Re: Dvorak (& Lojban)

[HACKER G N <c9709244@ALINGA.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>]

  John Cowan:
> > But in Latin script, a B is a B, and a C is a C, and if you
> > have to remember:
> >
> >         to type a B with left-2nd-finger-down and C with
> >         left-3rd-finger-down on QWERTY only
>
          Ilya Ketris:
>         It's not you but your fingers who remember this
>         once your mind is in the different typing mode.

Yes, I was just thinking, if you had to think out consciously which finger
went where in just one typing mode, you couldn't type very fast. Whenever
you learn a new physical skill, there reaches a certain point where your
body remembers it quite independently of whether YOU do. I often have to
think about exactly where on the keyboard a QWERTY key is to know it
intellectually, but if you sit me down on a QWERTY keyboard I can type
using that key automatically, and at 70 words a minute!

As for the Dvorak keyboard, thanks go to all the people who wrote to me
telling me how I could configure my own keyboard to Dvorak. I have now
been experimenting with Dvorak for 6 days including today, and I have
found and downloaded a set of 29 Dvorak lessons from the Internet - I am
currently on lesson 6. I was amazed at just how quickly I could pick up
Dvorak - I had the new letter positions intellectually memorised in the
first evening! - and as far as being able to maintain both QWERTY and
Dvorak skills at once, I have from the beginning been concerned with
using Dvorak only necessarily in lessons, until my speed in it is
comparable with my QWERTY speed. I will type diary entries in Dvorak -
slowly but surely - but for my uni work I have to use QWERTY still,
because it's too important to stuff up with a keyboard with which I'm not
yet fully fluent, obviously. And so far I can say that my speed in Dvorak
just keeps picking up, but my QWERTY skills have not diminished in the
slightest! In fact, I think they're a little bit faster and more accurate
than they were before, because of the extra emphasis I've been giving to
correct posture and movement of fingers on the keyboard in Dvorak.

Geoff