Last updated 2004-06-29 by Roedy
Green ©1996-2004 Canadian Mind Products
Last updated 2004-06-29 by Roedy
Green ©1996-2004 Canadian Mind Products
Java definitions: 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
You are here : home : Java Glossary : D words : DSK.
In this document I wish to convince you to try out Dvorak keyboard layout and help me convert the world away from the illogical QWERTY to the sublime DSK.
Previously, I had a Microsoft natural keyboard which I did not like, mainly because I kept accidentally hitting the Windows key which usually had catastrophic results, and because when I typed fast it often failed to register the release of Shift | Alt | Ctrl. I did the DSK purely with the standard software drivers in Windows 95 and NT. Unfortunately during logon or during BIOS tweaking, I had to revert to QWERTY.
However, now I have a Kinesis Keyboard with the DSK in the keyboard firmware, so I no longer have that problem.
& % # ! ( ) @ $ ^ * +
7 5 3 1 9 0 2 4 6 8 =
: , . P Y F G C R L "
? , . p y f g c r l /
A O E U I D H T N S ___
a o e u i d h t n s -
Shf ; Q J K X B M W V Z Shf
' q j k x b m w v z
Space
Dvorak worked for the US Navy in the days before I was born. He devised the
layout. So we got at least one Good Thing TM for those
billions we pour into the Navy.
Dvorak's original design was somewhat different from the current ANSI standard. He rearranged the numbers as well. He had one hand key odd digits and the other even. The idea was, that since the low numbered digits 0 1 2 are used more frequently, they should be near the center of the keyboard. Scientific American did an interesting article on why, even in random tables of numbers, the digits 0 and 1 occur more frequently than 8 and 9.
He also devised layouts for people with only one hand. These can also be used by people with two hands, but whose other hand is occupied in some way as they type. See the actual layouts further down in this essay.
Back in 1872, Christopher Sholes designed the original QWERTY layout to slow you down as much as possible. Old mechanical typewriters would jam if you hit two keys too rapidly in succession. It was brilliantly designed to prevent you from doing this.
However, now that we have electronic keyboards, we want to do the exact opposite. We want to make it possible to hit two keystrokes in succession as quickly as possible.
Lee Merkel used this analogy to explain it: "QWERTY on today's keyboards is like having a Maserati limited to a top speed of 40 because the early cars might break an axle over 40 on a bumpy road."
In 1934 The Andrew Carnegie Foundation gave August Dvorak (a distant cousin of the composer) two grants to design a new keyboard layout. In 1936 the new layout was ready. The US Navy ordered 4000 keyboards, then cancelled.
The theory of the Dvorak Standard Keyboard (DSK) is simple. The most commonly used keystrokes should be the ones easiest to do. The layout puts the common vowels oeui under your left fingers and the common consonants dhtns under your right. It is almost impossible to avoid touch typing.
What moose feces! Your fingers don't move in straight lines anyway, and distance of finger travel is only very loosely correlated with typing speed. What determines speed has to do with the anatomy of the human nervous and muscular systems. The only way to integrate all these complex factors is to perform experiments with real people!
If you want to get an idea of the theoretical speed improvements, have a look at Jon A. Maxwell's Java Applet. You can type into it, and it will analyse such factors as total finger motion distance, number of times in succession you have to type with the same hand, or same finger, and number of times you use which rows (home, upper, lower).
DSK was developed in the 1930s. It is well tested in speed trials against QWERTY. DSK was the winner hands down. All the speed typing records are held on DSK. However, the real advantage of DSK is not speed, it is ease! You can type like blazes all day long and your hands don't get tired and your wrists don't ache. Because of wrist pain, I could never touch type on QWERTY because it made my wrists and fingers ache after even a few minutes, though I was one of the fastest four finger typists alive. With DSK, your hands aren't forced to continually make awkward motions like some Hannon piano fingering exercise.
It is hard to find psychologically unbiased information about DSK. Here is why. It is a bit of an ordeal flipping over, and naturally people don't like to say to themselves, "I went to all this effort for almost nothing." They then will tend to exaggerate the benefits to themselves and others. The people who go through the ordeal have to be pretty highly motivated to persist. On the other hand, people who give up part way through the flipover tend to tell themselves there would have been no point in persisting. They prentend to themselves they gave the DSK layout a fair trial when they in fact did not allow sufficient time to adjust. People vary quite a bit on how long the flipover takes. You may take considerably longer than the optimistic best case estimates.
My apprentices often used to hunt and peck on my machine. I was astonished how quick they were.
You make different typos on DSK, which may puzzle people reading your text, e.g. that and than, by and my, is and in, it and in reversed. One of my most common is hthl for html. One unfortunate feature is that DSK typos tend to be other real words, so a spell checker won't catch them.
Prokey and Superkey both let you design your own keyboard layouts in DOS. DOS 3.3 has a program called KeyBdDv to set up your keyboard as DSK. Hitting Control-Alt-F1 will turn it back to QWERTY.
I wrote a free program called DVORAK.COM. It is a microscopic TSR that will remap your DOS keyboard to Dvorak. (Incidentally, by rearranging some of the tables in the MASM source code, you can get it to make any layout changes you want to your keyboard -- even those having nothing to do with Dvorak.)
