New Keyboard layout

[michel123456]

©

 

In a day of boredom, I had this thought that a conventional keyboard was such a mess.

 

So I decided to make a new layout.

 

The characteristics are the following:

1.The keyboard is symmetrical, the spacebar is in the middle of the length, 4 keys away from the left, and 4 keys away from the right.

2. the letters are in alphabetical order

3. the alphabet is composed in 3 lines of 9 letters with last the ?

4. the letters are in the center of the layout.

5. the numbers 123456789 are above the letters abcdefghi

6. The zero is placed before the number 1 (as in the number line) and not after number 9

7. the F1 key is above the number 1, the F2 above the 2, a.s.o.

8. the escape key (one of the most important!) is larger

9. the < is on the left side, and the > on the right side.

10. the keys are ordered along a rectangular grid, and not messed up as in a conventional keyboard.

 

Applause.

 

Below a conventional layout for comparison.

 

 

Edited January 20, 2017 by michel123456

[imatfaal]

I am not sure if it is an urban myth or not - but I remember being told that the present layout was designed to slow down typists who were over stressing their early typewriters (Olivetti?)

 

When I was a student I supported my habits with audiotyping - I was up at around 90 wpm and some of the old hands were way faster than that (they had machines that sped up the dictation to keep up with their typing) . Frankly, a few months practice and anyone can be fast enough on a qwerty keyboard to avoid any real problems - and the trouble to change would be monumental

 

Court Stenographers can be seriously fast - but they do not use standard keyboards. Dvojak keyboards are/tend to be faster for typing - and some of the two-sided jobbies (you hold the keyboard and all 10 digits are permanently resting on keys) are meant to be the fastest.

[Strange]

One problem would be retraining all the people who have learned to touch type.

 

Also a grid layout is probably not the most ergonomic - really only suited for single finger typists. If you look at keyboards that have been designed based on research, they have sloping keys laid out in curved rows.

 

As for the order of letters, I think there is some truth in imatfaal's comment. But I think it was more to stop the keybars (the bits with the letters on) from getting tangled by arranging them so the ones that might be used close together (in time) further part so they had more room to move past one another.

 

I believe there are still ergonomic benefits to having the more frequently used letters closer to the "home" keys. So I don't think an alphabetic layout would work either.

 

BTW when I worked as lab technician, one of the other lab techs came up with the same idea. He wanted to keep it secret (he thought he was being spied on and his flat was bugged) but enlisted me to help with the electronics and software.

[StringJunky]

I am not sure if it is an urban myth or not - but I remember being told that the present layout was designed to slow down typists who were over stressing their early typewriters (Olivetti?)

It goes back further than that with the typewriters with ribbons and long mechanical arms. If you pressed certain letters in sequence too fast they had a tendency to get caught next to each other and then stuck.

idealkeyboard4-text.jpg©

 

In a day of boredom, I had this thought that a conventional keyboard was such a mess.

 

So I decided to make a new layout.

 

The characteristics are the following:

1.The keyboard is symmetrical, the spacebar is in the middle of the length, 4 keys away from the left, and 4 keys away from the right.

2. the letters are in alphabetical order

3. the alphabet is composed in 3 lines of 9 letters with last the ?

4. the letters are in the center of the layout.

5. the numbers 123456789 are above the letters abcdefghi

6. The zero is placed before the number 1 (as in the number line) and not after number 9

7. the F1 key is above the number 1, the F2 above the 2, a.s.o.

8. the escape key (one of the most important!) is larger

9. the < is on the left side, and the > on the right side.

10. the keys are ordered along a rectangular grid, and not messed up as in a conventional keyboard.

 

Applause.

 

Below a conventional layout for comparison.

 

 

conventional-keyboard.jpg

Kudos to you for your sense of invention. Nothing like redesigning something when you're bored. I've just remodded my brand new strimmer and buggered the guarantee.

