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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
for those of you unfamiliar with the story, the keyboard we currently use was made intentionally inefficient so as not to jam typewriters. it's called the Sholes keyboard, after their inventor. however, another well-known one is called the Dvorak keyboard - here is a short wikipedia excerpt:
Dvorak studied letter frequencies and the physiology of people's hands and created a layout to adhere to these principles:
* Letters should be typed by alternating between hands.
* For maximum speed and efficiency, the most common letters and digraphs should be the easiest to type. This means that they should be on the home row, which is where the fingers rest, and under the strongest fingers.
* The least common letters should be on the bottom row, which is the hardest row to reach.
* The right hand should do more of the typing, because most people are right-handed.
* Digraphs should not be typed with adjacent fingers.
* Stroking should generally move from the edges of the board to the middle. An observation of this principle is that, for many people, when tapping fingers on a table, it is easier going from little finger to index than vice versa. This motion on a keyboard is called inboard stroke flow.[3]
it has always bugged me immensely that i'm expending much more energy typing things out than is necessary. now that we don't use typewriters, it's really dumb to keep this archaic system. how many unnecessary kilojoules a year do i waste with this keyboard?
you may switch keyboards in windows xp by going to control panel => language/regional settings => language tab => clicking on the 'details' tab, clicking 'add', and checking the box with dvorak in it. it also helps to turn on the language bar to switch back and forth easily. i've also written the dvorak keys with a sharpie on my laptop keyboard, though it's probably smarter to print it out and stick it on top.
i'm heading out for food right now but the next time i get back, i will be using only dvorak until i get the hang of it. i'll still have to switch back for starcraft but it'll be pretty cool being 'bilingual' in keyboard knowledge. or so i think. preemptive apology for those who talk to me on irc/aim/msn, because i'll take forever to respond in the first few days.
anyone wanna join me in this noble quest for efficiency? i think i'll type out the time it takes me to make each post in seconds at the bottom of my posts for a few days.
 
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I would like to switch over to dvorak completely, but I don't think I could be a "bilingual typist" without a lot of time spent practising both for a long time.
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Takes a week or two to get used to it, I switched back after a while cause I couldn't get used to the punctuation being in weird places.
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Do they sell actual keyboards that are laid out this way? I remember reading something similar awhile ago. The guy that created bittorrent was advocating the keys being perfectly uniform and adjacent, instead of staggered.
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United States11637 Posts
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I think this style sucks for turkish or maybe i'm just not used to this dvorak thingy but i like the archaic system and i'm used to it so it will be so hard to change whole keyboard imo
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god switching to this would ruin my sc abilities.
not like i have many but they would just get worse.
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
[][][][] oh the brackets are up there now what the hell where is my question mark oh???
4 minutes to type 8(
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i learned dvorak when bored at work one term... i still use it for msn sort of conversations, but not for programming or starcraft.
i'm about the same speed in both now, but dvorak does feel like less effort than qwerty, your fingers don't have to dash around the keyboard as much
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lol keep posting progress!!
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United States7488 Posts
I'll take any workout I can get... can we try to find the least efficient keyboard layout for typing to maximize the amount of workout I get while hardly doing anything strenuous?
I might be on board to try that.
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On March 15 2009 05:25 semioldguy wrote:
I'll take any workout I can get... can we try to find the least efficient keyboard layout for typing to maximize the amount of workout I get while hardly doing anything strenuous?
I might be on board to try that.
Well you can always keep a can of beer handy to work your biceps lifting it to your mouth.
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On March 15 2009 04:54 intrigue wrote:
i've also written the dvorak keys with a sharpie on my laptop keyboard, though it's probably smarter to print it out and stick it on top.
Alternatively, you could remove the keys on your keyboard and move them into the Dvorak positions. Just hope you don't break a key if you decide to do that.
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CA10825 Posts
On March 15 2009 05:06 intrigue wrote:
[][][][] oh the brackets are up there now what the hell where is my question mark oh???
4 minutes to type 8(
noob
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Yep ive heard of this. My friend uses and he once tried to convince me. I do believe it drastically improves typing speed but out of habit I'm too lazy to change. Plus i think if u use someone else's computer or at the library's computers u can't really use this layout anymore.
