I use simplified DVORAK, because you can type at insane speeds.

Dvorak Simplified Keyboard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

this has been discussed already. but what is "insane" speeds to you? i'm at about 45-50 words a min on qwerty. from what i read it isn't worth learning a new system. also if you are going to learn something new why not go all the way and learn a steno machine and get up to 200-300 wpm.

michael

QWERTY. Specifically:
Alienware Tact X. Can be changed to whatever colors, in two zones:

Sorry for making another thread about the same thing . 80-100 is insane for me.

Are you reaching those speeds? as far as i am aware, dvorak doesn't enable you to type faster, it is about ergonomics and fatigue.


michael

Yep, I type about 30WPM faster than I did before. You should try it and see! I takes a bit to get used to. But this helped a lot: Dvorak keyboard training - experimental

EDIT: The reason they made QWERTY was that people were typing too fast on typewriters and they were jamming too much.

Dvorak was once installed on my phone's on-screen keyboard, and I found it was more comfortable, but I upgraded firmware and initially broke it, and haven't fixed since. I might do that now actually. My desktop and laptops all use qwerty, and it's fast enough for what I do, so I see no reason not to stick to it.

Dvorak on an IBM Model M.

Been using dvorak for ten years or so now... Using QWERTY for more than an hour or two a day hurts my wrists.

I can type 60+wpm in dvorak, upwards of 80 with caffeine. I get around 30-40wpm in QWERTY on a good day. I think the main difference is that I never learned touch typing on QWERTY -- I use a ninja-hunt-and-peck method, whereas in dvorak, you're pretty much forced to use a proper touch-typing method.

I've thought about learning colemak, I hear it's a lot faster and easier on the hands than even dvorak, but I haven't had the time to play around with it yet. A lot of the speed improvement of colemak is that the capslock key becomes backspace, so no reaching with your pinkie then finding home row again when you make mistakes.

Damn you for posting that link... I type upwards of 80wpm on a QWERTY, and after doing that DVORAK lesson halfway, I suck at QWERTY typing all of a sudden!

Oh well, it was worth a try

-Chris

LOL, sadist.

One of my favorite office pranks is to switch the keys for users that can't touch type (hunt and peck typers). I swap M & N, 0 & O, I & L. Gets them every time.

My other pranks are to rotate the Windows display by 180 degrees, or capture a users screen and save it as their background.

BTW, QUERTY was layed out in the 1800's to avoid type writer bars from jamming. Remmington picked up the patent pretty soon after. The irony is we don't have such jamming issues any longer yet the QUERTY layout is defacto. DEVORAK is much better for speed typing, once you overcome the brain/hand un-learning...

I have a number of old Model M keyboards at home and in the office, they bloody rock. The key spacing and action is awesome. You can hear if you mis-typed.

They are loud however. My fellow engineers can tell when someone has pissed me off, by the machine gun fire of my keyboard!

@Ash: I assume you are using a Alienware desktop?

I am on a QWERTY using Alienware M15x built in keyboard with 4 customizable zones.

This is my current customization of the 10 zones plus mouse.(not pictured, it's blue.)



The two outsides being blue and the inner two being lighter gives it a cool bleed effect.

Surprising amount of Dvorak here.

I switched about a year ago, my wrists have loved me ever since.

I use a custom layout, those who use dvorak will understand my changes:

QJKX all shifted left one space, and the ; moved to the middle. It helps keep the hands at the right slope. For example all the keys I need to press with my left middle finger look like / rather than <.

U and I swapped. I is much more common in modern english, so it's better as a home key.

I don't think I'll ever change from Dvorak. I can still type QWERTY, just not as fast as I used to.

Now I just need to get my hands on one of those model M's. They're a bitch to find in Australia.

I picked my 3 M's up at surplus computer auctions. $5 each

I am strongly considering switching to Dvorak now, but this was the last major concern that I had (e.g. Needing to type something real quick on a QWERTY keyboard and looking like an idiot that can barely type ). Do you really retain the ability to "switch" back and forth between both? How long did it take you to make the switch, and has your Qwerty been getting progressively worse since you stopped using it?

Hope you don't mind my bombardment of questions, I'm just quite curious to hear from someone with actual specific experience involving the big switch.

-Chris

Yes, 3 weeks, a little.

Yes, I type QWERTY every day. I remember at the start it was hard to switch between the two layouts, but that only lasted a couple months. Learning it was surprisingly easy. It took me a couple years to master QWERTY, but only a couple weeks to learn dvorak. Within a month or two I was faster in dvorak than qwerty. If I go for long periods without using anyone else's computer (say, two months without using a qwerty kb), yes, I suck at QWERTY for the first few minutes or like an hour or so, but it's not like you forget it, it's like riding a bike.

Super-drool
I wanted the m15X so bad, but with an older Alienware laptop and a brand new Vaio laptop still woking (as well as my gaming/desktop/media center), I don't know what I would do with another laptop, and $1700 less in the bank.
But 10-zones... Insane

You think that's droolworthy? Check out THIS badboy:


Ohhh yeah, nearly ten pounds, solid steel backplate, virtually indestructible, 24 years old, makes noises like a typewriter. All those illuminated "gamer" keyboards are complete and total crap. They're mushy and flimsy and feel like a cheap chinese toy. They have short throw, no aural or tactile feedback, typing on them feels like jamming your fingers into stale marshmallows. An IBM Model M by comparison, each keystroke is like biting into a crisp apple, with a clean snap, each keypress is a smooth and springloaded click.

I disagree, while I may have not typed on a model M, I have on many others and this is in the top ten overall, one of the best for laptop keyboards. Can't say anything for the desktop Alienware keyboard though.

It's very easy to retain, if you keep typing on it. A friend and I switched at the same time, but he desperately didn't want to loose QWERTY, so he kept typing with QWERTY. He kept his QWERTY speed, and almost matched it with Dvorak. I made a complete switch though, all the keyboards in my life turned to Dvorak. I lost QWERTY completely, but then after becoming proficient in Dvorak, I started learing QWERTY again. I'm now at about half my old speed, but Dvorak is like 150%.

Point is, you can keep it if you want it.

Another great point to learning Dvorak, is that you shouldn't switch your keys around, so when you learn it, you learn perfect touch typing. I did that, and somehow, the good habits stuck.

Another problem is that all the normally fast keyboard shortcuts like CTRL-C and CTRL-V and in awkward places. Linux and macs have the ability to switch back to QWERTY when CTRL or ALT are pressed, but windows doesn't. I made a AHK script for windows that switched the layout to my modified dvorak, but reverts it back to QWERTY when CTRL or ALT are pressed. Best of both worlds, fast and comfortable typing, still with the known and easy to reach shortcuts.

Any chance you would share your AHK script? I hardly ever boot windows but it would be great to have.

It's of my modified layout, like I described above...

Do you want the .exe or the script?

Give me a day or so to find it.. I used to have an actual windows keyboard layout for that...

Otherwise, here's a couple autohotkey scripts I found on google:
Mac Style Dvorak QWERTY Command Layout Switcher for Windows
Remapping modifiers to Qwerty on a Dvorak keyboard

Also, for anyone who's obsessed with mechanical keyboards or the dvorak layout, here's a really great forum you should check out: geekhack forums - Powered by vBulletin

Mhm, that's the code I based mine off.

I would avoid using the windows dvorak layout though, like I said before, the shortcuts like CTRL-C are in annoying places.