DVORAK.COM can also be used for fine tuning a keyboard layout -- even QWERTY, to swap a few keys around. You can download it complete with source.
It is designed for AT and later computers, but might work on some XTs if you loaded the DOS KEYB command first:
c:\dos\keyb.com us,,c:\dos\keyboard.sys
If you want to concoct your own more complex keyboard with accented keys, dead keys, Alt-Gr etc, use ESPAN.COM as a model. It is a Spanish QWERTY keyboard driver. You can download it complete with source.
Windows and NT Driver Source is available for a Programmer's keyboard. You could tweak it to roll your own. It modifies the DSK layout to be more efficient for programmers and provides dead keys to get at the Greek characters and various interesting Unicode characters.
One task I would like to do is create a modified DSK W98 software driver for my girlfriend who has an injured baby right finger to move the heavily-used S key away from it. However, that requires buying the latest Microsoft C compiler and buying the Windows DDK subscription service.
You can rearrange keycaps on an IBM keyboard but not most other brands. Just pop them off with a screwdriver and snap them back on in their new position, being careful to center the little springs. On the IBM keyboard almost all keycaps are shaped identically so you have complete freedom to rearrange them. On most other keyboards, the keys are sculpted so that each row has a different shape.
Note that moving the keycaps has no effect on the codes generated by your keyboard. You still need software to logically rearrange the keys.
Do not pull off the space bar, or you will never get it back on properly.
Similarly never open up the back of an IBM brand keyboard. You will have a room full of little springs and Hall effect flapper plates. Only nuns who work for Mother Theresa have sufficient grace to put one back together.
You can also buy a DSK keyboard with both the keycaps and keyboard electronics rearranged so that you don't need any DSK software. This approach is nice if you work a lot with virgin machines and have to format hard disks frequently, or boot from a variety of operating systems. DSK keyboards work even before you have the machine compos mentis enough to run your DSK software, e.g. when changing CMOS settings.
Keytronic sells a Dvorak conversion kit on special order.
The Northgate Omnikey Ultra comes standard with switches to select one of four Dvorak layouts in addition to QWERTY. The optional matching keycaps cost about extra. You can get ANSI, or the original with the 75319 02468 ordering, or the left hard only, or right hand only variants. Unfortunately Northgate went bankrupt and the keyboards are no longer manufactured. You might find one in old stock at some retailer or at a swap meet. These keyboards are much more rugged than most other brands.
The Northgate 102 keyboard has only two-handed ANSI Dvorak, with no function keys across the top. This is what I used after my beloved Omnikey Ultra passed on after many years of hard pounding.
The Omnikey design is now being manufactured under the Avant name. A company called Lueck Data Systems is collecting orders for a special run of DSK keycap versions.
Prelco also sells two Dvorak keyboards retail for the 101-key model and for the 84-key model plus shipping and handling. These are modified Honeywell keyboards. They have a very soft touch. They are quieter than the Ultrakeys, but they do not give as much feedback as I'd like.
Prelco
14202 Galy Street
Tustin, CA 92680
(714) 544-3041
DvortyBoards make low-cost switchable
keyboards. They also have a compact
ergonomic model that has a novel layout vaguely reminiscent of the Kinesis.
You can roll your own DSK software, with a fully customised layout, either by hex editing the Windows kbddv.kbd device driver, or by springing for the Windows Resource Kit which contains instructions on how to write keyboard drivers. The catch is when you are done, your driver is still only good for Windows. You have to repeat a similar process for DOS, NT, Linux ... Unfortunately, no software will help you for editing BIOS configurations.
Instead, get a programmable or configurable keyboard with firmware that remembers your configurations even with the power off. Then you can use it in any OS without special software. It will even work when editing BIOS configurations.
If you have an Apple computer, make sure you buy a keyboard designed for the Mac with an USB interface instead of the PS/2 interface.
Not having them actually helps you learn to touch-type because it prods you to rely on feel rather than peeking. Back in the 1950's, typing teachers used to put blank covers over the keys of mechanical typewriters.
QWERTY legends make it easier for others to use your keyboard.
DSK legends are mainly a conversation-starter. People see your unusual keyboard and get curious.
The Kinesis keyboard I use now has dual legends, with QWERTY dominant giving all three advantages:
I still have to revert to QWERTY to use the electronic mail terminals in airports and when I am setting up a virgin machine when all that will run are the diagnostics.
It took maybe a month before I gained even reasonable speed at DSK. It took maybe another five months before I was faster than I was originally, but now that pain is behind, it was worth it. It was very embarrassing working in an office situation having people hear my painfully slow keystrokes. "Green, why are you mucking about with that. We've got a job to do!"
I took so long to learn DSK, because I could not quit QWERTY cold turkey. I used an Apple Lisa on QWERTY during the day and an IBM XT on DSK at night. There was no DSK software for the Lisa. I found that using only two fingers to type when I was forced to use QWERTY did the least damage to my slowly developing DSK skills. However to get the job done I often had to revert to QWERTY even on the IBM.