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On March 15 2009 06:47 Exteray wrote:
Yep ive heard of this. My friend uses and he once tried to convince me. I do believe it drastically improves typing speed but out of habit I'm too lazy to change. Plus i think if u use someone else's computer or at the library's computers u can't really use this layout anymore.
it's not like dvorak is replacing your knowledge of the qwerty keyboard rofl
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On March 15 2009 06:47 Exteray wrote:
Yep ive heard of this. My friend uses and he once tried to convince me. I do believe it drastically improves typing speed but out of habit I'm too lazy to change. Plus i think if u use someone else's computer or at the library's computers u can't really use this layout anymore.
If everyone jumped of a cliff I guess you would too? Sounds wierd but you know what I mean 
My friend uses this and I guess it's better, I've just been too lazy to try it yet, maybe I'll do it soon.
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I'm way too used to qwerty now, although the dvorak layout does look appealing.
I'll try it out someday.
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argh this is tough at first
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Baa?21242 Posts
And here I thought that this was going to be about the composer =(
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
i am learning important phrases first. for example, LOL!
4 minutes 30 secs
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Dude imagine having to play t with this....
Trying to build an scv/vulture/tank? It's on the OTHER SIDE OF THE KEYBOARD ROFL
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On March 15 2009 07:10 roadrunner_sc wrote:
Dude imagine having to play t with this....
Trying to build an scv/vulture/tank? It's on the OTHER SIDE OF THE KEYBOARD ROFL
Siegeing is very easy tho ^^ No more patrolling tanks!
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On March 15 2009 07:10 roadrunner_sc wrote:
Dude imagine having to play t with this....
Trying to build an scv/vulture/tank? It's on the OTHER SIDE OF THE KEYBOARD ROFL
The "easy" solution would be customizing the hotkeys to bind the necessary units to whatever place you're used to (as playing T on qwerty for example).
Yeah, it does sound like a lot of effort, I'm way too used to qwerty now and while I'm not dronebabo type-o-machine, I can type with sufficient speed (or so I think).
And I didn't die of exhaustion yet either
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I learned how to type dvorak in college, but it's a pain in the ass having to remap keys for games. Also, for every study showing that dvorak is more efficient, there's one showing otherwise.
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On March 15 2009 07:10 intrigue wrote:
i am learning important phrases first. for example, LOL!
4 minutes 30 secs
Try typing "qwerty"
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
i am having a lot of trouble with the MWVZ row, but i think i'm doing well. i have covered my keyboard and am relying on memory.
6 min
ok, qwerty
20 secs
On March 15 2009 07:23 ShadowDrgn wrote:
I learned how to type dvorak in college, but it's a pain in the ass having to remap keys for games. Also, for every study showing that dvorak is more efficient, there's one showing otherwise.
you can toggle ezly in XP
approximately 1 min
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Baa?21242 Posts
You guys sound very miserable. I think I'll stick with my QWERTY and my 130 WPM. Woo.
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I practiced with "the quick brown fox...", it got me touch typing pretty quickly.
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On March 15 2009 05:25 semioldguy wrote:
I'll take any workout I can get... can we try to find the least efficient keyboard layout for typing to maximize the amount of workout I get while hardly doing anything strenuous?
I might be on board to try that.
Sounds like a good way to develop arthritis. Thats my main concern.
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Qwerty is the most horrible keyboard layout ever, but it's everywhere, so it has that going for it. Colemak is a decent layout, but you have to learn it first. Fortunately, it leaves many qwerty keys right where they were, so you don't have to completely screw over you muscle memory.
Dvorak is better than qwerty, but still horrible, and it's not standard, too. So basically, dvorak is kinda useless.
To me switching from qwerty to dvorak instead of colemak is akin to switching from windows to mac.
Windows is a crap OS and the only thing it has going for it is that it is everywhere, and most software is developed for windows. Linux is a decent OS but sometimes you can't run your windows software on it.
Mac is better than windows, but still horrible, and you can also not run your windows software on it, so it's practically useless. Just like dvorak.
