Our New Machine, Pandora

[migo]

Pardon my french but a dvorak keyboard layout on a handheld is the most ridiculous fucking idea I've ever heard.... and proof a forum thread is about the worst possible way to collect info for a handheld design. You get ridiculous ideas from people who want it to have a built in spitoon, label maker and a hickory smoked cheddar enclosure.

And what are you basing this on? Do you actually have a handheld with a keyboard? I do. Most of them suck, the few that have a good design still suffer from the QWERTY layout.

 

[A_SN]

you must be an idiot

You're an idiot

Mmmmh.. nope, I'm fairly confident you're the idiot.

 

[Tobriand]

Pardon my french but a dvorak keyboard layout on a handheld is the most ridiculous fucking idea I've ever heard.... and proof a forum thread is about the worst possible way to collect info for a handheld design. You get ridiculous ideas from people who want it to have a built in spitoon, label maker and a hickory smoked cheddar enclosure.

And what are you basing this on? Do you actually have a handheld with a keyboard? I do. Most of them suck, the few that have a good design still suffer from the QWERTY layout.


Well, I don't know about you, but I could certainly type about 45wpm on an old Psion with a Qwerty keyboard.

What's more, my flatmate has been on Dvorak for about a year now. Before switching, she was ~80wpm Qwerty; she's now about 60wpm Dvorak. Admittedly on a full laptop, but good circumstantial evidence that, whilst you might be ale to pick up Dvorak quickly, it does definitely take time for the added efficiency of the layout to overcome the many years of prior experience with qwerty.

I think, however, we're all agreed on one thing: at least it's not just laid out "ABCD..."!

 

[lubidog]

you must be an idiot

You're an idiot

Mmmmh.. nope, I'm fairly confident you're the idiot.


You both are!

But Mr Migo, you may love the your Dvorak keyboards, but we all want qwerty! (Well, qwertz) And 'it's been proved'...where? Doesn't bother me either way, but just coming on to a forum with 'facts' that have been 'proved' but not bothering to demonstrate where how and why etc just grinds my gears!

 

[Null]

Qwerty vs Dvorak

 

[migo]

Pardon my french but a dvorak keyboard layout on a handheld is the most ridiculous fucking idea I've ever heard.... and proof a forum thread is about the worst possible way to collect info for a handheld design. You get ridiculous ideas from people who want it to have a built in spitoon, label maker and a hickory smoked cheddar enclosure.

And what are you basing this on? Do you actually have a handheld with a keyboard? I do. Most of them suck, the few that have a good design still suffer from the QWERTY layout.


Well, I don't know about you, but I could certainly type about 45wpm on an old Psion with a Qwerty keyboard.

What's more, my flatmate has been on Dvorak for about a year now. Before switching, she was ~80wpm Qwerty; she's now about 60wpm Dvorak. Admittedly on a full laptop, but good circumstantial evidence that, whilst you might be ale to pick up Dvorak quickly, it does definitely take time for the added efficiency of the layout to overcome the many years of prior experience with qwerty.

There's a difference between typing on a full sized keyboard and a thumb board. With a full sized keyboard, even if you have several keys in a row with the same hand, while not quite as efficient as alternating hands, it doesn't slow you down as much because you have 4 fingers to work with. When you're typing with a thumb you're cut down to typing at half speed. The point is also that from typing on a Dvorak desktop keyboard, to going to a Nokia E62, I didn't have any learning curve at all, because I was looking at the keys while I was typing.

QUOTE

I think, however, we're all agreed on one thing: at least it's not just laid out "ABCD..."!



Actually, it's been established that that is also better than QWERTY. That was one of the original typewriter designs, it was dropped in favour of QWERTY because people were able to type fast enough to jam the keys. It's also been established that it's easier to learn than QWERTY, although I'm not sure how it compares to Dvorak. It would probably be the easiest to blind type with of all of them.

you must be an idiot

You're an idiot

Mmmmh.. nope, I'm fairly confident you're the idiot.


You both are!

