This is a much cited example of path dependence, a much argued topic in behavioural science. Articles and whole books were written on this around 20 years ago and it was the subject of some controversy at least among academics with a lot of time on their hands.
See "The Curse of Qwerty","QWERTY is about as good a design as any alternative" and "At Last, a Remedy for Chronic QWERTY-skepticism"
References 10, l1, 12
michael adams
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He isnt on a Dvorak keyboard.
Donno, why not tell your MAC it has DVORAK keyboard and shift the key caps around. B-)
Because shifting keys on a Mac bricks it and it will just refuse to start, after deleting all your data.
Do you still want one? Where are you? You're not in Japan, are you? I don't want to ship it to Japan! Does it have to work? Mine works for a couple minutes after I fiddle with it, at least it did
20 years ago. I've had a cover on it ever since, but the cover is starting to rip at one of the seams. I would think a 50/50 chance a guy with experience on Selectrics could fix it in 10 minutes.
Hit Start, settings, control panel, language and regional options, languages, details,settings, drop down box, choose dvorak or US. I have a link on my taskbar to choose which one to use. Years ago I used a CD named Mavis Beacon teaches typing and it taught me how to use it. To see the layout search for keyboard, on-screen keyboard to see it. Yes, it's buried deep like no one is supposed to access it, eih? It doesn't take long to learn it. The vowels aoeui are on the home row left side. dhtns are home row right side. Good luck!!!!
Guys with experience on Selectrics are my age. Better hurry before the Rona gets us all. We were damned happy in the 70s when they stopped using Selectrics as console printers and by the 80s they were disappearing in offices. We were down to ONE selectric guy in Ft Myers by 1986 (in a territory of
18). OP guys got transitioned to other jobs, "early retired" with an ITO or were just laid off. I can work on one but I was never what I call good. A really good guy is still not going to do a rotate tape and all the adjustments in 10 minutes. Yeah he can slap it in and hope but you are going to be eating the teeth off the ball most of the time.
I dimly recall a hardware hack that drove a Selectric through the parallel port.
I suppose someone might have made a Selectric adapter for a PC but in the 2741 era (70s) it was a whole board full of cards. By the 80s the whole thing could be on a chip except the T/R drivers and the 3 or 4 other functions. It is something like 10 solenoids on the console printer version with no keyboard mechanics at all. The 274x family used a typewriter with sensors on the keyboard and solenoids to simulate key strokes. It still printed what you typed tho because the mechanical linkage was still there. Old 274x Selectrics were the go to home typewriter for CEs. The sensor/solenoid rack was easy to remove. Then you just had a garden variety 725 if you could come up with covers. I had one but I left it with my ex. By then I was a dot matrix guy and never wanted to see another bouncing ball.
I had a copy of TTL cookbook but I moved on to his CMOS cookbook once I figured out CMOS was far more builder friendly. I still have the book. It is a great reference for someone with a basic knowledge of logic who wants a kick start into what is out there and what it does. My spa controller is all 4xxx CMOS and SSRs. It is pretty cool being able to switch 40 amp loads straight from logic. I made a few other things around here like my lighting controller but that was pretty basic stuff.
I had an Osborne I and sent it back to the factory for the amazing upgrade to 100 column video and double sided, double density diskettes.
The video card would work for a while and crap out. Investigation with a can of circuit cooler pointed to a CMOS chip. I replaced it with the equivalent LS-TTL and life was good. Designers sometimes overlooked CMOS being a low power gate until you start switching them rapidly -- say in a video card.
Anything I do is way down in the sub audio range. The fastest thing is the clock and in my spa controller that is one beat per second via a
555. I am using a 14 bit counter to pick off other cycle lengths. (timing the pump maintenance cycle, auto power off etc). The thermostat is a car water temperature sensor and a whetstone bridge feeding 1/4th of an LM324 op amp. There are also two running the solars and one for overheat although I also have a fail safe bi-metal thermal switch on the heater body that shuts everything down at 115 degrees or so (old IBM part). I have a 10 second clock in the light controller that holds the motion lights off on a power hit until the chip resets so they don't latch on. This is all low speed stuff. I did make a chronograph out of SMS cards out of a 2821 printer, reader punch control unit.Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
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