What Is The Point Of The Qwerty Keyboard On Computers?

[nakedfrog]

Computer class for middle school in the 80s? Wow talk about rich district.

I dunno about that it, was immensely overcrowded and where all the poor kids went. Having a room full of Apple IIe computers wasn't exactly cutting edge in 1988-89.

 

[sdifox]

I dunno about that it, was immensely overcrowded and where all the poor kids went. Having a room full of Apple IIe computers wasn't exactly cutting edge in 1988-89.

still, for middle school to have five year old computers is nothing to sneeze at.

 

[nakedfrog]

still, for middle school to have five year old computers is nothing to sneeze at.

My US government high school, on the other hand, had an epic computer lab, a whole bunch of 486DX33s with 8MB of RAM, a LAN (part token ring, part Ethernet), CC:Mail (old DOS email program), a laser printer, eventually a couple computers connected to the internet via modem...

 

[igor_kavinski]

Those manual typewriters were a bitch if your coordination was even a little off. The hammer keys would jam against each other and you had to stop and pull them apart. Sometimes it was a lot harder than others to do that, depending on which keys you pressed, how hard too. I hated that. Then, you had to deal with typewriter ribbon, changing it, you'd get the ink on your fingers. Every line change you had to do manually, swinging the carriage across.

I know the pain. Thankfully, never had to use my dad's typewriter seriously.

By the way, Tom Hanks has a typewriter fetish: California Typewriter Official Trailer #1 (2017) Tom Hanks, John Mayer Documentary Movie HD - YouTube

Tom Hanks: Typewriter Fetishist | J.W. McCormack (thebaffler.com)

 

[MrSquished]

That typing class in Junior High in the very late 80's really paid off. I remember my dad using his typewriter to do stuff and then me having to teach him how to use the computer for stuff. I think we used Word Perfect before Word.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I have been on computer since early 80s and no typing class

I learned typing by chatting online with girls. It was always a race against time, too slow and she would log off or block you. Didn't matter if they made you wait 10 minutes for their little paragraph of nonsense but God forbid, make them wait a minute and they would get their knives out.

 

[nakedfrog]

That typing class in Junior High in the very late 80's really paid off. I remember my dad using his typewriter to do stuff and then me having to teach him how to use the computer for stuff. I think we used Word Perfect before Word.

I took a WordPerfect 5.1 class in high school, too. Great program for the time, but very byzantine in usage, not at all user-friendly. Kinda like... well, most software at the time 😛

 

[Red Squirrel]

I remember Unisys Icons in school. Those trackballs could take a lot of abuse. If you were lucky to sit at the Icon 2 row you could run programs that the icon 1s could not run and felt like a big shot.

 

[Muse]

I have been on computer since early 80s and no typing class

Typing class in 8th grade was one of my absolute favorites ever.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I spent like 5-6 years using Dvorak layout instead of qwerty. I was able to type a little bit faster, but, switching layouts can get confusing and mess with muscle memory.

I switched back to QWERTY several years ago, I probably lost a few wpm, but its simpler to just use the most common standard...

 

[Muse]

I took a WordPerfect 5.1 class in high school, too. Great program for the time, but very byzantine in usage, not at all user-friendly. Kinda like... well, most software at the time 😛

Took WP5.1 too, for DOS! Was cool. Lotus 1-2-3 too.

 

[IronWing]

I wrote my thesis on WP 5.1. Every thesis had to be blessed by the formatting nazi at the grad school and WP 5.1 for DOS was the only program that could get the margins and page numbers right. The Mac users learned the hard way that WP on the Mac couldn’t do it. You could bring in the most beautiful document imaginable and the nazi would get out her ruler and measure the margins. One page off and no diploma for you. The university was anticipating scanning the documents in the future so it made some sense but it was a pain in the ass to get right.

 

[IronWing]

Still not as bad as the prof who required that all theses and dissertations be done in SGML.

 

[Red Squirrel]

We had a typing class in grade 9, using this old dos program. There was a ginger kid in my class that I originally tried to become friends with but he turned out to be an asshole, he was always bothering me etc. One time I reach over and hit CTRL+C and it just made the program go completely haywire on him, beeping etc. I think he even had to reboot the whole machine, it would just lock everything up. The program apparently did not take well to that command. The whole class basically consisted of both of us messing each other up while doing the typing exercises lol. I actually grabbed the whole program and put it on a floppy so I can practice at home lol. I wonder if I actually still have it somewhere, I need to look for it for nostalgia sake.

 

[nakedfrog]

Aw, the gingers had a crush on each other!

 

[sdifox]

Aw, the gingers had a crush on each other!

You need more than one ginger to make ginger ale.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Jam on keyboard feels icky. But why a keyboard? Don't you have iMouse?

You really expect us to believe that's jam?

 

[Captante]

That's what happens when you fail to aim away from the keyboard! 😛

 

[mv2devnull]

You really expect us to believe that's jam?

Of course not, but lets not tell that to OP


Some keyboard brand had a model with blank keycaps and dip switches to toggle "effortlessly and OS-agnostic" between Dvorak, Colemak, and QWERTY?

 

[nakedfrog]

Of course not, but lets not tell that to OP


Some keyboard brand had a model with blank keycaps and dip switches to toggle "effortlessly and OS-agnostic" between Dvorak, Colemak, and QWERTY?

I think it may have been Das Keyboard?
Apples used to have a Dvorak button back in the day.

 

[brianmanahan]

Your righthanded privilege is showing. Us south paws have to settle for the arrow keys.

you mouse left handed?

my brother is fully LH but always moused RH since he was 8

 

[JulesMaximus]

Because I don’t want to relearn how to type and what I say goes.

 

[JulesMaximus]

you mouse left handed?

my brother is fully LH but always moused RH since he was 8

My wife is left handed and she mouses with her LH.

 

[IronWing]

you mouse left handed?

my brother is fully LH but always moused RH since he was 8

I mouse left handed. My work computer has the buttons set for left handed mousing while my home computer has right handed buttons as my right handed wife shares the home computer.

 

[mv2devnull]

I mouse left handed. My work computer has the buttons set for left handed mousing while my home computer has right handed buttons as my right handed wife shares the home computer.

I had "MS Natural ..." at work. It was huge. When "FGHJ" is under your nose, numpad is far and RH mouse too far right even for conservative shoulder. Mouse on the left is much more tolerable ... once it starts to find anything and if it is symmetric -- not one of those "for right hand only" shapes.

Swapping the buttons RH -> LH is logical. However, I do know people who are left-handed and do have mouse on the left, but do not swap buttons. Always fun: "Is the mouse on the left? Where is the Button 1?"