jammed arms

jammed arms

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http://www.thealphastate.co.uk/blog/index.php?/archives/21-qwerty.html
qwerty - transatlantic

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qwerty

03:03

Friday, May 4. 2007
"I'm gonna get myself, I'm gonna get myself, I'm gonna get myself connected" - Stereo MCs.

I've joined the Verizon wireless party. It's not as happening as you might think. The only hot girls who text me are the ones who respond when I text "RIMJOB" to 99420. That's not the point. This is: I now have a Palm Treo 700p.

This device is amazing. I'm finally able to trash the phone/Palm/iPod combination in favor of one 'smartphone.' It does everything. Everything, everything. I'm confused about one feature though. The keypad interface.

Unlike the old Palm devices, this one doesn't have a stylus-based character input. Instead, it has a keypad that looks like miniature version of what you'd find on your average PC. The buttons have a rounded crown and are quick and easy to use. Here's what confuses me: why the 'qwerty' pattern?


[ figure 1 ] Palm Treo 700p.

Qwerty is the layout of your average PC keyboard. This particular placement of the keys is designed for one purpose: limit the speed at which a user can type. You see, back in the days of the typewriter, problems arose when a typist could type fast enough that the typewriter's hammers collided with one another along their arcs. Enter the QWERTY pattern. By placing the keys in an utterly retarded pattern it slowed the human typist. Not only that, it kept the commonly used hammers out of each other's way.

Keep in mind, this was all back when typewriters had mechanical linkages. Now, when you press a key on your keyboard an electrical impulse is sent to a buffer. Type as fast as you want, modern computers have large enough buffers to process whatever you type, as fast as you can humanly type it. But that's typing on a full-size keyboard. The Treo's keypad is no more than 2.5 inches wide. The miniature size of the keypad doesn't allow for typing, more like 'pecking.'

So, why don't we develop a new keypad arrangement? One that allows people to type (peck) faster than with a qwerty pattern. You know? A layout that would be the most logical one possible assuming that the user was cradling the device in both hands and typing (pecking) with only his/her two thumbs. Qwerty is recognizeable to everyone and in that way it's a selling point, but it's purely asthetic here since you can't type with all of your fingers anyway: they get jammed up like a typewriter's keys. And thus, the typewriter gets the last laugh.
Posted by tj in [thealphastate] | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

the typewriter's hammers collided with one another along their arcs.

http://www.explainthatstuff.com/typewriter.html
How typewriters work: A simple introduction from Explain that Stuff!
If you've ever typed quickly on a mechanical typewriter, you'll know the reason: the type hammers move up and down so quickly that they can collide and jam together. Then you have to reach into the guts of the machine to disentangle them, getting ink and oil all over yourself in the process. To reduce the risk of that happening, the designer of the first popular typewriter, Christopher Latham Sholes (1819-1890), rearranged the keyboard so letters often-used were spaced widely apart.

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5626429/description.html
Keyboard arrangement to maximize one-handed typing speed and training for engineering and architectural computer assisted drawing and design or disabled typists - US Patent 5626429

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=collided+hammers+OR+typefacetypewriter&btnG=Search
collided hammers OR typeface typewriter - Google Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=collided+hammers+OR+typeface+typewriter&btnG=Search
collided hammers OR typeface typewriter - Google Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=collided+OR+%22jumm+together%22+%22type+hammers%22+OR+typeface+typewriter&btnG=Search
collided OR "jumm together" "type hammers" OR typeface typewriter - Google Search