Contributed editorial appearing in
Scientific Computing & Instrumentation 18:5, April 2001, pg. 16.
The standard keyboard layout was patented by Christopher Sholes in 1868, and a historic typing contest held in Cincinnati, Ohio on July 25, 1888 established the use of touch-typing on the Universal or “QWERTY” keyboard as the undisputed champion. Several sources relate that Sholes’ keyboard layout was intended to reduce the occurrence of jammed type hammers when certain combinations of keys were struck in rapid succession and therefore was not designed to maximize typing speed or comfort. Grolier’s Encyclopedia suggests the QWERTY layout was chosen, in part, so that typewriter salesmen could type the word “typewriter” to prospective purchasers by “hunting and pecking” through only the top row of keys.In 1936, Professor August Dvorak of the University of Washington patented a keyboard layout known as the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK) claiming that it reduced the finger movement necessary for typing, balanced the load between hands, and placed the most common letters under the strongest fingers. The DSK was mounting a tangible threat to the QWERTY keyboard until the United States military standardized on the QWERTY layout during World War II. Since that time, the widespread occurrence of repetitive stress injuries (RSI) and carpal tunnel syndrome associated with keyboard layout has created an underground DSK following.
What does this keyboard stuff have to do with data acquisition? The computer keyboard is by far the most prolific data input device, far outnumbering analog-to-digital conversion cards. Secondly, the data acquisition community is currently undergoing massive standardization. Economists have contemplated the possibility of market forces failing the task of selecting the most appropriate among competing standards. The argument is whether an established standard can persist over a challenger, even when all users prefer a world dominated by the challenger, if users are unable to coordinate their choices. The economic community has used the DSK as its banner example of a superior solution that lost out to the deeply entrenched QWERTY standard.
A highly referenced 1990 article published in the Journal of Law and Economics by Professor Stan Liebowitz of the University of Texas at Dallas refutes the claims of DSK superiority by attributing the supporting evidence to sparse and subjective sources. He also states, “There is no scientifically acceptable evidence that Dvorak offers any real advantage over QWERTY.” I am intrigued by that statement and decided to pick up the gauntlet.
My computer keyboard is a “Standard US 101-key” keyboard containing four central rows of alphanumeric keys. The bottom row, Row 0, contains the space bar. Row 1 starts with “z,” Row 2, known as the “home row,” starts with “a,” Row 3 contains the well known “qwerty” and the number keys are located in Row 4. Each of the keys is located on 2.0-cm centers. Row 1 is offset from home row by 1.0 cm, Row 3 by 0.5 cm and Row 4 is offset from Row 3 by 1.0 cm. Using this spatial grid, I hacked out a small project in LabWindows/CVI that measures the distance traveled by each finger as it moves to and from its home row position. For example, on the QWERTY keyboard, the right index finger rests on the “j” key—so the cost function for typing a j is 0 cm. To type an “h,” the right index finger must translate 2.0 cm, press the h key, and then return 2.0 cm to its home position over the j key, resulting in a cost function of 4.0 cm. The cost function of each key along with the alphanumeric map of both layouts was coded into the program.
I obtained the complete text of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens from Project Gutenberg and ran it through the program to calculate the cost function of using each keyboard layout. The QWERTY layout split the left- and right-hand keystrokes 55:45 percent while the DSK split them 45:55 percent. The QWERTY keystrokes residing in home row where 34% to the DSK’s 68%. The total cost function for QWERTY was 20.5 kilometers, while the DSK’s was 11.5 kilometers, a savings of 44%. The same analysis was performed on Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Melville’s Moby Dick, and Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Each resulted in an identical cost function savings of 44% for the DSK over the QWERTY keyboard.
To see how the DSK might benefit me personally, I fed the past year’s DAQ columns through the program and calculated a cost function savings of 42%. I then ran 10,000 lines of C code through it and found a cost function savings of 20%. I can’t be certain, but further analysis of the Dvorak keyboard layout might disprove the assertion that the best product always wins. Can I interest anyone in a slightly used compiler for OS/2?
