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Around the World in 33 Keyboards

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Re: Around the World in 33 Keyboards

#61

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

astrodust wrote: post #52

It's interesting that Apple's keyboard designs all revolve around on-demand parts. The holes can be milled to any arbitrary size or shape. The labels on the keys themselves are lasered on as necessary. Apart from the membrane and the key shapes, this keyboard looks like it's intended to be highly reconfigurable. This probably makes it easy for a single assembly line to slot in the keyboard for the destination region…

Indeed that does seem to be how they do it. Here in the UK, when you order a keyboard or a MacBook from the Apple Online Store, it gives you a bunch of language options, which doesn't affect the delivery time. I think you can only get ones with the same physical shape (no Japanese), but there's a choice of lettering.

Re: Around the World in 33 Keyboards

#62

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

m0tive wrote: post #12
tcfunk wrote: post #2

But...but how does one type '#' on a British keyboard?

Use a standard british keyboard[1]. It is a pain using the Mac "british" keyboard for programming in my experience. [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KB_United_Kingdom.sv...

The PC British layout is annoying. It swaps @ and " relative to the US layout, among some other important keys, which means that when you're dropped at a US-layout terminal you struggle.

It also doesn't have the wonderful set of Alt+ combinations as the Mac British layout for typing various types of diacritics, widths of dashes, Greek letters, mathematical symbols, opening and closing quotes, and other things. PC layout users are stuck with acute accents, the Euro symbol, and nothing else.

Luckily, the Mac "British - PC" layout (not the same as the actual British PC layout) does include the extra Alt+ combos.

I'm not sure why anyone would find the Mac British layout difficult to program with. It's closer to the US layout than the PC British layout. I suppose # requiring Alt might be bothersome, but # isn't a symbol used that frequently in programming, and Alt+3 is not that difficult to type.

Re: Around the World in 33 Keyboards

#64

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

xedarius wrote: post #57
astrodust wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you possibly be more wrong?

Well when I ordered my first mac I clicked British keyboard. I nearly sent it back as I thought they'd sent the wrong one. The " was not on number 2 The # symbol had appeared on number 3 Where was my £ symbol If they can't get a British keyboard right I have serious doubts about other countries.

The Mac has its own British layout. The British PC layout isn't the only valid one.

Macs (and before them, Apple IIs) and PCs have differed here for a long time. Look at this 1984 British Apple IIe layout: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Apple_II...

Re: Around the World in 33 Keyboards

#65

Post by qb45 »

minikites wrote: post #10
_-__--- wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QWERTY was laid out (at least partially) with the intent of preventing typewriter jams and increasing productivity. This was done by placing commonly paired letters far apart from one another; maybe this was also taken into account when designing each other language's keyboard. Letter pairs will differ, presumably, so the important keys to separate will change from language to language. That's my intuition, anyways.

I knew that but that's a good reminder, did other countries have their own typewriter layouts too or did they just use US/UK English layouts?

Those computer keyboard layouts are based on formerly used typewriter layouts.

Re: Around the World in 33 Keyboards

#66

Post by egeozcan »

reirob wrote: post #44
aikah wrote: post #20

As a french person, I use an AZERTY keyboard, it can become really tedious when programming in some languages. The ` for instance is a pain to type : Atl Gr + 7 then space (though on apple keyboards it seems to have a dedicated key, but I'm pretty sure the space is still needed)... and of course numbers need the shift key to be held ... The issue is I can't really switch to QWERTY (accents).

I feel with you, but there is a nice solution :-) I moved to France from Germany, I had first to unlearn the German layout (QWERTZ) and then learn the French AZERTY. But as you say it is so bad! Additionally I was travelling for work and sometimes was exposed to type on different layouts and was very frustrated because I was accustomed to AZERTY. After one week in Russia I took the decision and switched to QWERTY, co…

I think you can never get the Turkish "ı" and "İ" with any sane combination on any other keyboard than the Turkish though. I'm Turkish and have been living in Germany since more than 5 years and I still use a Turkish Q layout just for this reason (I occasionally have to write in Turkish). It also contains all the German letters under relatively sane combinations.

