From: Andrew Scott Beals (bandy_at_ricochet.net)
Date: Thu Apr 27 2000 - 17:14:26 EDT
Time to go grab your security blanket, Randal.
Randal Whittle wrote:
> At 11:33 PM 04/26/2000 -0700, you wrote:
> > I believe Ronald has used PCs from the time of the XT keyboards, when
> >Ctrl was where Caps Locks is today, and Alt was where Left Ctrl is now.
> >Caps Lock was located at today's Right Ctrl position.
>
> Ahhh yes, I vaguely remember that now.
>
> Then what Ronald is complaining about is that IBM didn't continue
> the *flawed* keyboard in the original PC/XT design, because that Ctrl key
> had no business supplanting the position where the Caps Lock key had
> been--as a standard--for decades already.
Au contraire, mon frere, the "original" pc design simply copied what computer
terminal keyboards had been doing for "generations" [in computer terms], since the
ASR-33 [now nearly 40 years young], if not earlier. The '33 was the first ascii
printing terminal, so it is likely be the progenitor of the keyboards we know and
love.
> >This made Ctrl-key
> >combinations easy as you could hold down Ctrl with your little finger
> >and press most of the other keys without moving your hand too much.
>
> I fail to see the problem then, as I have no difficulty doing the
> same with the Ctrl key(s) in their present position.
The key element here is "without moving your hand too much". Very small reach --
1cm keytop to keytop -- a->ctl on a real keyboard, giant reach on today's
"standard" pc keyboard -- 2.5cm on my 770ED. And the caps lock key has a top that
is much smaller than the area the key takes up. WHY? Because it's freaking
useless, that's why. Only B1FF!! and his like have need of it. Any decent word
processor has a "case-region-upper" command or its equivalent if you really have
the need to SHOUT.
>
>
> >Today you need to move your hands from the "home" position to press
> >Ctrl-key combinations,
>
> Huh? Why? Its right below the Shift key--easy to access, easy to
> reach...it doesn't require me to move my hands all over the place.
Nice for you, youngster. Be thankful you don't use the control characters a lot,
or you will end up with RSI down the road. I personally blame DEC's ultra-lousy
VT220 keyboard which moved the control key even further away for my RSI, and I know
of at least one court case wherein that very same keyboard was found to be the
cause of the complaintant's disability.
>
>
> >and if the software you use frequently makes
> >extensive use of them, the old key positions are more convenient. The
> >current keyboard layout dates from the AT, but if you learned to type on
> >the XT, as I did, the new layout took getting used to. I was quite
> >annoyed when I first switched.
>
> I can understand if you (or Ronald) learned on the XT and it
> annoyed you to go back to the standard, just understand that the XT is the
> oddball here--it was very much non-standard to begin with. It broke ranks
> with the standard layout of the Dvorak keyboards used for
> decades.
C'mon, Randal, I know you have some very useful things to say, but this sort of
argument paints you in a bad light.
> Understandably, "new" keys had to be added for computer-specific
> use (Ctrl, Alt, F-Keys, Cursor keys, etc.), but supplanting the existing
> layout by moving things like the Tab or the Caps-Lock key isn't the way to go.
And don't get me started on where the ESC key is supposed to go, damnit. I've
pretty much given up on touch-typing it and switched to ctl-[ instead.
My all-time favorite keyboard, aside from the keyboard+terminal combo of the ADM3A
which could run at full 19.2k speed with no data loss, unlike those piece of manure
vt52 et seq. things, was the sumptuous Cherry keyboard on Tek's 4015 storage-tube
graphics terminal. That was a pleasure to stroke as it had perfect spacing,
perfect profile and perfect feel in addition to the most pleasant sound I've ever
heard a keyboard make.
Andy "I remember when modems were illegal" Beals
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