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November 15, 2007
Memories of the Future of Technology
Way back when in April of 1985, Apple released the Apple IIc. In May of that year, I received one for my birthday (with an Apple StyleWriter II, I think -- the dang thing was a 5-ton dot matrix behemoth, but it printed papers for me for years), and became the first kid on my block to have a real computer. (I know, I'm a snob for not counting the Commodore 64 or TRS-80 as real computers, even though I had used both of them before.)
Anyway, it was that computer that set me on the path that has brought me here today. Creepy. But it was a great little machine, and I loved it.
It also had this awesome little button on the top of it that would switch the keyboard from QWERTY to DVORAK. That was confusing, but awesome.
I learned to type between Thanksgiving and Christmas of that year, because my family had purchased the computer on the condition that I would enter my father's patient billing info from his pediatric practice into a database in the computer by Christmas. (Child labor, much?) Well, when Thanksgiving arrived and I hadn't even started on the thousands of records yet, I was informed that there would be hell to pay if the project wasn't completed on time. (Remember, I was also in school at the time...)
So I began to type. Or hunt-and-peck, rather. A lot. And I got pretty good at it. I'm still a pretty fast typist (around 50-60 words per minute), but my "touch-typing" skills suck. They suck hard. I've tried to teach myself to touch type, using books and Mavis Beacon's eponymous typing program. No go.
Then BoingBoing linked to this great little comic about the DVORAK keyboard, and I was intrigued.
I'm incredibly jealous that The Spouse is a wonderful touch typist with blazing fast speeds and no errors, and he doesn't have to look at his hands... but until now I've pretty much just accepted that he's always going to be better than me at typing. But the DVORAK guys say that DVORAK is easier and faster to learn than QWERTY touch typing, and that it's easier for QWERTY people to learn DVORAK than vice versa, and that it cuts down on Carpal-Tunnel and other repetitive stress injuries.
And so the DVORAK layout of my first ever computer keyboard will be making a return in my life next semester. I'm on research leave to get my book finished and bought by a publisher. During this time, I'm going to use an external keyboard (so I can pop the keys off and move them to their new DVORAK homes) and a laptop stand (which will help with my neck and back pain from using a screen that's too low for me), and I'm going to give it a try. It's easy to tell MacOS to use DVORAK. We'll see if the zine guys are telling the truth about how easy it will be to tell RichardOS to use it, too.
Posted by reparent at November 15, 2007 6:10 PM
Comments
I just started my Dvorak training - glad to hear you're doing it too!
Posted by: justin ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://reparent.blog.uvm.edu/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 22, 2007 2:27 AM
I never knew they had dvorak on them?!
In my case I was happy that the company which I started my apprenticeship with 'forced' me to go into a learning course for typing. (In Germany you either go to university with my kind of school degree or you do a ~3 year apprenticeship for most applied jobs etc).
I was already on the "i can type fast in 2 finger" thing, so i am very happy they forced me to do so. It was complicated again to learn to type fast in english (not my native language) and to learn to type correctly in capital and lower letters.
In sum I learned typing 4 times - but I do not plan of adding Dvorak to the list. ;))
Good luck with your tries, but one question - have you tried speach recognition? this might be easier than typing if you are not used to it. The current Dragon natural speaking really has a good way of hitting on the words - if you do not speak with a small accent like myself. ;)
Posted by: Nicole Simon at November 22, 2007 6:56 PM