Re: Around the World in 33 Keyboards

#67

Post by m0tive »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #62
m0tive wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a standard british keyboard[1]. It is a pain using the Mac "british" keyboard for programming in my experience. [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KB_United_Kingdom.sv...

The PC British layout is annoying. It swaps @ and " relative to the US layout, among some other important keys, which means that when you're dropped at a US-layout terminal you struggle. It also doesn't have the wonderful set of Alt+ combinations as the Mac British layout for typing various types of diacritics, widths of dashes, Greek letters, mathematical symbols, opening and closing quotes, and other things. PC lay…

Having always used a standard british keyboard, the subtle differences, e.g. location of \, #, ", `, ~, really slow me down. It just seems petty for Apple to ignore the standard and go it's own way... then again, it is Apple.

Also, I use # loads every day for c++ macros, and #if 0 blocks.

Re: Around the World in 33 Keyboards

#68

Post by NetStrikeForce »

aikah wrote: post #20

As a french person, I use an AZERTY keyboard, it can become really tedious when programming in some languages. The ` for instance is a pain to type : Atl Gr + 7 then space (though on apple keyboards it seems to have a dedicated key, but I'm pretty sure the space is still needed)... and of course numbers need the shift key to be held ... The issue is I can't really switch to QWERTY (accents).

You might want to switch to the Spanish keyboard. It's qwerty and has easy access to accents, plus ç (and ñ that you don't need anyway :))

Re: Around the World in 33 Keyboards

#69

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

m0tive wrote: post #67
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PC British layout is annoying. It swaps @ and " relative to the US layout, among some other important keys, which means that when you're dropped at a US-layout terminal you struggle. It also doesn't have the wonderful set of Alt+ combinations as the Mac British layout for typing various types of diacritics, widths of dashes, Greek letters, mathematical symbols, opening and closing quotes, and other things. PC lay…

Having always used a standard british keyboard, the subtle differences, e.g. location of \, #, ", `, ~, really slow me down. It just seems petty for Apple to ignore the standard and go it's own way... then again, it is Apple. Also, I use # loads every day for c++ macros, and #if 0 blocks.

> It just seems petty for Apple to ignore the standard and go it's own way... then again, it is Apple.

Apple's had their own layout for literally decades. There wasn't a standard back then.

> Having always used a standard british keyboard, the subtle differences, e.g. location of \, #, ", `, ~, really slow me down.

You can adjust to it pretty quickly.

Re: Around the World in 33 Keyboards

#70

Post by 59nadir »

minikites wrote: post #11
noja wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any real evidence that Dvorak layouts are better? I've only seen anecdata.

My understanding is that they're fractionally better speedwise and a bit better for RSI issues, but not enough to justify switching, it would take forever to make up the lost productivity while re-training.

A few weeks to reach a solid level, most likely, provided you actually practice.

If you type a lot of boilerplate code (which really is the only area where typing speed will hurt you) you'll notice a difference, but I'd argue that fact in itself is something you ought to fix.

I taught myself workable svorak (A5) in a weekend on IRC, then polished it over a shorter period after to feel comfortable. The good thing about SvorakA5[0] is that it uses AltGr + regular keys for special characters, which is really nice.

I don't recommend learning dvorak or any variant of it for the typing speed unless you do dictation or whatever, because you're not getting that much from it in any profession that requires you to think anyway. Personally, I just feel like I'm destroying my hands less when typing, which is a good enough reason. They're already some level of broken from having played strategy games too much, so I feel like I should take care of them more.

(Obviously Svorak is the Swedish version of Dvorak, so for other languages you'd have to find something like A5)

Edit: I recommend playing "Typing of the Dead"[1] if you can find a way to do so. Great way for polishing your use of a layout.

0 - http://aoeu.info/s/dvorak/images/svorak-A5.png

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Typing_of_the_Dead

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