Only a minority of DSK typist manage to retain the skill to touch type QWERTY. In general, you cannot be a bilingual touch typist. I get mail from time to time telling me "Stuff and nonsense, I type equally well on both." However, most people find their finger reflexes have to be tuned to one system or the other. If you start young, and flip back and forth, every month or so, you have a better chance of becoming skilled in both. In general though, you just hurt yourself by trying to be bilingual. I suspect that those bilingual typists would be even better DSK typists if they let the QWERTY go. At least, any use of QWERTY while you are learning DSK will set you back.
There is a horrible in between period when your subconscious reflexes for DSK start to take over. You lose your ability to type QWERTY rapidly. There you are stuck in the middle for a while unable to type rapidly on either system.
However, as I said at the beginning, you go through the conversion once, and ever after you reap the rewards -- every day for the rest of your typing life.
If I were to do it again, I'd wait till a time when I could guarantee that I could type DSK 100% of the time for at least two months without ever having to touch a QWERTY keyboard. I'd like to wait till a slack period so I wouldn't be tempted to revert to QWERTY to get the job done. But had I done that, I'd have waited forever, and I'd still be stuck on QWERTY. There is no such thing as a slack time, so perhaps all you can hope for is a time when no one is watching you too closely.
Top left of keyboard is pushed slightly away from you.
Keyboard is offset slightly to the left of the centre of your body.
Your arms should be almost level tilting up slightly to reach the keyboard.
Left index finger handles 4 5 6 p y u i k x
Left middle finger handles 3 . e j
Left ring finger handles 2 , o q
Left baby finger handles Esc 1 tab ' ctrl a ` ; shift
Right index finger handles 6 7 f g d h b m
Right middle finger handles 8 c t w
Right ring finger handles 9 r n v
Right baby finger handles 0 \ = bs l / ] s - [ Enter z shift
Generally, a finger handles keys on a back-slanting row. The exception is 6 which is sometimes handled by the left index finger.
I was once the chief instructor at a computer summer camp. I interviewed each child as he came in and assessed his typing skills. Some of these kids could type in raw hex coding with perfect accuracy at incredible speed. I asked each of these wunderkinds how he learned to type so well. They invariably answered "Typing Tutor".
The program can be used to teach yourself either QWERTY or DSK. It automatically adjusts to drill you on your weakest letters.
I tried it for a while and on one memorable occasion clocked 100 words per minute on the standard typing test. There is absolutely zero chance I could have attained that sort of speed with the QWERTY layout.
Kriya Systems Inc wrote Typing Tutor IV. Simon & Schuster Software published it. (212)-373-7770. The last I heard Davidson & Associates had redone Typing Tutor 7 for them in 1996. I have not been able to find it listed anywhere.
Typing Tutor appeals to the kid in you by turning typing into a video game. If you have never laid hand to keyboard before, you may need a more serious program like:
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, The Software Toolworks, One Toolworks Plaza 13557 Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423, (818) 907-6789. The catch is, the DSK exercises in Version 5 are no longer present in version 8.
I have not used such tools for a long time, so those two may not be the best anymore. There are surely many you can find on the Internet. The trick is to find one with an addictive game. If you know of a good one to recommend for learning DSK, please email me.
It would not be that hard to create a Typing Tutor program in Java. It might have an analog of the Letter Invaders game. It could have introductory lessons that introduce the keys gradually starting from the centre of the keyboard and working out, along the home row, along the top row, along the bottom row and finally along the numeric row. You could filter a dictionary to find words that can be typed with the current subset of letters. Finding suitable exercise words is much easier than with the QWERTY layout.
~ ! @ # $ % ^ @ * ( ) \ +
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 | =
" , . P Y F G C R L ? [
' , . p y f g c r l / ]
A O E U I D H T N S ___ {
a o e u i d h t n s - }
Shf > : Q J K X B M W V Z Shf
< ; q j k x b m w v z
Space
The ANSI DSK standard is the most wishy washy document I ever read. It allows almost anything to call itself standard. However, reading between the lines, this is what I think they really intended to be the standard. They watered it down so as not to offend any manufacturer.
If they published a true standard, then manufacturers might have to retool to conform, and then you could move from keyboard to keyboard and type just as fast as you did on your keyboard back home. Heaven forbid that should happen! The companion QWERTY standard is just as bad.
Esc ! @ # $ % ^ @ * ( ) | + Bsp NmL ScL
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 \ =
Tab " < > P Y F G C R L ? } Ent 7 8 9 -
' , . p y f g c r l / ]
Ctl A O E U I D H T N S ___ { 4 5 6
a o e u i d h t n s - [
~ Shf : Q J K X B M W V Z Shf Prt 1 2 3 +
` ; q j k x b m w v z
Alt Space Cpl Ins Del
This layout moves the left shift key back the position God intended for it. The keycap for it cannot be moved however.
