Bruce Toback <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 | Hi all,
 |
 | Given the small resurgence of interest in the Dvorak keyboard layout, I
 | thought this might be of interest. An article in the current issue of
 | _The Economist_ debunks the theory that the Dvorak keyboard is superior
 | to the QWERTY layout, and describes how the myth got started. The article
 | is available at

I wrote an applet that compares the two keyboards.  What makes it
special is that YOU provide the text.  You can see how using dvorak
benefits you, personally, on text you've written.

http://www.acm.vt.edu/~jmaxwell/dvorak/compare.html

It shows distance, % of keys on the rows, % of keys for each finger,
and some other stats.  The source code is available so you can modify
it for other keyboards and other statistics, or just look for bugs.

Results on normal text are very similar to the studies showing real
benefits over qwerty.  Try it and give me feedback on it!

Jam (address rot13 encoded)

 | <http://www.economist.com/1eTJKq7V/editorial/freeforall/current/index_fn774
 | 5.html>
 |
 | There's also a much more detailed article at
 |
 |    <http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html>
 |
 | that's part of the source material for the _Economist_ article.
 |
 | -- Bruce