Keyboard Layout: Dvorak vs Colemak: is it Worthwhile to Improve the Dvorak Layout?

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 8:29 AM, Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2011.06.13 08:58 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> That's one of the reasons I like my laptop keyboard so much.
> I find that the terribly tiny keys on a laptop keyboard make them very
> evil. I don't see how anyone could type fast on one of them without
> making tons of errors.

> Then again, maybe I just have a tiny keyboard; you
> might have one that actually fills the space on the bottom.

There are many different designs of laptop keyboard. Tiny netbooks
seem to have the very worst, leaving it nearly impossible to get any
decent work done (there may be exceptions to that, but I've seen a lot
of bad netbook keyboards). My current laptop is an IBM T60, one of the
last of the IBMs (now they're all Lenovos); prior to him, I've had
various other 14" or 15" laptops, all with the keyboards using most of
the available room. Obviously there's no numeric keypad on a keyboard
that small (having one overlaid on the main keyboard doesn't help when
you're playing Angband), but other than that, it's a complete keyboard
with enough room for the fingers to whack the right keys.

There's also a lot of difference in travel. The smaller keyboards have
keys that move about half a nanometer, but better keyboards feel
right. The worst keyboard of all, in that sense, would have to be the
virtual laser keyboard, no longer available on ThinkGeek but seems to
be here http://www.virtual-laser-devices.com/ - it's an incredibly
cool concept, but I can't imagine actually using one long-term. Typing
on concrete is not my idea of productivity.

Chris Angelico