~ ! @ # $ % ^ @ * ( ) | + Bsp NmL ScL
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 \ =
Tab " < > P Y F G C R L ? } { 7 8 9
Esc
' , . p y f g c r l / ] [
Ctl A O E U I D H T N S ___ Retrn 4 5 6 +
a o e u i d h t n s -
- Shf : Q J K X B M W V Z Shf Prt 1 2 3 Ent
(Shf) ; q j k x b m w v z *
Alt Space Cpl Ins Del
This layout has two left shift keys. Some software distinguishes between the two kinds of minus key, and thus this layout will not work since the numeric minus was sacrificed to give you a second left shift key.
Esc F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F10 F11 F12
~ ! @ # $ % ^ @ * ( ) | + { Bsp
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 \ = [
Tab " < > P Y F G C R L ? }
' , . p y f g c r l / ]
CapsLock A O E U I D H T N S ___ Ent
a o e u i d h t n s -
Shf : Q J K X B M W V Z Shf
; q j k x b m w v z
Ctrl Alt Space Alt Ctrl
This layout moves the left shift key back the position God intended for it. The keycap for it cannot be moved however.
~ ! @ # $ % ^ @ * ( ) { } | Bsp Esc NmL ScL Sys
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 [ ] \
Tab " < > P Y F G C R L ? + Ent 7 8 9 -
' , . p y f g c r l / =
Ctrl A O E U I D H T N S ___ 4 5 6
a o e u i d h t n s -
Shf : Q J K X B M W V Z Shf 1 2 3 +
; q j k x b m w v z
Alt Space Cpl Ins Del
This layout moves the function keys to the left. It has a large enter and shift key, though the backspace key is small.
Esc ! @ # $ % ^ @ * ( ) { } Bsp
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 [ ]
Tab " < > P Y F G C R L ? + Enter
' , . p y f g c r l / =
Ctrl A O E U I D H T N S ___
a o e u i d h t n s -
Shf : Q J K X B M W V Z Shf *
; q j k x b m w v z
~ |
Alt ` Capslock Space Ctrl \ Alt
You can configure this further, swapping Ctrl and Capslock, \ and *. This layout has a huge backspace and enter key. This keyboard also has function keys down the left and across the top.
The configuration keys work like this: All switches should be off except:
5 - swap CapsLock, Ctrl, Alt
6 - swap asterisk and backslash
7 - Dvorak Layout-1
7,8 - Dvorak Layout-2
Esc { & % # ! ( ) @ $ ^ * } Bsp
[ 7 5 3 1 9 0 2 4 6 8 ]
Tab " < > P Y F G C R L ? + Enter
' , . p y f g c r l / =
Ctrl A O E U I D H T N S ___
a o e u i d h t n s -
Shf : Q J K X B M W V Z Shf *
; q j k x b m w v z
~ |
Alt ` Capslock Space Ctrl \ Alt
This layout further optimizes the punctuation, placing the common parentheses, ! and @ near the centre. You can configure this further, swapping Ctrl and Capslock, \ and *. This layout has a huge backspace and enter key. It has function keys on the left and along the top.
Esc { } ? P F M L J $ # @ ! Bsp
[ ] / p f m l j 4 3 2 1
Tab : Q B Y U R S O > ^ % + Enter
; q b y u r s o . 6 5 =
Ctrl --- K C D T H E A Z * &
- k c d t h e a z 8 7
Shf " X G V W N I < ) ( Shf *
' x g v w n i , 0 9
~ |
Alt ` Capslock Space Ctrl \ Alt
This layout is for people who are missing a right hand, or who otherwise have the right hand occupied as they type. This layout has a huge backspace and enter key.
Esc ! @ # $ J L M F P ? { } Bsp
1 2 3 4 j l m f p / [ ]
Tab % ^ Q > O R S U Y B : + Enter
5 6 q . o r s u y b ; =
Ctrl & * Z A E H T D C K ___
7 8 z a e h t d c k -
Shf ( ) X < I N W V G " Shf *
9 0 x , i n w v g '
~ |
Alt ` Capslock Space Ctrl \ Alt
This layout is for people who are missing a left hand, or who otherwise have the left hand occupied as they type. (Those skilled with this layout may improve their popularity in sex chat rooms.) You can configure this further, swapping Ctrl and Capslock, \ and *. This layout has a huge backspace and enter key. It has function keys on the left and along the top.
My current keyboard is a Kinesis I bought from their distributor DMB Ergonomics. The biggest drawback is the cost for the Classic QD model I use from DMB. DMB no longer carries Kinesis products. I later learned there was a Canadian distributor who sells it for . The advantage is you save shipping, brokerage, exchange and all those other fees when you bring something across the border. You can now buy them direct from Kinesis. You probably want the KB133PC/QD-wht model for .
Try looking on Ebay for a used one.
I learned DSK on a conventional keyboard, then went through a major adjustment with the Kinesis DSK. Even switching from conventional QWERTY to Kinesis QWERTY would have been quite a leap for me, though others report having not nearly as much trouble as I did adjusting. If you can get one from any of the distributors in this list. The keyboard looks very strange, but is instantly comfortable. It looks like two widely separated bowls countersunk with keys arranged in very crooked rows around the inner surfaces of the bowls. Vertically the keys are arranged in straight columns rather than diagonals as is traditional. There is no separate arrow keypad or numeric keypad (though you can buy a optional separate pad, and there is an embedded keypad as on a laptop). Your palms rest on the keyboard surface and your finoffegers drop down into the bowls. The crookedness of the layout exactly matches the crookedness of your natural finger position. It looks strange, but it feels perfectly natural. It comes with a very long cord and dual adapters so it will work on any PC.
