Word: keyboard
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...encouraged to see in your story about designing a new keyboard [Jan. 26] that at last there may be a typewriter that makes sense. I have always had a sneaking suspicion that the inventor of the QWERTY system had a good laugh at the prank he perpetrated on the world...
...fascinating." Cage's elimination of harmony in his compositions, as well as his use of silence, gives his music an unusual twist. One of his most famous compositions, "4'33," is a piano piece during which the pianist merely sits in front of the piano, raising and lowering the keyboard cover three times to distinguish the three "movements...
...there the typewriter has stayed, with an all but total disregard for the way hands and people are put together. The keyboard favors southpaws by placing most frequently used letters on the left. Thumbs are underused; weak, and less supple, little fingers must shift from upper to lower case. In a day's work, a good typist's fingertips travel twelve to 20 miles...
Nearly half a century ago, August Dvorak, a professor of statistics at the University of Washington, introduced his Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, which groups and centralizes commonly used letters. Typists who mastered it increased their speed, but it never caught on. Dvorak once mused: "If a man makes a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to his door, but Emerson didn't say how long it would take." It took too long for Dvorak: he died...
...most promising new keyboard is the Maltron, invented by the British team of Lillian Malt, a keyboard training consultant, and Electronics Engineer Stephen Hobday. The Maltron makes letters easier to hit by tilting the keyboard toward normal hand and body positions. More important, it saves time and motion by dividing keys into more efficient groups: 91% of the most often used letters are on the Maltron "home row," where fingertips are normally placed in touch typing, vs. 51% for the QWERTY. Under the Maltron system, hands rarely have to "hurdle" (i.e., jump upward or sideways so fingers can strike keys...