Re: Qwerty and Dvorak touch-typing.

["P Ferreira" ferreira@xxxxxxxx]

Michael,

Well, I must admit that on those (rare) occasions I'm forced to use Qwerty
(almost always on a standard typewriter) I revert to hunt-and-peck. My
Qwerty touch-typing skills are completely gone.

As for my friend, she regularly typed on both keyboards--Qwerty at work,
Dvorak at home. And, from what she told me, she had no problem moving from
one to the other. (She learned Dvorak because she was into "speed-typing"
and actually went to competitions of some sort.)

Yes, it is a Qwerty-world. And there is little hope that Dvorak will ever
make much of a dent in it. What I meant by my comment, though, was that it
is easy to implement Dvorak. My wife and I share a computer at home. I
keep an icon on my status bar that let's my wife switch to Qwerty whenever
she's at the machine. And setting up DOS to run with Qwerty is, again,
simplicity itself. Microsoft still posts the files (at least they were
there the last time I looked). And there are other DOS conversion utilities
if you want to avoid Microsoft. When I travel and I know that I'm going to
have to spend a good deal of time at someone else's computer I take a
diskette with me that has both windows and DOS Dvorak layouts. I have, now
on a number of occasions, simply installed these files on the computer I'm
using; when I have finished my work I simply delete them (at least the DOS
files). This has never been a big deal; and whatever inconvenience it has
caused has certainly been offset by the benefits of Dvorak.

For years, I used a conversion utility by Seasoned Systems out of Chapel
Hill N.C. They also had an excellent Dvorak typing tutor.  A very basic
tutor; but it did the job. (I don't think Seasoned Systems is still in
business. And given the antiquity of this program I don't think anyone
would mind if I passed a copy along to you-- that is, if I can find it.) I
have heard that the Mavis Beacon typing program can also be used to learn
Dvorak. However, I've never investigated this.

There was also a computer book I once owned that was devoted entirely to the
Dvorak keyboard. It was in this book that I first learned about Seasoned
Systems as well as the company in Hawaii that sold Selectric conversion kits
etc.

There is information out there if you're willing to look.

Phil Ferreira


-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Edwards 
To: XY-Write 
Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 6:59 PM
Subject: Re: Qwerty and Dvorak touch-typing.


>                         Michael Edwards.
>
>----------------------------------------
>[Phil Ferreira:]
>
>>I gave up Qwerty for Dvorak in 1983 and I've never looked back. I wasn't
>>much of a Qwerty typist. So it made no sense for me to try to maintain
those
>>old skills.
>----------------------------------------
>
>   Well, maybe old - but surely hardly obsolete? Just about every
keyboard in
>the world is qwerty, and I see no evidence of the Dvorak making even a
slight
>dent in that. If anything, the Dvorak has retreated from the very slight
>presence it once had.
>   I do know that the science-fiction writer Piers Anthony uses it - but
for
>the most part I thought it was as dead as the dodo.
>   Do you ever have to type on any keyboard other than your own Dvorak
one?
>Do you find you can still do it well?
>
>----------------------------------------
>>However, I did know a woman who remained highly proficient on
>>Qwerty even after she took up Dvorak.
>----------------------------------------
>
>   And she got good at Dvorak too, did she? She had *both* skills
>simultaneously?
>
>----------------------------------------
>>I think that you may overestimate the need for Qwerty once you switch.
>----------------------------------------
>
>   I don't see how you arrive at this: as I said, just about every
keyboard is
>qwerty. I don't think that's going to change in a hurry. In fact, I would
>expect it to change only when keyboards themselves die out because everyone
is
>*talking* to their computers - something I'm not sure I personally could
feel
>easy with (as a person who refuses to speak to answering machines).
>
>----------------------------------------
>>Every system running windows can be easily made to run Dvorak. (It's in
the
>>"properties" section of the standard US keyboard.
>----------------------------------------
>
>   I'm not anxious to increase my dependence on Windows any more than I
have
>to. I still use DOS programs, and plan to keep doing so, and in fact I'm
even
>thinking about trying to obtain a good 486 laptop if I can find one
(probably
>second-hand) which can run exclusively on DOS, because I'm not in the
slightest
>happy with the way my current Windows laptop tries to run DOS programs.
>
>----------------------------------------
>>You'll need to download
>>some files from Microsoft to enable Dvorak with DOS, though.)
>----------------------------------------
>
>   They still have that, do they? I thought they'd dropped everything to
do
>with DOS.
>   However, I'm a bit wary of anything that adds layers of complexity to
a
>computer, because it seems to me it must make it less reliable. If to do
this I
>have to have extra things going, memory-resident programs, and so on, that
would
>be a bit of a turn-off.
>
>----------------------------------------
>>And if you
>>need to type on a standard typewriter...
>----------------------------------------
>
>   Not a factor I have to consider.
>
>----------------------------------------
>>You should also realize that in addition to greater speed there is less
>>fatigue. Besides typing much faster, I can type for longer periods of
time.
>>Since the hands move much less with the Dvorak keyboard, you should be
more
>>relaxed when you type. And Xywrite can, of course, easily load a
customized
>>Dvorak keyboard.
>----------------------------------------
>
>   Well, that certainly is attractive. I've been using an old dinosaur
called
>MultiMate for over a decade, for no reason other than that was the first
>computer program I was introduced to by a friend, and I've stuck with it
because
>I could never decide what program to change to, and I wanted to choose
right,
>and change only once, because of all the bother that would be involved in
>converting perhaps a few thousand MultiMate files.
>   I've almost decided to get XY-Write (although I might still be a while
>actually getting it), because I've heard various things that make me think
it
>must be very good, and close to my idea of what a good computer program is
(an
>extreme rarity in the Windows world, it seems to me).
>   Anyway, thanks, Phil.
>
>             Regards,
>             Michael Edwards.
>
>
>