Laptop keyboard layouts
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Over the years, I have used, and largely adapted to, a number of laptop keyboards of different layouts. I largely "hunt and peck" for home/page up etc, so their meanderings don't concern me too much. One that I really couldn't come to terms with had the up-arrow of the inverted T snuggled in where my right pinkie expected to find the shift key. I eventually took to using an external keyboard with that machine whenever I could. But one I've started using recently is proving quite unsettling. It has an extra column of "multimedia" keys down the left edge of the keyboard. Every other keyboard I have ever used has tab/caps lock/shift/ctrl as the leftmost. (And I still remember the pain of adapting when caps lock and ctrl got swapped.) My (probably incorrect, but by now incorrigible) resting position has my left pinkie on the inner part of the shift key and if I glance down the joint of my pinkie aligns with the edge of a "normal" keyboard. On this keyboard, being "one key inboard" looks wrong out of the corner of my eye, and makes me stop to recalibrate. It really does disrupt my typing. I'll give it go for a while, but it might soon be time to break out an external keyboard. </not quite a rant> Peter
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
Here's one way to better appreciate the keyboard you're using -- try using one of those roll-up silicone keyboards. They've got sort of a "mushy" feel to the keys Keyboard (sometimes described as being marshmallows or Jell-O), combined with the "grippy" feel of the silicone on the fingertips makes it a not-so-pleasant experience. Next level of torture would be an 1970s/1980s era "Chiclet" keyboard found on some 8-bit micros... or worse -- keyboard from a Sinclair ZX-80 and ZX-81 (hrm... imagine the level of torture you could inflict if it also replicates the experience of the wobbly 16K memory expansion).