But Mr Migo, you may love the your Dvorak keyboards, but we all want qwerty! (Well, qwertz) And 'it's been proved'...where? Doesn't bother me either way, but just coming on to a forum with 'facts' that have been 'proved' but not bothering to demonstrate where how and why etc just grinds my gears!


I already explained why, alternating sides, and keeping all the vowels on the home row. If you can't figure out why that's better, then there's not much I can do to help you.

 

[Javacat]

Actually, it's been established that that is also better than QWERTY. That was one of the original typewriter designs, it was dropped in favour of QWERTY because people were able to type fast enough to jam the keys.

That's just an old myth. The typewriters did used to jam, but that was due to a bad layout, with common characters all grouped together (on top of the speed). QWERTY was designed to spread commonly used characters across the keyboard so that they had less chance of jamming together when bashed in sequence.

Also, I have a Blackberry 8820 with a QWERTY keyboard and I can touch type just fine with that. Granted it's slower than on a full size keyboard and in theory a DVORAK should be faster, but it's fine for me.

 

[StealthBagel]

You're an idiot if you think it wouldn't. Try typing on a thumb board. You'll notice that a lot of words result in 3 or 4 letters in a row with a single thumb. Since Dvorak has a,e,i,o,u all on the left side this splits up the words so you have much more alternation between i love Dvorak Dvorak is awesome I even love how it sounds Dvorak Dvorak Dvorak you shouldn't use qwerty ever so you should take your Qwerty keyboard and write all new letters on it with gold glitter ink and remap all of them Qwerty is evil Qwerty is the devil Qwerty raped and murdered my wife

shut up oh my god shut up shut up

If it's simply a spec-sheet, with no extra conditions required, though, then yes, I agree, email would be a more logical choice. But it's not. So it shouldn't be.

Do you have a source for that information?.....

 

[migo]

I'm sure you feel very clever misquoting.

Actually, it's been established that that is also better than QWERTY. That was one of the original typewriter designs, it was dropped in favour of QWERTY because people were able to type fast enough to jam the keys.

That's just an old myth. The typewriters did used to jam, but that was due to a bad layout, with common characters all grouped together (on top of the speed). QWERTY was designed to spread commonly used characters across the keyboard so that they had less chance of jamming together when bashed in sequence.

Also, I have a Blackberry 8820 with a QWERTY keyboard and I can touch type just fine with that. Granted it's slower than on a full size keyboard and in theory a DVORAK should be faster, but it's fine for me.


Myth? You admitted the speed was also a factor. If you type slowly on any layout, the keys won't jam. The faster you type, the more likely you are to jam - this even happens on QWERTY. Commonly used characters are accessed by the pinky more than they should be, which slows things down given that the pinky is shorter than other fingers so relative to the size of the finger it has to travel more of a distance - slowing you down. This placement isn't an issue with thumb typing though, as the fingers aren't used. General square layout isn't so great either, which is why some of the UMPCs have split rainbow lay outs. The home row with the curve matches the sweeping motion the thumb could do, and keeping most of the commonly used charcters on the home row, as Dvorak does, will make things more efficient. I don't have any problems typing on my E62 either, but that's for SMSing, there's no time pressure so I can afford to be a bit slower. If I'm playing some sort of UT or Q3 clone, with capture the flag mode, and I want to coordinate with team mates, being slowed down by the QWERTY layout is going to be a problem.

 

[Tobriand]

If it's simply a spec-sheet, with no extra conditions required, though, then yes, I agree, email would be a more logical choice. But it's not. So it shouldn't be.

Do you have a source for that information?.....

To be fair, no I don't. But I'm a firm believer in Craigix's sanity. I suppose my argument is:

1) Either Craigix is insane to send out a physical single sheet by slower and more expensive physical post OR Whatever is being sent out by post is not a single specsheet.
2) Craigix is not insane
3) Therefore it's not just a single specsheet (MP).

If 1 and 2 are valid, then 3 necessarily follows. 1 and 2 may not be valid, of course (if Craig shows up with a couple of pencils up his nose saying wibble, then 2 could be fairly taken to have been disproved, for example), but otherwise, I'd be confident in making the statement despite not having any source for the format of the information pack.