In addition to the bowl shape, the keys are mounted at different depths to compensate for the lengths of your fingers. The middle finger keys are most deeply mounted.
The keys only have to depress 2 mm to make, and 4 mm to travel. This makes for a quicker more sensitive touch than keyboards you may be used to. It a little like the light touch of keypunch keypads of yore, though not as light.
Your thumbs in an ordinary keyboard have nothing to do but hit the space bar. On this keyboard they are much busier. The left thumb hits oversize Backspace and Delete keys, as well as Ctrl, Alt, Home and End. The right thumb hits oversize Enter and Space, as well as Ctrl, Alt, PgUp and PgDn.
Your baby fingers have much less to do on this keyboard. They don't have to stretch to the far left or right. Those keys are moved to a new bottom row, as are the arrow keys.
The green indicator lights in the center of the keyboard have the following meanings:
CapsLock |
NumLock |
ScrollLock |
Keypad |
Everybody I have talked to who uses this keyboard, myself included, raves about it for comfort and speed. It is recommended for anyone with wrist problems.
The keyboard comes with some simple typing tutor software to ease the transition. The main complaint I have with the keyboard is the lack of orientation bumps on the index finger keys. There are tactile clues for home position, but they are unfamiliar offeat first. The keyboard is quite awkward to use one handed. It is hard to hit DSK Ctrl-C while the right hand holds the mouse.
I have used the keyboard programmability to convert Ctrl-J to Ctrl-C and Ctrl-K to Ctrl-V. These are easier to hit with the left hand. This means I have lost Ctrl-J and Ctrl-K for other purposes.
My better solution is to order a footpad with 3 programmable pedals. The left will be Ctrl-C, the middle Shift and the right Ctrl-V.
One feature I especially like is the optional noises the keyboard makes when you go into and out of CapsLock, ins or keypad mode.
The errors I made in the adjustment period were reaching too far for keys and letting my fingers wander off home position. It is quite odd having all the keys in easy reach without stretching. I also tended to keep confusing space and enter which you key with your thumb.
A month later I was quite competent with the alpha keys but still stumbled on arrows, / and \.
After some months use of the keyboard I still had trouble with space and Enter, especi14/lpally if I was tired. You hit these keys with the sides of your thumbs, which can be mildly painful, since you are hitting with the nail rather than the fleshy pad. The keyboard was very expensive and my keying is still slower than when I started. At that point I thought I had made a mistake.
By 2000 September, I was still clumsy with the arrow keys, but completely at home with the rest of the keyboard. I had grown to love the keyboard. It is very quick and effortless, faster than any keyboard I have ever used.
I counted on eventually getting a performance boost comparable to flipping to DSK because you reduce all the stretching (and consequent errors) with the baby fingers, and eliminate that right hand leap back and forth to the arrow keypad as if you were playing Lizst on a traditional extended keyboard. That means extra productivity which should quickly pay for the keyboard. I am finally there. People on the Internet complain about the huge volume of work I post every day! They complain I dominate all the debates with sheer volume.
You might want to consider this keyboard and using it in QWERTY even if you are not yet ready for a leap to full optimality.
Even the non-DSK keyboard I played with worked fine with DSK using the standard Windows DSK drivers.
The DSK models have key caps have dual legends: QWERTY letters in the upper-left corner, Dvorak letters, slightly smaller in the lower-right corner. You toggle between QWERTY and DSK with [program]+[ctrl]+[f5]. This is useful if non-DSK hunt and peck typists sometimes use your keyboard.
