Now, I cannot remember having much of ANY theory about keyboards before I
read Papert's Mindstorms back in 85, because that was when my life
trajectory brought me both into keyboarding and reading acadedemic stuff.
Papert writes (on his way to a bit of BASIC-bashing): "The top row of
alphabetic keys of the standard typewriter reads QUERTY. For me this
symbolizes the way in which technology can all too often serve not as a
force for progress but for keeping things stuck. The QUERTY arrangement has
no rational explanation, only a historical one. It was introduced in
response to a problem in the early days of the typewriter: The keys used to
jam. The idea was to minimize the collision problem by separating those
keys that followed one another frequently. Just a few years later, general
improvments in the technology removed tha jamming problem, but QWERTY
stuck." I have a feeling that similar QUERTY-bashing is a commonplace in
more popular computer literature, although I cannot remember having
actually read the Dvorak story before.
Of course, as a commonplace QUERTY-bashing can be appropriated by anybody
who cares to use it. The stone in my shoe is rather the disciplining of the
reader: either you see things the way the book does, or you are misguided.
??
Eva