Re: Qwerty and Dvorak touch-typing.

["P Ferreira" ferreira@xxxxxxxx]

Michael-

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. However, I did know a woman who remained highly proficient on
Qwerty even after she took up Dvorak.

I think that you may overestimate the need for Qwerty once you switch.
Every system running windows can be easily made to run Dvorak. (It's in the
"properties" section of the standard US keyboard. You'll need to download
some files from Microsoft to enable Dvorak with DOS, though.) And if you
need to type on a standard typewriter there are -- or at least there were --
available Dvorak "balls" and "wheels" (or whatever they're called) that
immediately transform many electric typewriters.

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.

Phil Ferreira
ferreira@xxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Edwards 
To: XY-Write 
Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 5:53 PM
Subject: Qwerty and Dvorak touch-typing.


>                         Michael Edwards.
>
>   Having just spoken about the kak virus, I wonder if I could ask
something
>else here. I'm not sure if it's too off-topic or not, but I'm sure there
will
>be people here who know the answer.
>   For some years I've been thinking of learning to type on the Dvorak
>keyboard, because I've heard it can enable touch-typing up to 30% faster
than
>does the qwerty one. There's been one thing that's made me hesitate
though, and
>I seem to have been unable to find out about it, even over quite a few
years.
>It's to do with the fact that I already touch-type on the qwerty keyboard,
and I
>wonder whether, if I learn the Dvorak keyboard, I would lose the ability to
>touch-type on the qwerty one (or at least become less accurate or slower on
it),
>because my mind would tend to get the two systems confused. I would really
like
>to know if this is a real possibility before I try learning a second
system,
>only then to find out the hard way.
>   If this is a known danger of trying to learn to touch-type on two
different
>types of keyboard, I would give up the idea, because I don't want to lose
the
>ability to touch-type on the qwerty keyboard - being able to do it only on
the
>Dvorak keyboard would effectively limit my ability to efficiently use only
one
>keyboard in the world - my own. I think this limitation would (for me)
outweigh
>the advantages of typing a little faster on a Dvorak keyboard.
>   If anyone knows about this, I would be very interested to hear from
them.
>Does anyone touch-type on both keyboards? - or has anyone tried to learn
both
>and found out the hard way that it doesn't work?
>
>   Does XY-Write allow you to configure a Dvorak keyboard? (I will be
very
>surprised if I hear that it doesn't allow this.)
>
>             Regards,
>             Michael Edwards.
>
>
>