Talk: Dvorak

In article <36ndh6$as...@gagme.wwa.com> sti...@marimba.wimsey.bc.ca writes:
>
>I've been curious about dvorak keyboards for a few years, ever since I
>actually learned to touch type.  I'm wondering if you ever used a qwerty in
>the first place, or if you started on a dvorak.  I ask because I wonder how
>long it would take to get proficient at dvorak, and how available the
>keyboards are on the market.  Also, I wonder if there are many typing tutors
>out there for dvorak.  I know from speaking to my typing teacher that the
>dvorak offers less chance of long term damage to the typist's hands, and I
>have a history of hand trouble in my family, so I'm doubly thinking about
>it.


I used a conventional QWERTY keyboard for several years before I found the
software necessary to convert my PC's keyboard to a Dvorak layout.  (The
DOS driver/TSR that did this was a little utility called the SureStroke[tm]
translator, put out by Seasoned Systems, Inc., whom I believe is now
defunct.)
   The nice thing about the SureStroke Dvorak system was that, besides
giving you press-on decal letters for your keyboard if you wanted to keep
both configurations (or if your keyboard didn't have interchangeable
keycaps like an IBM keyboard does), it came with a KILLER typing tutor.
I hit 36 words per minute in a few days and, oddly enough, had NO problems
thereafter switching back and forth between Dvorak and QWERTY.
   Nowadays, there's an even easier solution to configuring a PC keyboard
for Dvorak use: Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, and the soon-to-be-released-
we-hope Windows 95 *ALL* have built-in support for what they call the
"US-Dvorak" keyboard layout.  (OS/2 does not have this, but, hey, what do
you expect from a company obsessed with its Selectric keyboard ergonomics?)
The only problems I've had with using this direct O/S support are: (1) the
US-Dvorak layout is slightly different from the one the SureStroke translator
provides (although Seasoned Systems gave a way to patch SureStroke to
support other similar layouts), and (2) a DOS window or full-screen session
in Windows probably will not use Windows' keyboard support and will default
to the BIOS unless you have something like SureStroke in place.


-- 
Roger M. Wilcox   rog...@cisco.com   (a.k.a. tra...@netcom.com (Jeff Boeing))
------------------- I'm not flying fast, just orbiting low. -----------------
MSTie #38188 | Dvorak keyboard - Esperanto - Ross Perot - ProLog - Amiga 2000
             | Do I follow lost causes, or what?

In article <36nhqn$d1...@gagme.wwa.com> jpa...@mole.uvm.edu (Jake Patterson) writes:
>
>   If you have an IBM enhanced keyboard, you can change around all the 
>keycaps.  Other keyboards may allow you to do this as well.  Would this 
>work?  For example is the double quote character on the same key as the 
>single quote on a dvorak?  I know you can get the IBM keyboards for much 
>less then $200.

Yes, this will work.  Both the US-Dvorak keyboard layout supported by
Windows/Windows NT/Windows 95 and the layout provided by the old SureStroke
device driver in MS-DOS can be created by re-arranging the keys on a
conventional or extended PC keyboard.  The ? is always above the /, the
= is always below the +, et cetera.
   Well, almost, anyway.  The old SureStroke translator makes the mistake
of turning the / on the extended numeric keypad into a Z, since it was
written before enhanced keyboards caught on.  (The US-Dvorak layout in
the various Windows platforms does not have this flaw, though.)


-- 
Roger M. Wilcox   rog...@cisco.com   (a.k.a. tra...@netcom.com (Jeff Boeing))
------------------- I'm not flying fast, just orbiting low. -----------------
MSTie #38188 | Dvorak keyboard - Esperanto - Ross Perot - ProLog - Amiga 2000
             | Do I follow lost causes, or what?