On March 15 2009 06:55 paper wrote:
it's not like dvorak is replacing your knowledge of the qwerty keyboard rofl
Actually, yeah it does. The first few months of typing in colemak, I was completely unable to use qwerty. After becoming decently fast in colemak, I relearned qwerty, and I can now type comfortably in both layouts. I'm still not quite as fast in qwerty as I used to be, but I am now faster in colemak than I ever was in qwerty, so that's ok.
I tried to learn another layout, on top of qwerty and colemak, but it was impossible to be fast in all three, so I gave up. Nearly every key was different from qwerty and colemak and the more keys are different the harder it is for the layout to coexist among others in your brain. Qwerty and colemak are fortunately fairly similar.
On a side note, obviously you will still play starcraft in qwerty, there is no advantage to relearn all the hotkeys in starcraft for colemak, only to be screwed over when you have to use somebody else's PC.
Try out colemak
http://blite.iki.fi/lab/alternative-keyboard-layouts/colemak
Or dvorak:
http://blite.iki.fi/lab/alternative-keyboard-layouts/dvorak
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Am I the only one who thought of the composer? -_-
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maybe i'll try switching this summer. i have too many papers to write right now to get used to this =(
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On March 15 2009 08:26 Wala.Revolution wrote:
Am I the only one who thought of the composer? -_-
actually i was expecting a youtube link of one of his symphonies 
<3 From the new world
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On March 15 2009 07:26 intrigue wrote:Show nested quote +On March 15 2009 07:23 ShadowDrgn wrote:
I learned how to type dvorak in college, but it's a pain in the ass having to remap keys for games. Also, for every study showing that dvorak is more efficient, there's one showing otherwise. you can toggle ezly in XP
What if you want to type messages in game? You'll either have to do it in qwerty or switch layouts, type, and switch back. I learned on a keyboard that actually had a button to switch between qwerty/dvorak and gaming was still too much of a hassle to bother with it.
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i really like how the qwerty has S and D right next to eachother
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Baa?21242 Posts
On March 15 2009 08:26 Wala.Revolution wrote:
Am I the only one who thought of the composer? -_-
Top post on page 2.
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On March 15 2009 07:28 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
You guys sound very miserable. I think I'll stick with my QWERTY and my 130 WPM. Woo.
This is basically my attitude as well except I'm slightly less at 120 wpm
However nothing wrong with typing faster, I would switch if I was able to switch every computer I would use at school to dvorak
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I had to learn Dvorak when I was 12 because that is the only keyboard my family had when I went to Russia for the summer ); I didn't really see an improvement in typing speed overall, although my hand muscle use was completely different it felt weird.
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Actually I'm gonna give this dvorak layout a try, hopefully I'll be able to type quickly in both layouts in the end.
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dvorak's brother was a famous composer.
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Northern Ireland22208 Posts
Qwerty till I die. Is this really that much better?
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i tried switching
in the end i decided it was a waste of time, the so-called "gains" are questionable at best.
plus qwerty isn't that bad anyway, look at it. etaoin shrdlu are in the top 2 rows, and rare keys like qzxvb are in the hard to reach places. the punctuation layout is questionable of course, but in general qwerty seems to scale fine to other languages as well (in my experience) dvorak, as outlined above, is optimized for english, and english only, the so-called 'optimization' disappears when other languages come into play. there exist different version of it for other languages of course, but is another keyboard layout what you need?
anyway i don't really care if i start typing 140wpm instead of 130. after several days of typing at like 50wpm i was ready to gouge my eyes out. FWIW, i learned to touchtype dvorak "properly", with proper key/finger etc (unlike my qwerty which is like on-the-fly lol), and it did feel like the fingers are barely moving, or maybe that's because i couldn't type that fast.
anyway dvorak fails with placement of the 'i' key. swap 'i' and 'u' and you'll have yourself insta improvement. seriously, 'u'?
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Baa?21242 Posts
On March 15 2009 10:13 simfarm wrote:
dvorak's brother was a famous composer.
August and Antonin were, IIRC, only distantly related. Not brothers.
