WEBVTT - Can't Quit the QWERTY Keyboard 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.880 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.200 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer from I Heart Radio, 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.479 and I love all things tech. And you know, not 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:26.799 long after the invention of computers, engineers began to lean 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:31.360 pretty heavily on an older technology for the purposes of 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:36.000 inputting data, in other words, getting information into the computer. 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.800 And it was to figure out a way to do that, 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:43.080 either directly or indirectly into those computational machines. The older 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:46.879 technology I'm talking about is, of course, the typewriter, and 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:51.400 we gradually saw the evolution of the computer keyboard. And 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:55.960 we're about eighty years out from those days where keyboards 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.680 were starting to become a thing for computers. They didn't 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:00.680 always look the way they do today. Some of the 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.200 keyboards for early computers were just you know, numeral pads 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.120 and not a full keyboard. But my point is we're 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.119 eighty years out and the keyboard is still around, whether 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.920 it's an actual physical keyboard or an on screen one, 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.399 or even one of those fancy laser ones where it 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:19.640 projects it on a on a flat surface and you 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:24.080 just move your fingers to the the area on the 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:27.919 surface that is designated a key anyway, we've we've stuck 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:32.400 with that form factor for decades, nearly a century in fact, 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:34.600 if you're talking about typewriters, more than a century. So 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.160 today I wanted to talk a bit about the history 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.240 of the keyboard, as well as some alternatives that people 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.039 have proposed to the old TYPEE TYPEE it's like to 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:47.040 call it, and perhaps explore why nothing has really taken 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.240 its place so far. Now, before I jump in, I 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.080 do want to acknowledge that there are other user interfaces 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:58.040 out there that have become popular. Touch screens have removed 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.640 some of the need for keyboards, at least for certain applications. 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:06.200 Voice commands are popular in some contexts, but not all. 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:08.960 You might use voice commands for a hands free experience 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.560 with your phone or to interact with a smart speaker, 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:13.760 But for most of us, I would wager that we 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.680 don't use voice interaction with our computers. But I also 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.359 want to acknowledge that while that may be true for 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.160 most of us, it's certainly not true for all of us. 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:28.680 Voice interaction is an important component and provides accessibility options 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.080 for people who might not otherwise be able to interact 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.400 with computers using a traditional keyboard, at least not do 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:40.400 so easily. So please understand I'm not dismissing alternatives out 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:44.000 of hand, but rather exploring why the keyboard form factor 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.920 these days, also coupled with the computer mouse, has remained 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:54.360 constant over multiple generations of computers. So, as I said, 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.240 the predecessor to the keyboard was the good old typewriter, 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:01.560 and the predecessor of that device was the Tarot type, 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.760 a sort of proto typewriter. That's p T E R 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:09.520 O T Y p E. Actually you could just call 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.960 the Pterot type a typewriter, though the mechanisms and keyboard 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.160 layout would be different from later devices. A man named 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:21.440 John Jonathan Pratt born in eighteen thirty one, invented it. 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:26.480 John Pratt was born in South Carolina, and he lived 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.519 in the South, making him a citizen of the Confederacy 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.240 during the Civil War. He was also a slave owner 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.640 until eighteen sixty one, whereupon he sold them in order 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:40.480 to travel to the UK, where he would show off 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:42.880 his device in an effort to get patents could be 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.160 He had figured, you know, pretty much on the money 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.080 that being a citizen of the Confederacy would mean he 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.360 would see very little support from the U. S. Patent Office, 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.440 so he thought he would bypass that and go to 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.640 England instead, so the Tarotype would become the first typewriter 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.960 device sold to the public, but many scholars referred to 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:05.400 him as the grandfather of the typewriter, not the father 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.560 of it. The keys of the pterotype were laid out 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.520 very differently than the ones you would find on a 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:16.440 modern computer or typewriter keyboard. On the left side, you 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.680 had a top row of numerals, but it was just 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:23.560 two through six, and then you had three rows of 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:27.440 letters in alphabetic order A through M. Then you had 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.159 on the right side, so split from the left side, 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:34.360 you had a similar arrangement. You had the top row 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.320 with numerals seven, eight, and nine, plus a comma and 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.479 a period. Then you had three rows of letters in 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:45.120 through y. You were supposed to use I and oh 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.760 to represent one in zero. That's why there were no 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:51.520 one or zero buttons there. And there was a really 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:55.000 big button for spaces to put space between letters. So 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.280 when you finished one word and we're about to start another, 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:03.800 so this is p key time era, that's a pre quirty. 