Re: Inexpensive Extended Keyboards for GS

[nathan@cco.caltech.edu (Nathan Mates)]

In article <5660kR6.wdphoenix@delphi.com>,
Leslie M. Barstow III  <wdphoenix@delphi.com> wrote:
>Jawaid Bazyar <bazyar@netcom.com> writes:
 
>>tolerate that key layout. You're going to have a very hard time
>>finding keyboards with Control in the right place.
 
>Or finding Escape in the right position, or '|', or '~', or getting one
>without a wierd-shaped return key, or small spacebar...

   For quite a while, I preferred the control to the left of 'A', since
that was how things were on the ][+ and //e. (Though, the IBM Selectric
did have caps left of the A). Then, my frosh year at Caltech, I dealt
with at least 5 major styles of keyboards, all different. 

   The DEC VT220 keyboard was the worst; it had < and > on one key
just left of 'Z', one shifted, the other unshifted. (And
shift-. generated just '.', annoyingly enough). The IBM Portable
Personal Computer had ~ right under ], where part of the return key
should be. Apple keyboards have raised bumps on d & k; IBMs have them on
d and j.

   Sometime last year, all the keyboards I used gravitated towards one
style... I got an Apple Extended Keyboard II (the desk-eater), which
has almost exactly the same layout as the keyboard I use on the
Silicon Graphics Indigo2 at work. The keyboard on the Compaq 486's and
386's that I use are also very similar... Compaqs have | right of
backspace; Apple/SGI have it right of ].

   Yes, this meant switching from control being near A to below
shift, but as long as everything I normally use works the same, I'm
happy. Sun keyboards with capslock below shift are actually getting
annoying to me; lots of strange capital letters in my Emacs windows
(especially XS, XF, A, E, etc.) have to be hunted down and killed.


>Why did they have to give up the standard key-positioning which has
>dominated the computer market for so long?  Keyboard individuality sucks
>when its done for its own sake like so many are today.

   'Standard' positioning? I've seen lots of older (late 70s) stuff
with more variation in keyboard styles than anything you can find
today (with the exception of notebooks and other things pressed for
space).  Putting caps lock left of the A was probably done to appease
all the secretaries who were used to that from older typewriters.
(Those did come first, you know... We were spoiled by CS types who
thought all uppercase was just fine, so they could stuff a control
key where capslock used to be)

   There's no excuse for putting keys like ~ out in the middle of
nowhere (NeXT has it where 'numlock' or 'clear' should be on the
numeric keypad.  Darn annoying), <> left of Z, and a host of other
problems. But, the standard is quickly gravitating towards the
generalized style I'm used to, so I'm happy . To each his own, and try
before you buy.

Nathan "When I was young, we didn't have keyboards. We sat in a meat
locker and rubbed our hands together to warm up the wires and vary
their resistance ;)" Mates
-- 
* Nathan Mates   http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/               *
* Ftp humor archiver: ftp to cco.caltech.edu, look in pub/humor     *
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