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I've already spent too much time on qwerty =/...and unless dvorak becomes more comman than qwert, I'll probably stick to it.
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On March 15 2009 15:50 Llamaz wrote:
I've already spent too much time on qwerty =/...and unless dvorak becomes more comman than qwert, I'll probably stick to it.
that's terrible reasoning
.5 minute
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I learnt how to type with dvorak a while back and the biggest problem for me was using computers that didn't have dvorak. I recall getting pretty familiar with it and being able to hit 70+ WPM, but whenever I used a computer that wasn't mine, I would automatically start typing in dvorak. It's kind of messy to constantly switch back and forth between qwerty and dvorak and by the end, I didn't think it was worth the headache. Another big issue I had problems with was the fact that if possible, I avoid using my mouse. That means for windows functions, I have all the windows shortcuts memorized; and for browsing, I customize my opera to convenient keys. Most shortcuts that are created for programs are built around hand positions convenient for people using qwerty keyboards. If you aren't using a program where you can customize your hotkeys, you end up having to stretch your hands in weird positions to use the shortcuts.
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On March 15 2009 06:47 Exteray wrote:
Yep ive heard of this. My friend uses and he once tried to convince me. I do believe it drastically improves typing speed but out of habit I'm too lazy to change. Plus i think if u use someone else's computer or at the library's computers u can't really use this layout anymore.
When I switched, it took me a few weeks to use dvorak well, then I lost my qwerty knowledge.
necessity (starcraft) forced me to relearn a good amount of it so now I can type decently even with qwerty.
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I don't see how this is beneficial at all. Most of time when i'm typing, what makes me slower is the when i have to pause and think or check what i've just typed.
It's only good when you are typing something that you've written and you just want to type it out.
How often does that happen?
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I still know some dudes from high school and work who type with 2 fingers lol.
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On March 15 2009 22:09 haduken wrote:
I still know some dudes from high school and work who type with 2 fingers lol.
Me too
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Hmm don't think I'm gonna bother with this dvorak shenanigans, seems the potential gains are small for a lot of effort and as haduken said you're probably going to be pausing and rereading or whatever anyway. Plus I'm not sure it can be THAT much faster as it doesn't take long at all for your fingers to cross the keyboard.
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United States22883 Posts
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
i am fairly adept at this now
15s
maybe i'm just a masochist but this is very fun.
25s
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
It's a bit like learning a foreign language. Interesting but not particularly useful (unless you travel to where you need to know the language).
Unless you do data entry or something as a job, it's probably not worth screwing up your qwerty muscle memory to learn it for the minimal gain in efficiency. Considering we spend most of our time on a pc not actually typing anyway.
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United States22883 Posts
On March 16 2009 08:59 intrigue wrote:
i am fairly adept at this now
15s
maybe i'm just a masochist but this is very fun.
25s
Honestly, if I could buy a keyboard with it I'd give it a go, but I'm too lazy for those stickers.
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I'm currently trying out colemak, which seems like a much easier transition from qwerty, because many of the keys stay in the same place, ie. a, q, w, z, x, c, v, b, ... However, I am finding that choice of keys in the home row to be much better. t, r, e, n, make a lot of words easier to type.
So far, I've gotten to about 30 wpm with colemak, while unfortunately my QWERTY has gone from 95 to 80. It is a little frustrating at first, but I had a few good tools for learning colemak, which I'm sure can be used by any one looking into Dvorack as well.
1. Typefaster - a program that has 12 lessons for easy step by step learning of whatever keyboard you're trying to learn. I think the lessons you have to find separately. I found mine: here
2. typing test - the test has a large database of quotes and phrases from I have no idea where, but some are fun to read/type and keeps practice from being monotonuous.
To anyone trying out colemak/dvorak, I would go through all the lessons first, do the common words lesson a few times, and when you feel comfortable, go through with the typing test.
Good luck.
PS. typed this out in QWERTY, colemak seemed to daunting
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gl. that shit would drive me insane
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EPT![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/KB_United_States_Dvorak.svg/400px-KB_United_States_Dvorak.svg.png)
