Nuclear Power Plant).  I can type loads faster than that on a computer keyboard.  My kids type almost as fast as I do and they've never had training.  And they can type on the QWERTY on their phones with just a thumb super fast too.  That's why Steve Jobs - the guy who has a laser focus on the user experience - retained the QWERTY on the iPhone.

What gets me is the QWERTY arrangement of letters on the stupid TV search.  Hello... it's not a keyboard.  It's a remote control!  Finger memory doesn't translate to visual memory!  Steve Jobs, of course, put a regular A-Z arrangement on the Apple TV.  He's awesome like that.

 

Edited by anatess2
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https://web.archive.org/web/20111009091338/http://cs.ttu.ee/kursused/itv0010/maxmon/1874ad.htm

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It is commonly believed that the original layout of keys on a typewriter was intended to slow the typist down, but this isn't strictly true. The main inventor of the first commercial typewriter, Christopher Latham Sholes, obviously wished to make their typewriters as fast as possible in order to convince people to use them.

However, one problem with the first machines was that the keys jammed when the operator typed at any real speed, so Sholes invented what was to become known as the Sholes keyboard.

What Sholes attempted to do was to separate the letters of as many common digraphs as possible. But in addition to being a pain to use, the resulting layout also left something to be desired on the digraph front; for example, "ed", "er", "th", and "tr" all use keys that are close to each other. Unfortunately, even after the jamming problem was overcome by the use of springs, the monster was loose amongst us -- existing users didn't want to change and there was no turning back.

 

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3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Back to typewriters:

Our standard US keyboard layout is the way it is, to make common keys harder to reach.  The old-timey typewriters had one arm for each letter, and if you hit keys too fast, two arms would crash into each other and get stuck.  So rather than have optimal keyboard placement to maximize speed, we have qwerty nonsense made to keep us from typing too fast.  A few decades ago someone tried to reorder keyboards to take advantage of computers, but retraining the entire English-speaking world just didn't happen.  Pity, we'd all be typing 80-120 words per minute.

'Tis a tragedy of a magnitude almost rivaling that of the Space Shuttle rocket boosters incorporating standard-gauge railroad spacing into their design limitations.

Snopes takes such delicious joy in dismantling the idea that the size of the Space Shuttle boosters was ultimately determined by the width of a Roman horse's rear end that I feel to take the opposite position, if for no other reason than I dislike Snopes' high-handedness and smug attitude.

The fact is that we do standardize our measurements, and that standard does have an echoing effect down through history. Three barleycorns to an inch, a pint's a pound the world around for water, and the result is that NASA loses a billion-dollar lander at Mars. Of course our modern society is based on the ancient societies! What else do we expect it to be based on? Today's successes and failures are largely due to how our ancestors did things. If automobiles had not been designed originally based on horse-drawn wagons, their design evolution would have followed a different path, and cars would likely look much different today. Every day in the computer world, we contend with big-endian/little-endian-type issues: How is an mp3 encoded? Do we use NTFS encryption? Is there a USB version of that old 3½" disk drive or the phonograph? Why use QWERTY? The HDTV standard will dictate limits on how visual media is produced for at least the next couple of decades.

It is fantasy to pretend that everything we do, say, and think today does not depend directly on how we have done things for the last six thousand years. Of course it does! On a philosophical and religious note, this points up the importance of us making good choices today in our own lives. What we do, say, think, and believe now will have effects that ripple through all generations of time, most directly for our own descendants but also for the world in general. I believe those ripples will endure in some form or another for all eternity. Here's to hoping our butterfly wing flappings of today will produce untold beauty generations hence rather than devastating hurricanes.

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5 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Back to typewriters:

Our standard US keyboard layout is the way it is, to make common keys harder to reach.  The old-timey typewriters had one arm for each letter, and if you hit keys too fast, two arms would crash into each other and get stuck.  So rather than have optimal keyboard placement to maximize speed, we have qwerty nonsense made to keep us from typing too fast.  A few decades ago someone tried to reorder keyboards to take advantage of computers, but retraining the entire English-speaking world just didn't happen.  Pity, we'd all be typing 80-120 words per minute.

'Tis a tragedy of a magnitude almost rivaling that of the Space Shuttle rocket boosters incorporating standard-gauge railroad spacing into their design limitations.

I already can type 80 to 100 words a minute.  I could hit at least 60 words on those old typewriters...believe it or not...at least back when they tested us in typing classes many decades ago...

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Guest MormonGator
17 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

I already can type 80 to 100 words a minute.  I could hit at least 60 words on those old typewriters...believe it or not...at least back when they tested us in typing classes many decades ago...

My dad taught me how to type on a Commodore 64. In 6th grade we had to take a typing class, and the teacher gave me an F a few weeks in a row because I didn't keep my fingers on home row. I told her, "Tell you what, you let me type my way and I'll be the fastest typer in the class without errors. I'll even type faster than you." She tested me. I won. 


I got an A, and she kept her mouth shut the entire semester. 

Edited by MormonGator
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I begged my dad for a Commodore 128.  I felt utterly superior, even though my buddy and I couldn't see that it really did anything different from the 64 at all.

Don't tell anyone, but I had a program that would autodial internet access ports and hack codes.  It let me get free long distance.  Which allowed me to call bulletin boards in other states without paying long distance charges.

Ah, my early teens.  Internet fraud at 1200 baud.  

Don't do drugs, kids.

Edited by NeuroTypical
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14 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

I already can type 80 to 100 words a minute.  I could hit at least 60 words on those old typewriters...believe it or not...at least back when they tested us in typing classes many decades ago...

14 hours ago, MormonGator said:

My dad taught me how to type on a Commodore 64. In 6th grade we had to take a typing class, and the teacher gave me an F a few weeks in a row because I didn't keep my fingers on home row. I told her, "Tell you what, you let me type my way and I'll be the fastest typer in the class without errors. I'll even type faster than you." She tested me. I won. 


