geekhack
geekhack Community => Ergonomics => Topic started by: Linkbane on Sun, 22 September 2013, 01:10:44
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I can hardly find anyone on GH who also types Dvorak, so I made this little thread to note all the Dvorak members of this forum!
So, perhaps just go ahead and post how long you've typed Dvorak, your typing speed (if you want), and what you think about Colemak?
I shall start.
I've typed since November 2012, I type usually 120+, and I think that alternation is cooler than rolling. :D
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I can hardly find anyone on GH who also types Dvorak,
I've seen a fair enough number, I'd thought, in my few days here of folk who self-identify as Dvorak typists.
I've been using this layout by preference for somewhere ( :rolleyes: ) between 10 and 15 years. Where I really learned it, was hanging out in IRC ... if you want to be heard, you have to type OK.
Typing speed, I think, is around 80 WPM, and is with five or so W/M of qwerty speed but I don't remember which is faster. Except the past five years I have successfully excluded that from my life except where I'm operating someone else's computer. Which, as a computer professional is about half my job so whatever.
I've never typed on the colemak layout. It doesn't look like my fingers would prefer it, they way they've said they like the dvorak layout.
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We need a ANSI VS DVORAK.
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We need a ANSI VS DVORAK.
Doesn't ANSI specify QWERTY layout?
I use Dvorak, as do many of the other users here. I don't want to name names and out anyone though.
I learned in late 2007, and have had to keep up on QWERTY for work. I type the same speed in both, and can now switch over relatively quickly. I'm still learning proper technique on Dvorak with my ergodox though.
I actually wanted to learn left-handed Dvorak, and studied it for about a day, then I had a paper to write, and went cold turkey on my model M with Dvorak for a while.
It's become a problem, as almost all the keyboards I have that work are programmed for hardware Dvorak, and many have Dvorak-specific keycaps.
poker 2
kmac
phantom
model F-122
ergodox
upcoming skeldon
Most of my M's have the keycaps swapped around for Dvorak layout as well. All my QWERTY keyboards seem to be at work, so if my roommate needs one, I have to dig out an old cherry POS kb or something from the basement.
I'm a big proponent of Dvorak (well, alternative layouts in general), and prefer it to colemak because it's not based on QWERTY. Given my uncommon reasons, I recommend people look up alternative layouts and choose whichever they prefer.
I've bought 20% of thick PBT Dvorak keycaps made, and I sort-of regret not getting the dvorak spherical keycaps set in round4. Maybe there's still a chance.
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I actually switched to colemak about one week ago. Starting to approach my former typing speed. Passwords have been the hardest part!
I chose Colemak because it works better with standard vim config than Dvorak.
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I worked in Pittsburgh for a week in 2000, and the guy I worked with there was a major fan of Dvorak, he touch typed on a qwerty layout laptop. I swapped about 6 months later and been with it ever since. I found it very easy to switch, after about 3 days I was back to 60-70wpm. My sister also swapped about 2003 and she's just swapped back to qwerty a month ago because of shared work computers.
I hit about 100wpm and I was about the same on qwerty, with really bad typing habits. I have a set of OEM keys from WASD in dvorak layout, but since my latest keyboard has cherry profile, I found it close enough just to move the standard set around, the profile errors seem minor to me on cherry keys. Maybe sometime I will go for one of the GB DSA or SA sets sometime, the dvorak's friend.
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@debt4lyfe How did you come to that conclusion?
I learned Dvorak probably 2 years ago, and have been using it exclusively since. I went for Dvorak because I didn't want to learn a highly specialized layout, that would perform well in one language and bad in others, and Dvorak with flipped u/i seemed to fit programming/English/German quite nicely (punctuation placement, sch/ei-rolls).
Before starting with Dvorak I did a typing speed test with QWERTY and got ~60wpm, adjusted for typing mistakes. Not because I was typing slow, but because I was making many mistakes. Nowadays I type at about 80wpm with the highest tested speed at 110wpm, adjusted, which, I think, is mostly due to less mistakes.
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I swapped to dvorak a few weeks after trying maltron - talk about messing with your head. It was a heck of a slog - but I love it now.
A good number of the Advantage 'family' who hang out in the Ergonomics subforum have swapped to one layout or another.
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I've been typing Dvorak since about 2004 or so, back when I first bumped into dvzine.org (http://dvzine.org). I started teaching it to myself on the Fingerworks Touchstream I was using at work, at the time. Since I could program the keyboard itself, it was pretty easy to switch over. And since the keyboard was nothing like a normal, staggered keyboard, I was able to keep my Qwerty skills for a while. Over the years since, I've been typing Qwerty less and less, even though I still need to use it from time to time for work (server and network admin). Because of that, I like to leave my keyboards with a Qwerty legend, and either switch the layout in the keyboard or in the OS, so I can quickly glance down for the few times I need to type Qwerty.
Because I don't type large amounts of English for my work, I don't bother measuring my typing speed. I don't type Dvorak for speed, I type Dvorak for comfort, and because I'm used to it, at this point. Typing Qwerty for long periods feels weird to me, now.
As for other layouts, I haven't really looked into Colemak or Workman. I mostly wanted a layout that's supported by most OSes, and for a while Dvorak was the only easy choice. I think layouts like ASETNIOP are more interesting, in the long run.
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Ive been typing on qwerty all my life, it would seem weird to change to a different format
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Ive been typing on qwerty all my life, it would seem weird to change to a different format
I think that is true for almost everyone, except the few that go from dvorak to colemak or vice versa. I had been typing qwerty for 20 years before I swapped. I liked the logic behind dvorak, and when I swapped it just made sense. Nothing wrong with sticking to a known format though, there are many advantages to qwerty, and many disadvantages to swapping. In many ways, a non standard layout is an option only for those who can be selfish with it.
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Ive been typing on qwerty all my life, it would seem weird to change to a different format
Of course, if you don't need the slight increase in speed or the ergonomics (like if you aren't typing for an extended period of time every day), it might not be your thing. I just want to type faster, so I thought that it's no different from learning a different typing technique.
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Dvorak since January, switched cold turkey. I can do 140 WPM, but it's more about the comfort. I was also unable to touch type prior to learning DV.
The whole DV vs Colemak thing... I appreciate the logical organization of Dvorak.
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Typing or touch typing?. I am guessing that a very large percentage of people started with qwerty because that is the default layout in ever keyboard. I decided to learn dvorak several years ago because: 1) I feelt so stupid while I was searching for every single key while I was typing 2) I hated when someone else was using my keyboard, so I switched my keycaps to blanks
Ive been typing on qwerty all my life, it would seem weird to change to a different format