Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!ukma!gatech!emory!phssra From: phssra@emory.uucp (Scott R. Anderson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Third party keyboards for the Mac Message-ID: <3033@emory.uucp> Date: 2 Jul 88 16:27:30 GMT References: <5204@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <6500034@hpindda.HP.COM> <444@esquire.UUCP> <5223@super.upenn.edu> Reply-To: phssra@emory.UUCP (Scott Robert Anderson) Organization: Department of Physics, Emory University, Atlanta Lines: 37 In article <5223@super.upenn.edu> hodas@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Josh Hodas) writes: >In article <444@esquire.UUCP> sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) writes: >> >>Just out of curiosity, is there an "extended" keyboard out there with >>the control key in the right place (i.e., next to the 'A')? Apple's is >>in a supremely stupid place, and it seems the DataDesk 101 doesn't have >>one at all. > >Not that I really want to start a massive netwar on the human factors of key- >boards, but why is 'next to the "A"' the right place for the control key? I >suspect it is only because that is the way it was on the keyboard you learned >on. Granted, where the "right" place is ultimately depends on the user, but "next to the 'A'" is the position used on most of the popular terminals around, e.g. vt100 and clones. This is what I have been using for years, and this is one of the reasons I got the Apple standard keyboard instead of the extended. >Personally, It makes sense to me to cluster modifier keys together, >and the only place you can do this is the way its done on the extended keyboard I would point out that the shift key is also a modifier key, so on the standard keyboard, they *are* clustered together: control, shift, option, down the left side (now if they would just get rid of the caps-lock and make the option key double long...). >(also, I think its imperative that they appear on both sides, not just one.). I agree, this is one advantage of the extended keyboard. * Scott Robert Anderson * ** gatech!emoryu1!phssra * * * ** phssra@emoryu1.{bitnet,csnet} * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *