Clatter and clash.

[reddragdiva]

More on typing:

We're going to wait to teach Freda typing until she actually shows an interest. Somewhere between seven and ten. We don't want to affect her handwriting. (Others are more enthusiastic.) On the other hand, I don't want her to wait until twenty-three, like I did.

The Dvorak layout was invented for speed, but anecdotal evidence suggests it's good for RSI. If you type till your hands fall off your wrists, it may be worth the effort of learning. I'm tempted to try it.

I need a Model M again. Anyone got one spare? The old IBM PC keyboards that sound like a Gatling gun. I've tried slabs of faster writing and this Mini 9 is just too small and too slow. I need a fast typeweapon.

Comments

[oonh]

I used dvorak7min to learn how to type in dvorak.
Also, Sun type 7s are great keyboards (they may not be clicky, but they have very nice keyfeel).

I would encourage, though I am a special case, you to get Freda writing with both hands (though not everyone has the architecture for it).

[reddragdiva]

She's as completely right-handed as her mother and I are, but, more importantly, won't do anything she isn't actually interested in to the same degree as her mother and I ;-)

[bob]

obvioulsy you want a das keyboard http://www.daskeyboard.com/
if you cant find a model m.

im not parting with my model m i found in a skip.

[rbarclay]

One of the Unicomp keyboards, like http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/customizer.html, should do the same, and is cheaper.

[reddragdiva]

OH YES YES YES

Possibly when we've moved :-D

[rbarclay]

I need a Model M again. Anyone got one spare?

I'm not giving any of my spare pile away - y'never know, the two I'm actively using might have hidden defects that start showing up after just 30 years of (ab)use.

[fluffymormegil]

The one I've got has acquired some wiring/connector damage somewhere, I think. It occasionally forgets how to be a keyboard if I move it Just Wrong, and it doesn't remember again until I remove power from it completely.

[rbarclay]

Are you sure that it isn't a USB-adapters fault? Of the three PS2<->USB adapters I've got only one manages to work well and continuously for more than a week, the other either lose the odd keystroke or require weekly resets.

[fluffymormegil]

It's plugged into the PS/2 keyboard port of my motherboard. Not that I'd be that surprised if some mobo manufacturer decided to start implementing the PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports as PS/2-USB adapters :)

[nitoda]

What's your position on number pads? I love having a number pad on the right of my keyboard, though I'm told it makes mouse positioning much less ergonomically sound. I mostly use a laptop for personal stuff, and I chose a laptop with a number pad. Lots of my colleagues have opted for shorter keyboards with no number pads, but I much prefer using the number pad layout to using the number keys across the top of the keyboard, which I never really learned in touch typing class. I can enter numbers rapidly and accurately using the number pad though.

[reddragdiva]

When I was doing data entry (very like being dead, but paid a lot better), I was all for the number pad.

I don't think I've really used the number pad in fourteen years.