As I was looking on ZDNet this afternoon, I was reading a story about one columnist’s frustration with the common keyboard. He is located in the UK, but the problem he describes is no less a problem for people here on this side of the pond.
The problem described is the fact that, though our typing habits have changed over the years, our keyboards have not. I actually commented that, in general, they have not only not progressed, they have actually regressed to a state where the average person types on a keyboard that is worth about a penny for each dollar of the price of the computer.
It has always fascinated me that people are willing to spend great deals of money to have a mouse with greater comfort, or features, that will make the entire computing experience better, yet these same people will work, day after day, on a keyboard that can be picked up for $10, and has a life expectancy of less than a year with heavy use. I fully realize that we do much with the mouse, but unless you only surf the internet, you use the keyboard at least as much as the mouse.
But back to the article – the writer was upset because he was doing a great deal more e-mailing than ever before, and was wishing that the layout of the keyboard could change to reflect the fact that most of us do e-mailing, and so naturally, we use the @ much more than when the typewriter was developed. His idea was that it would be nice to have an @ that could be reached without having to use the shift key. I replied that, if we here, in the U.S., used the UK keyboard, with its one extra key (which resides next to the left shift key, and causes no displacement of other keys, as the UK keyboard uses a left shift that is the size of the W,A,or D keys,) leaving room for another key to be placed there, which in their system, is the backslash/pipe key. If we left the backslash key where it is in the US layout, but simply included another key, it could be the @ key, which could be non-shifted, with another character in the shifted position.
However, when you do that, you awaken the dragon, because there are many who would say they want the left shift key extra wide, as it currently is, and why not do something different, such as restore the control key to where the caps lock key currently resides (a la XT), and put the caps lock up by the num lock. In doing that, you could allow the key currently designated left control, to function as the @ key, with no shift necessary, and in a convenient, though not easily mis-hit, place. The problem is that many people would disagree with this layout, and want one of their own.
If we could change the key layout [which we actually can, from within Windows] we could do many changes to make our own personal keyboard layout best for us, as individuals. What we cannot do, is change the layout of certain keys, as we don’t have an easy way of swapping smaller keys and larger ones. As long as the keys you want to change are of the same size, you’re golden. But many would switch different sized keys, so it remains problematic.
If people were to suddenly become accustomed to paying a decent price for a quality keyboard (from the standpoint of the manufacturer), it would then be possible and feasible, through the economic enhancement, to make key caps that would enable the placement of any cap on any key, to show any thing.
It could be the start of a whole new industry – quality custom keyboards for the masses. However, I am not delusional, I don’t believe that $150 will become the median price point for keyboards any time soon.
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To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. |
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treat yourself, use Opera!