From: utzoo!henry Newsgroups: net.micro Title: Re: Jerry Pournelle's Disappointment Article-I.D.: utzoo.2375 Posted: Fri Aug 13 17:21:25 1982 Received: Fri Aug 13 17:21:25 1982 "In the time it takes to learn that you have to stretch your pinky a little bit, you might have lost a grand total of 5 whole minutes out of your life." In my experience it takes more than 5 minutes for an experienced touch-typist. And that is not the point: I shouldn't *have* to spend extra time and effort adapting to the stupidities of a non-standard keyboard. The machines are supposed to be my servants, not vice-versa! I will *not* stop complaining about it until manufacturers stop bringing out new products that perpetuate this stupid botch! If a manufacturer really feels compelled to "improve" on the standard keyboard that every touch-typist's fingers are trained for, he should *at least* offer a standard one as a no-cost option. And he should ***not*** lie in his teeth by claiming in his advertising that his default keyboard has a "standard typewriter layout"! What gall. How would you feel about a manufacturer who offered an "ASCII" terminal which actually used a non-standard variant of the character set, with the explanation "oh, you'll get used to it!"? The whole purpose of standards is to try to ensure that everybody does things the same way so that users do NOT have to spend time adapting to gratuitous new stupidities every time they buy new equipment. (The standard old stupidities are quite bad enough!) Mutter, mutter, snarl, rave, rant, flame... Henry Spencer U of Toronto