| Kinesis Keyboard Configuring | |
|---|---|
| Keystrokes | Function |
| [Progm]+[ctrl]+[Disable Macro/F10] | Reset. Forget all remapping, programming and settings. |
| [Progm]+[ctrl]+[F5] | Toggle QWERTY and Dvorak layouts. |
| [keypad] | Toggles right hand half of keyboard between normal and numeric keypad modes. |
| [Progm]+[Repeat Rate/F9], then [F1] to [F12] | Set keyboard Repeat Rate. [F12] is fastest. |
| [Progm]+[Progm Remap], then pairs of keys to remap then [Progm]+[Progm Remap] | Remap the keyboard. Best understood with a simple experiment. You might use it for example to swap the positions of [\] and [/]. This is not as useful as you might think. If you move a key, all its modes must move with it e.g. keypad, NumLock, shift, ctrl, alt, left foot pedal, right foot pedal etc. In other words you can't move the 7 key and the & key independently. |
| [Progm]+[Progm Macro/F11], then the key for invoking the macro, then the keys defining the macro, then [Progm]+[Progm Macro/F11] | Define a keystroke macro. You can later type a long string by hitting a single key, [ctrl]+key, [alt]+key, [ctrl]+[alt]+key or [shift]+[ctrl]+[alt]+key etc. I reserve [F11] and [F12] for useful macros. You can use the [Progm]+[Macro Data/F7] to pause the macro to let you enter data. When you run the macro, hit [Progm]+[Macro Data/F7] to resume the macro after you have entered your data. Use [Progm]+[Macro Delay/F8] to introduce a short pause. |
| [Progm]+[Progm Macro/F11], then the key for invoking the macro, then [Progm]+[Progm Macro/F11] | Delete a keystroke macro. Return the key to its normal meaning. |
| [Progm]+[Disable Macro/F10] | Disable all keystroke macros. Toggles whether macros are active or not. You might want to turn them off to get at the original meaning of the keys without throwing out your macros. To disable a single macro, see the removal technique above. |
| [Progm]+[right Ctrl]+[F6] | Sticky Keys. Toggles whether the [right ctrl] key is sticky. Of interest to disabled people who can't hold down the [ctrl] key and hit another key at the same time. Similarly other keys can be made sticky. |
| [Progm]+[ctrl]+[F2] | Configure your keyboard to hold up to 24 macros. As a side effect erases all macros. |
| [Progm]+[ctrl]+[F3] | Configure your keyboard to hold up to 36 macros. As a side effect erases all macros. |
| [Progm]+[ctrl]+[F4] | Configure your keyboard to hold 48 macros. As a side effect erases all macros. In this mode the keyboard may not be fast enough for fast typists since it has to check for all 48 possible macros on every keystroke. |
You can plug two optional Kinesis foot pedals (sometimes called foot switches) into a pigtail connector on the Kinesis keyboard. There are a variety of models. These are the ones I chose. I bought a pair in 2001 February. The left pedal acts as keypad Shift, which actives the embedded keypad layer until the foot pedal is released. The right pedal acts like a Shift key.
You use the left pedal to invoke macros you have preprogrammed into each key, (optionally with any combination of Shift, Ctrl and Alt). The macros may be executed by the keyboard firmware itself or by macros in your editor. Keyboard firmware replay is slower, but works with any program, even ones that don't have their own macro scheme. You have access to two layers of macro programming, with and without the left pedal pressed. Normally you would program your keyboard so with the pedal pressed you get keyboard macros and without pressing, you get the ordinary keystrokes. The left pedal gives you rapid access to a hundreds of unassigned macro key triggers. You can trigger dozens of these macros with one finger of your left hand especially useful when your right hand is busy with the mouse.
The right pedal lets you type capital letters or shifted key functions without having to hit two keys simultaneously. Surprisingly, I found using the right foot pedal for shift came very naturally. It takes much less dexterity than hitting Shift with the baby finger of one hand and then the letter key you want capitalized with a finger of the other hand, then releasing Shift, all with split second timing.
For long strings of capital letters, using the footpedal is much easier than fiddling with Capslock. The only thing that gave me trouble is I kept hitting BackSpace and Enter with the right foot pedal depressed, which is not treated the same as unshifted BackSpace and Enter. Unfortunately, I can't reprogram them to act like unshifted BackSpace and Enter without also affecting Shift+BackSpace and Shift+Enter on the keyboard.
To program the foot pedal macro functions I found it simpler to pretend you don't have any pedals. Program your macros using the Keypad and Shift buttons on the keyboard. (Hit Keypad to simulate hitting the left pedal, and hit it again to simulate releasing it). Then play the macros with the foot pedals. Actually once you are past the part where you define the macro trigger, you can use the foot pedals normally without risk of reprogramming them. If you try to define them using the foot pedals, I found I kept accidentally changing the meaning of the pedal itself. You could do that intentionally. You could program either foot pedal to do something quite different than act as Keypad Shift and Shift, but then you would lose rapid access to the keypad layer of macros.
Unfortunately, there is no software to help you program the keyboard under NT or even to save/restore your macros. The Kinesis software only works under Windows 95/98/ME. You have to program strictly with the keyboard firmware or by booting to Windows. Happily, the macros stick even when you turn off the power.
The foot pedals have cables with contribute to the rat's nest under my desk. I keep getting my feet tangled in them. I need to get some duct tape to hold them in standard positions, and tuck the cords safely out of the way. I have trouble finding them with my feet when I sit down, even with bare feet. (I have HIV-caused numbness called neuropathy that makes this especially difficult.) Oddly, the cords come out of the front i.e. (the small end) of the foot pedal wedges. I am not sure how you are supposed to orient them. The instructions give no clue.
To use the footpedals, you have to sit up straight with both feet flat on the floor. This can be irritating at first if you are used to sloppy posture.
I am just getting started with the footpedals. I am only beginning to exploit their power.
The keyboard macros are quite a bit slower than ones programmed into your computer, for example in SlickC in the SlickEdit editor. Further, computer created macros can be backed up where keyboard ones cannot. So the trick is to do most of the macro expansion work in the computer, and just use your keyboard macro to trigger the impossible-to-key e.g. Shift-Ctrl-C computer macro name. Unfortunately you can't use Left-Foot-Pedal-X as a macro name for the computer. You need an intermediate keyboard macro.