Edited January 20, 2017 by StringJunky

[Strange]

There are some good ideas in this, such as aligning the Fn keys with the corresponding numbers (which they are on the keyboard I am currently using).

 

Making the Esc key bigger is good (although you don't want to hit it by accident!). You could also get rid of the (utterly pointless and very annoying) Caps Lock.

[Juno]

Making the Esc key bigger is good (although you don't want to hit it by accident!). You could also get rid of the (utterly pointless and very annoying) Caps Lock.

I use the Caps Lock...

[Strange]

I use the Caps Lock...

 

 

So its your fault. Just because of you, we all have to put up with it!

[michel123456]

It goes back further than that with the typewriters with ribbons and long mechanical arms. If you pressed certain letters in sequence too fast they had a tendency to get caught next to each other and then stuck.

Kudos to you for your sense of invention. Nothing like redesigning something when you're bored. I've just remodded my brand new strimmer and buggered the guarantee.

Yes I believe it comes a lot from the old mechanical typewriters.

 

The vertical misalignment is caused by the metallic arms of the letters. It has no ergonomic function.

The shuffle of the letters in the keyboard is a response to the letters being stuck together when typed too fast, as StringJunky wrote. Again there is no ergonomic reason.

 

Also I remind the keyboard of old mobile phones, where number 2 corresponded to letters abc, number 3 was letters def, etc.

It was alphabetic and people get used to it immediately (except me).

Edited January 20, 2017 by michel123456

[StringJunky]

... You could also get rid of the (utterly pointless and very annoying) Caps Lock.

There's a killcapslock .reg file in the folder from this link: http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/gg/KeyboardMappings.zip.

[Mordred]

I don't know if this has been mentioned. However years ago (rather not get into hiw many lol) I recall one thing my typing instructor mentioned.

 

One of the reasons for the current layout of letters themselves is that certain letters are more frequently used than others.

 

Those letters such as vowels were placed in more easily used locations. This was reason given as to why the letters were not in alphabetical order.

Edited January 20, 2017 by Mordred

[fiveworlds]

So its your fault. Just because of you, we all have to put up with it!​

 

 

I use the caps lock too for typing constants.

[Mordred]

I should add if you wish to test your new layout one can fairly easily reprogram each key function using the keys interupt 21 address function. If you know each keys adress one can easily write a Basic program to run tests with. I haven't done this in years but have done so in the past.

 

One can get the details from the 8086 instruction set which is downloadable on the web

Edited January 20, 2017 by Mordred

[Danijel Gorupec]

Backspace? It is my favorite.

 

I also guess that Shift keys are too far away.

 

But I liked your attempt anyway.

[Juno]

 

 

So its your fault. Just because of you, we all have to put up with it!

 

I do wonder how long it would take to retrain oneself on a new layout like that - there may or may not be ergonomic advantages to the current layout, but my fingers sure are used to knowing exactly where the keys are. I suspect my 100wpm would go downhill for a good while.

[michel123456]

 

I do wonder how long it would take to retrain oneself on a new layout like that - there may or may not be ergonomic advantages to the current layout, but my fingers sure are used to knowing exactly where the keys are. I suspect my 100wpm would go downhill for a good while.

Think about people who use 2 or more alphabets (like Greek, Russian, Japanese), when they switch language, they also switch keyboard. It is not that difficult to switch from one to another. I guess your "good while" would be a week or less.

Human is very adaptive. When you drive another car, you adapt in a few minutes.

And how did people get used to the cell phone keyboard, where number 2 is the key for 3 letters?

Anyway, the most disturbing thing in a conventional keyboard is the vertical misalignment. Very bad. No Architect would have done such a design.

 

Here we can see the reason for the misalignment.

Edited January 21, 2017 by michel123456

[Strange]

Anyway, the most disturbing thing in a conventional keyboard is the vertical misalignment. Very bad.

 

 

Is there any evidence that this is bad? There has been a vast amount of research on the comfort and productivity of keyboard layouts.

