I’ve been using Dvorak for about four years. I type at about 70 wpm. I never learned to touch-type QWERTY - when I decided it was time to learn to type, I decided I might as well go directly to Dvorak. I can hunt-and-peck QWERTY at around 30-35 wpm, but I rarely have to use it.
Everyone in my lab in grad school used to hate me, because I was forever forgetting to switch the computers back to a “normal” keyboard after using them.
One of the many uncanny similarities between me and my husband when we met was that we both used the Dvorak keyboard.
Quoth Tranquilis: “The right- or left-handed variant of the Dvorak configuration used to be selectable in the old days by loading dvorak.sys in your start files, if you were using M$-DOS or Win 3.x. It may be accessable in ‘Control Panel | Accessability Options’ still…”
All three Dvorak configurations can be accessed in Windows 95/98 by selecting Start, Settings, Control Panel, Keyboard, Language, Properties, Keyboard Layout. You will need your Windows CD, or else find a copy of the appropriate .kbd files.
“You can rearrange the keys on these keyboards to your heart’s content, and the new arrangement will feel as though it were built that way.”
Yeah, but the dots are still on the F and J… Well, maybe I’ll ask for an honest-to-goodness Dvorak keyboard for my next birthday. What I’d really like, though, is a keyboard on which the keys have both labels side by side. That might be confusing, though.
Only problem is, I don’t think that the Control Panel Keyboard settings are respected by the MS-DOS window. If you have occasion to use the MS-DOS command line, you’ll still have to type in QWERTY. I know I have this problem in Windows ME (which is just Windows 98 with a few extra doo-dads added).
Sorry it took so long to post this - I’ve been out of commission for the past couple of days. I just wanted to say thank you very much for the link, ENugent; you made my day. I had no idea that such products existed, otherwise I would have tried to find one a long time ago.
Well, I think we’ve said about everything we have to say. I don’t expect anyone else to post, anyway, so let me just say to everyone, thanks for the replies. It’s been a good thread.