So first you get your computer macros working, then you hook them up to keyboard macros, for one-key triggering. It sounds like a lot of work, but when you are done you will wonder how you even managed to get anything done without them.
You can also get a variety of Kinesis auxiliary keypads. So far I have not purchased one of these. Some are numeric pads for numeric entry. Some are for setting up with macros. The advantage is you can use them with your left hand while your right is occupied with the mouse. You can set up unshifted single key macros without losing access to your normal keystrokes. Some can be used with USB or non Kinesis keyboards.
Even if you don't buy a separate numeric pad, there is an embedded keypad superimposed on top of the right hand letter keys. You turn it on by hitting keypad or with a footswitch. It gets confusing. What is does after that depends on the current NumLock toggle.
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It is almost impossible to use the arrow keys one-handed since the left/right arrows are on the left side of the keyboard and the up/down arrows are on the right. I often have my right hand occupied with the mouse as I try to augment navigation in a document with the left hand on the keyboard. Perhaps a separate numeric keypad in arrow mode would be useful. Perhaps genetic engineering could give me a third arm for the mouse. Perhaps I could use the embedded keypad arrows with just my right hand, and mouse with the left.
The solution I came up with is to use a the left footswitch to turn on keypad mode when I am using the mouse with my right hand. Then I have macros coded for the left hand for all the usual mousing functions e.g. cut, paste, copy, arrows, del. I can trigger them with a single key single key, e.g. O = cut, E = copy, U = paste. I don't even need to hit Ctrl at the same time!
The foot pedals don't work reliably.
The function keys are all identical, a bit on the small side, with mushy feel, and are arrayed in a perfectly straight row, giving few tactile clues that you have hit the right key. I keep hitting F4 (close) when I mean to hit F3 (search next).
There is a special function key called keypad which toggles the right hand part of the keyboard into a numeric keypad. I hit this by mistake periodically. The effect can be utterly baffling until you are used to it. There is an indicator light in the middle of the keyboard to warn you when you put it into keypad mode.
I also sometimes hit the [Progm remap] key when I intend to hit [Progm macro/f11]. If I don't notice immediately, I soon remap the keyboard into utter gibberish. I usually then give up and clear the keyboard completely with [Progm]+[ctrl]+[DisableMacro]. Happily, hitting the Progm remap] key by accident does nothing, only when you hold down [Progm] first.
I also find that when I get typing really quickly the keyboard (or more likely NT) fails to notice shift-release, and thinks the shift or control key is still pressed when it has been released. I can clear the problem by tapping each of the shift, ctrl and alt keys in turn. However, it is nuisance and breaks my train of thought. Perhaps a future design of the keyboard could buffer keystrokes more fully and spoon feed them to NT slowly enough that it would be unlikely to lose the upstroke. Perhaps the size of the buffer in the keyboard needs to be increased. I hope eventually to get a faster CPU, so that should help this problem. It appears to be less of a problem in W2K.
While macros in the keyboard are nice, they are no substitute for having them also in the computer. Why?
There is no W2K software to save and restore the keystroke macros. The keyboard forgets everything I've ever taught it every month or so. Kinesis won't tell me the tech specs to roll my own.
If you are the kind of guy who wants the ergonomically most advanced equipment it can be distressing to see a yet more advanced design come out after you have just forked out big bucks for the previous model. Kinesis has released the Kinesis Evolution keyboard track-mounted, chair-mounted or desktop version shown below:
Though it looks pretty space age, I think the dish shaped keyboard I have is even better.
~ ! @ # $ % ^ @ * ( ) _ +
` 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 - = Bsp
tab ? < F S P Y L C R Q { } |
/ , f s p y l c r q [ ] \
A O E U I D H T N X "
a o e u i d h t n x ' Enter
Shf : > J K B G M W V Z Shf
; . j k b g m w v z
Space
Geneva has a damaged right pinkie. This is the modified Dvorak layout she came up with to compensate.
The home row is one higher than traditional.
The frequency of use goes roughly like this: etaonhisrdlucmwgfypbkvjzxq. The Dvorak home row in contrast, is aoeui dhtns.
Dvorak did his work with mechanical and electromechanical typewriters. To avoid jamming, you need a rock steady rhythm. The last thing you want are two keys next to each other rolled quickly. In contrast, the Arensito keyboard attempts to put commonly used pairs of letters side by side so that you can quickly roll them. Further, to rapidly key a pair you must co-ordinate both sides of your brain, leading to transposition errors. You don't have that problem when they are done with the same hand.
I was puzzled over the Arensito placement of the infrequently used g and b in such prime real estate and the demotion of c and h to the awkward bottom row. Hallingstad explained that he found it easier to bend the finger than to move it sideways, especially on Kinesis and Maltron keyboards. He placed keys surrounding the e so that common pairs involving e could be keyed easily with a rolling motion.
Maltron makes 3D ergonomic keyboards with dish shaped keyboards similar to the Kinesis. It would be fairer to say the opposite, since the Maltron was developed first. They have semi-conventional QWERTY layouts, DSK layouts and also their own Malt layout that looks like this:
The QWERTY layout looks like this:
You hit the E key with your thumb. Your thumb has much more to do than with most other keyboards. Malt claims 30% speed improvement over QWERTY with their Malt Layout.