[Sensei]

michel123456, do you know that 3D FPP game players won't touch it? We use WSAD!

There is also couple other issues for game players.. left ctrl must be the most left-bottom key to be easily accessible (by the smallest finger)..

It's "crouch" functionality. While crouching player has to be able to press WSAD keys at the same time.

(on your "conventional keyboard" it's also in wrong place for gamers. It must be some laptop keyboard?)

 

Left-alt and right-alt keys are widely used to enter regional characters not existing in English charset.

They must be in such places so using just one hand can hold alt and be able to pick up other key at the same time.

E key + alt key in your layout is very hard to get (especially for women and children).

Also N key + alt might be problematic.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Sensei

[michel123456]

 

 

Is there any evidence that this is bad? There has been a vast amount of research on the comfort and productivity of keyboard layouts.

It is not bad for typing. It is bad for looking at.

 

Why don't we never see something like the below? Because it is not even wrong.

There is no reason to this misalignment.

[Mordred]

Sure there is, finger movement vs comfort studies I Don't know the study layout for the numeric but the alphabet portion follows QWERTY studies.

 

http://www.userlab.com/Downloads/QWERTY.PDF

 

However here is a pertinant numerical keyboard study

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwiDwK7TlNbRAhVN8WMKHdoGAmE4ChAWCCcwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcommons.erau.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1173%26context%3Ddb-theses&usg=AFQjCNFAbzilCYGGr66RVJf1SP_3-AKSHg&sig2=XTBYvnzw9dpwarZejqB9BA

Edited January 22, 2017 by Mordred

[Thorham]

Would not use, because there's no point in relearning.

[michel123456]

Sure there is, finger movement vs comfort studies I Don't know the study layout for the numeric but the alphabet portion follows QWERTY studies.

 

http://www.userlab.com/Downloads/QWERTY.PDF

It says exactly what I say: (from your link)

100 years ago, typewriters became a status symbol for senior executives. But, they had a habit of jamming when

typists became proficient. In 1873, a man named Christopher Latham Sholes solved the jamming problem by re-

arranging the keyboard layout to minimize jamming.

 

There is not such a jamming problem any more.

 

 

However here is a pertinant numerical keyboard study

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwiDwK7TlNbRAhVN8WMKHdoGAmE4ChAWCCcwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcommons.erau.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1173%26context%3Ddb-theses&usg=AFQjCNFAbzilCYGGr66RVJf1SP_3-AKSHg&sig2=XTBYvnzw9dpwarZejqB9BA

The study should have involved a layout like this:

 

It is shuffled like the Qwerty, that is to mean that no number has its original position. Isn't that completely mad? Why would anyone do that? Why would anyone use the QWERTY instead of the alphabet?

Or to put it otherwise: why do you teach the alphabet at school when you will use the QWERTY all over your life?

AND

Why the hell would you lose the vertical alignment?

Edited January 22, 2017 by michel123456

[Mordred]

I'm no expert on typing so quite frankly the wrong person to ask. I simply point out it comes down to studied efficiency and there studies of maximizing the efficiency in keyboard layouts. QWERTY isn't the only layout just one of the more commonly used

[Juno]

And how did people get used to the cell phone keyboard, where number 2 is the key for 3 letters?

Have you ever come across someone that can type at 100wpm on a cell phone? I certainly can't type anywhere near as fast on a phone as I can on a keyboard.

[DrP]

Michael - I think you might be OCD! lol.

 

 

I also thought that the layout was to make typing easier (rather than to slow people down - that's a new one on me) by putting useful things like the G and the H together and things like that.

[Strange]

Just came across this article.

https://daily.jstor.org/the-qwerty-truth/

 

It says there were two key events in the development of the current layout:

 

1. Remington put all the keys needed for a salesman to spell out the product name (Type Writer) on the top row.

 

2. When people started learning to touch type, they went to courses run by ... Remington