I got an A, and she kept her mouth shut the entire semester. 

13 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

I begged my dad for a Commodore 128.  I felt utterly superior, even though my buddy and I couldn't see that it really did anything different from the 64 at all.

Don't tell anyone, but I had a program that would autodial internet access ports and hack codes.  It let me get free long distance.  Which allowed me to call bulletin boards in other states without paying long distance charges.

Ah, my early teens.  Internet fraud at 1200 baud.  

Don't do drugs, kids.

Talk about your threadjacks.

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1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

TALK ABOUT your threadjacks.

Hey stranger, I see your new around these parts. Well let me give you a piece of advice: when you get into a discussion you stay as close to the OP topic as you can. There's been a bunch of threadjacks of late. I tell you, look out for the little danglers people leave lying around. You take my advice and leave them there. DANGLERS ARE DANGERS! You pull one thread and the next thing you know you're so far in the weeds you're staring face to face with Brer Rabbit.

You should avoid some of the following: GLOCK, ZOMBIE, PAM'S AGE, RUSH, KISS, COMPOUND, FOUNTAIN PEN, MLP, CHICKENS, PUNCTUATION, WORD PLAY....

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LOOK AT fountain pen

Cartier-Panthere-Gold-Plated-Fountain-Pe

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19 hours ago, Vort said:

Snopes takes such delicious joy in dismantling the idea that the size of the Space Shuttle boosters was ultimately determined by the width of a Roman horse's rear end that I feel to take the opposite position, if for no other reason than I dislike Snopes' high-handedness and smug attitude.

The fact is that we do standardize our measurements, and that standard does have an echoing effect down through history. Three barleycorns to an inch, a pint's a pound the world around for water, and the result is that NASA loses a billion-dollar lander at Mars. Of course our modern society is based on the ancient societies! What else do we expect it to be based on? Today's successes and failures are largely due to how our ancestors did things. If automobiles had not been designed originally based on horse-drawn wagons, their design evolution would have followed a different path, and cars would likely look much different today. Every day in the computer world, we contend with big-endian/little-endian-type issues: How is an mp3 encoded? Do we use NTFS encryption? Is there a USB version of that old 3½" disk drive or the phonograph? Why use QWERTY? The HDTV standard will dictate limits on how visual media is produced for at least the next couple of decades.

It is fantasy to pretend that everything we do, say, and think today does not depend directly on how we have done things for the last six thousand years. Of course it does! On a philosophical and religious note, this points up the importance of us making good choices today in our own lives. What we do, say, think, and believe now will have effects that ripple through all generations of time, most directly for our own descendants but also for the world in general. I believe those ripples will endure in some form or another for all eternity. Here's to hoping our butterfly wing flappings of today will produce untold beauty generations hence rather than devastating hurricanes.

Kinda explains how people had a cow over the loss of the headphone jack... :D

 

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46 minutes ago, zil said:

Really?

Meanwhile, there's something seriously wrong with that nib.  (Not that the rest of the pen has anything going for it, but that nib is damaged.)

Oh my goodness gracious Batman!  I am so tickled pink that I noticed something wrong with the nib before I read your comment!  I'm.. ah uhm.. bonafide!

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1 hour ago, mordorbund said:

[ways to start a threadjack]: ..., FOUNTAIN PEN....

Cartier-Panthere-Gold-Plated-Fountain-Pe

 

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

That fountain pen appears to be wearing leopardskin yoga pants, and thus is immodest and inappropriate for posting here.  

 

1 hour ago, zil said:

Really?

Meanwhile, there's something seriously wrong with that nib.  (Not that the rest of the pen has anything going for it, but that nib is damaged.)

 

17 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Oh my goodness gracious Batman!  I am so tickled pink that I noticed something wrong with the nib before I read your comment!  I'm.. ah uhm.. bonafide!

 

7 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

The owner of that pen attempted to use it to punch a new hole in his belt.  After his pen failed to impress the woman of his dreams, he drowned his sorrows in chicken nuggets.

heh. Way to level up @mordorbund.

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I have several. Two examples:

I have a tendency to transpose "blue" and "green" when I recite the colours of the rainbow. This is all the fault of Mrs. Roland - my teacher when I was about 9. Three or four years before Mrs. Roland became my teacher, my father had me read through a series of primers called "Read Through the Rainbow" - there was a book for each colour, and a final book with all the colours on the cover. So I "knew" the order of the colours. But Mrs. Roland screwed that up for me good and proper by teaching the class "red, orange, yellow, blue, green, indigo, violet", and having us paint a big picture of the rainbow (the Rolandian rainbow) on the classroom wall. Of course I should have corrected her, but no 9-year-old likes to be seen by his classmates as a "clever dick". So thanks Mrs. R. Thanks a bunch! (Btw, Mrs. R also referred to butterflies as "ladybirds".)

Dr. Bunsen Honeydew from the Muppets. I had a friend at school who always called him "Dr. Bunsen Honycomb". He started talking about "Dr. Bunsen Honeycomb" (mostly to compare my appearance with that of Beaker - who to be perfectly honest he resembled more than me*) before The Muppets became required viewing in our house, so long after I knew the correct name I still said "Honeycomb". Even now, ask me who this is...

Dr._Bunsen_Honeydew.jpg

...and I'll say "Dr. Bunsen Honeycomb...er...I mean Honeydew." (The "joke" is of course that his head looks like a honeydew melon, but honeydew melons were not very well known in the UK back then, so the humour of his name was rather lost on us.) 

* Now that I think about it he got Beaker's name wrong too - he always called him "Beep".

Edited by Jamie123
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