The F type above has a built-in track ball.
You can buy them from Teleprint or or from Applied Learning for or for for the trackball model. In email conversations with the keyboard's co-inventor Stephen Hobday, I learned that the low volumes mean the keyboards are manufactured individually by hand. This explains the high price. Hobday would like the capital to invest in a low cost injection moulded version.
They have come out with a limited edition 2D version that looks like this:
with a layout like this:
Why yet another layout? Mainly to give the left thumb something useful to do. The Maltron balances the workload between the left and right hands better than does the Dvorak layout. It has adjacent English digraphs that fingers flow over effortlessly.
The above diagrams and images came from the Maltron website and in emails from Stephen Hobday.
This keyboard rotates the keys through 90 degrees so that your wrists don't have to. It does not come in a DSK variant. I have never used this keyboard, but I would imagine you would get tired holding your arms suspended in the air for hours on end.
This keyboard does not have hardware DSK ability, but it has some interesting features. First the two halves of the keyboard can be adjusted to any angle from about 20 degrees to almost vertical. Next it has adjustable wrist rests which help guide your hands to home position. Third it has replaceable rubber keydomes. If you like a lighter or springier touch, you can get keydome kits to change the feel. Finally, it puts the function keys back on the left where they can be easily hit.
The Fitaly keyboard (named for its F I T A L Y top row) is optimised for one finger or pen keying. It is an on-screen software keyboard designed for use with various PDAs.
The BAT keyboard by Infogrip is an unusual keyboard, primarily designed for people who either have no left hand or whose left hand is otherwise occupied. It is not a DSK keyboard; I mention it here because it is an option for the experimentally or ergonomically-minded sorts of people who would consider DSK. There is also a left-handed version. It has three keys for the thumb to press, and only four for the fingers. You have to hit several keys simultaneously with magic "chord" patterns you memorise to type the various letters and punctuation -- sort of like the old comptometers. These are popular with people with various sorts of extreme wrist disability since your fingers don't move. Most people achieve 30-50 wpm. The also make a version with a builtin track ball at the bottom center.
Microsoft has take the BAT idea one step further in reducing the keys to the most commonly used Ctrl, Alt and Del.
Esperanto uses accented letters c g h j s u, but there is no q, w, x or y in native Esperanto words.
I fiddled about with my layout over a period of months fine tuning it to suit my work. For computer programming, especially in Java you use the { } and ( ) keys a lot. It might make sense to move the following keys to the middle of the top row, similar to DSK classic layout.
( ) ! { }
9 0 1 [ ]
It might also make sense to reverse the meaning of caps on the [ ] keys so they
meant { } without caps.
You can gradually fine tune your layout to suit your own particular finger strengths, character frequencies, and character pair combination frequencies. You just try out various layout changes and one will feel distinctly more pleasant and easeful.
One roll your own design is the Johnson that keeps the QWERTY roots intact and adds space-shift layer to deal with programmer's punctuation keys.
Windows 2000 lets you define registry entries to remap the keyboard scan codes. This is not for the faint of heart.
PC Magazine puts out TradeKeys that works in all versions of Windows to let you remap the keyboard any way you want. About the only thing you can't do is move the punctuation above the digits to different digits. The utility is free, but you need a subscription to access it. The cheapest subscription for gives you three downloads and one month access. It works by creating a .reg file to insert a table into the registry that the keyboard driver uses to remap the keyboard scan codes before it does anything else. This means the remapping works in conjunction with the remapping the keyboard driver. It is probably easiest to do both the DSK remapping and your customisations with TradeKeys, and use a standard QWERTY layout driver. If you use a DSK driver, your TradeKey remappings are done in terms of the base QWERTY keys, not as fine tunings after the DSK mapping is done.
For the adventurous, there is the Microsoft SDK which has instructions no how to write custom keyboard drivers. Unfortunately they work quite differently in Win95/98/ME and NT/W2K/XP. You can then do whatever you want, including inventing dead keys, special shift modes, remap the plain and shifted characters on each key independently, etc.
You can get replacement coloured keycaps or key labels from Hooleon. The also sell stick on home key bumps.
Conversion story of one person's flip from QWERTY to DSK.
Freelance Communications has published a book on Dvorak keyboards called The Dvorak Keyboard. They also put out a quarterly called Dvorak Developments.
Freelance Communications
P.O. Box 1895
Upland, CA
91785
You can also get materials from:
Steve Ingram
Dvorak International
P.O. Box 44
Poultney VT
USA 05764-0044
(802) 287-2343
email: steve@dvorakint.org.
web site: http://www.dvorakint.org.
Particularly check out their links
page.
The Marcus Brooks web site: http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/ is the most comprehensive and has links to dozens of others.
You can look up "DSK Dvorak + keyboard" in any of the Internet search engines.
The one big question you want to know is, how much faster will you be? The problem is this thing called the bell shaped curve. Some people gain a lot, others a little. The only way to find out where you personally are on the curve is to do it.
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