 

[imec]

The misquote is the only funny thing I have read in awhile (well, in this thread at least). Calm down, QWERTY is much more common than Dvorak. Honestly, I don't know how you can expect that layout to be adopted when such a minute percentage of the people buying this device will even use it. Maybe you could rip the keys out and change them around, and use software to remap the keys. Honestly, not very many people want Dvorak, it doesn't matter how superior it is. Most people are used to QWERTY, therefore QWERTY is a much wiser decision.

 

[geise69]

Man I can't wait till the device specs get released so we all can stop with this senseless crap!

 

[Null]

Man I can't wait till the device specs get released so we all can stop with this senseless crap!

That's not going to stop people, bundled software argument anyone?

 

[mison]

If it's simply a spec-sheet, with no extra conditions required, though, then yes, I agree, email would be a more logical choice. But it's not. So it shouldn't be.

Do you have a source for that information?.....

EvilDragon said on the german forums that they printed flyers showing the machine in its original size, so they'll probably send out these. they have send those out to some "investors", too.

(source)

 

[chris_r]

My german isn't great but as far as Ic an tell it basically says that they're still working on the exact dimensions of the casing and there are 3d renders.
Flyers are in printing, the domain has been registered and the first preview model (?) has been made.

Edit: I think it might not say that they're working on the dimensions of the case but how they can fit the guts inside the casing. Maybe someone with better german can help.

 

[javaJake]

Pardon my french but a dvorak keyboard layout on a handheld is the most ridiculous fucking idea I've ever heard....

You're an idiot if you think it wouldn't.

<snip>

You obviously don't understand how key remapping works.

Mmmmh.. nope, I'm fairly confident you're the idiot.

shut up oh my god shut up shut up

If the moderators were paying attention, there is a very real chance of banning here. According to the rules linked in my signature, none of this behavior is allowed in the least.

 

[Alex.]

You know what, as long as we're not going with QWERTY, might as well put the D-Pad on the right and the action buttons on the left, because I heard in five years' time players will not only catch up to their current performance, but also surpass it by up to two new hiscores every three months!

Since the keyboard will be tiny, it will be relatively inefficient to begin with, regardless of its layout. Why should it also be a radical change from what 98% of people expect? Any long-term gain in productivity by using Dvorak will be undermined by the learning curve (it will be steeper on a tiny keyboard than on a full-sized one). And what's the silliness that ABCDEF is faster than QWERTY? Come on, that's just desperate slander.

 

[Javacat]

I'm sure you feel very clever misquoting.

Not really. I couldn't be bothered to find your original post about how QWERTY is designed to slow you down. I was going to write a proper reply, but I can't be arsed reading whatever elitist crap you come up with in reply to that.

 

[fusion_power]

My german isn't great but as far as Ic an tell it basically says that they're still working on the exact dimensions of the casing and there are 3d renders.
Flyers are in printing, the domain has been registered and the first preview model (?) has been made.

Edit: I think it might not say that they're working on the dimensions of the case but how they can fit the guts inside the casing. Maybe someone with better german can help.

Your german seems to be better than my english. ^_^
Yes, ED is making the Design of the Device, AFAIK he has finished the Renderings. This stuff will be also used to print Flyers with the Device in original Size. Then, the Flyers are sent to the sponsors. And only AFTER the sponsors have confirmed the design, we users will see results. So I think the whole story could take a while.
Im sure to, that the Donators will get these Flyers to, this could be the reason, why Craigix uses the mail way. However, maybe there is more because you could scan flyers and still send the whole stuff per E-Mail.
And if the post isn't slower in other countries than in germany, in theory the donators should recieve their stuff today....when Craigix sent these at saturday morning (I had read this here, when I'm not wrong)
Ah, here:

Yep should be sending them out in the morning. I'll explain why there was such a delay at the weekend.

 

[chris_r]

I don't know if craig ever confirmed yet that he sent anything out yet, just that he plans to send them out the next day. Of course, it could be a while before we see anything because of the delay in christmas post.