Re: Stop the bling, fergawdssake!

On 11/14/11 4:21 PM, Ron Hunter wrote:
> On 11/14/2011 10:15 AM, Ken Springer wrote:
>> On 11/13/11 4:58 PM, Art Kocsis wrote:
>>> The layout of the touch-tone phone is completely OPPOSITE to the
>>> layout of
>>> a ten-key adding machine! The ten-key layout had been standard for
>>> decades
>>> and many people had committed it to muscle memory. The arbitrary reversal
>>> (just to be different?) has caused no end of pain and confusion. The IBM
>>> keyboard is another classic example of misguided change for changes'
>>> sake.
>>
>> This may or may not be true, but somewhere in my history, I read or was
>> told the change was intentional.
>>
>> In those days, many phone switches were mechanical. Someone with good 10
>> key skills could tie those switches up in knots, as the switches could
>> not keep up with the speed 10 key users could input a phone number.
>>
>> Having watched one of those old switches in motion, it isn't hard for me
>> to see someone inputting 3 or 4 digits for a phone number before the
>> switch could process the first digit.
>>
> Sounds like another stupid choice made for mechanical limitations, like
> the Scholes keyboard.

In retrospect, the QWERTY keyboard seems to make little sense, in light 
of the fact I've seen studies where typists who master the DVORAK 
keyboard can outpace QWERTY keyboard users.  And the QWERTY keyboard 
seems to have come about to prevent jamming of the typewriter keys by 
fast typists.

There does seem to be no definitive reason for the layout issue. 
Besides the theory I mentioned, I found another reference where doing it 
with the "1" at the upper left meant the letters that are associated 
with a number are in a logical (read alphabetical) order, and not reversed.

One of those imponderables of history.


-- 
Ken

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