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:07.200 If you were to come across. The first commercial typewriter 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.159 device today, like the first one that was really being sold, 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.000 the terotype was intended to be, but they're very few 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:17.159 that were produced. You would probably think you had encountered 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:21.200 some sort of steampunk esque sci fi gadget. A Danish 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.960 inventor named Rasmus Molling Hansen built a device generally called 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.520 the writing Ball. He mounted the keys on a semi 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.039 sphere that, in turn was mounted above the carriage that 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.880 held the paper. And it makes me think it's a 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.480 cross between R two D two and Pinhead from the 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:43.359 movie Hell Raiser, if Pinhead had typing keys instead of 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.960 pins stuck out of his noggin. While the writing Ball 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:51.480 was the first commercial typewriter device, it wasn't a widespread success, 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.760 though Hansen apparently sold quite a few in England. These 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.440 devices today go for a pretty penny or actually a 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.120 lot of pretty pennies at auction, fetching more than a 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:05.080 hundred thousand dollars in some cases princely some. But as 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.800 much as I would love a globe shaped keyboard for 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:11.320 my computer, it's not the form factor that stuck around. 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.600 An American feller by the name of Christopher Latham Shoals 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:18.839 gets the credit for being the father of the proper 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:23.320 modern typewriter. Shoals was born in eighteen nineteen in Pennsylvania. 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.440 He apprenticed to a printer to learn a trade, and 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:28.960 in eighteen thirty seven he and his older brothers moved 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:33.200 out to Green Bay, Wisconsin. The brothers published a newspaper 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.960 out in Green Bay. Christopher landed a job as the 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:40.960 editor of the Wisconsin Inquirer in Madison, and after being 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:43.480 editor of a couple of other newspapers, he decided to 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.760 try his hand at politics and was elected to the 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:51.920 state legislature. By the eighteen sixties, Shoals was inventing devices 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.480 to make life easier for those who work with paper 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.760 and inc In eighteen sixty four, he and his friend 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.839 Samuel W. So Leigh received a patent for a machine 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:05.760 that would number pages. After inventing that, a colleague suggested 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:09.240 that he might make a device similar to Pratt's Tarot type, 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:13.080 something that could print not just numbers, but letters onto paper. 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.760 Pratt had already worked on mechanical systems that would advance 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:18.760 the position of a piece of paper so that you 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:20.680 could type a series of symbols on the paper without 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:22.480 them all being piled on top of each other. In 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:28.320 other words, he created these these mechanical devices that would 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.480 advance the papers position and that way, if you were 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.600 to type T, the paper would advance by one spot. 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.280 You could type TEA again and it would be, you know, 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.480 one spot to the right of the first one. So 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:45.000 Shoal set out to create an evolved version of this technology. 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.160 He took a slightly different approach when it came to 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.480 the actual layout of keys. So first of all, he 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.160 didn't have a split keyboard the way the parotype did. 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:57.640 He grouped them all into four rows of keys, plus 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.720 a space bar at the bottom of the rows. So 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.200 the top row had the numerals two through nine, plus 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.080 a dash. Like the pterotype, you were supposed to use 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.600 I and O to stand in for one and zero. 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.760 The second row had the vowels A, E, and I. 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:17.880 Then you had a period, then you had a question mark, 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.760 then you had why you oh, and the comma. The 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.040 third row was B through M in alphabetical order, and 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:29.080 the fourth row was Z through in in reverse alphabetical order. 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.000 So if you were following along on row three, you 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.840 would just go down at the far right and then 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.120 move right to left to continue the alphabet, which I 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.760 admit sounds really strange to us, but if you take 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:43.760 a look at the modern keyboard, you realize that these 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.560 letters are all in one crazy kind of order. Him 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:50.480 A right. When Remington's bought the rights to Shulz typewriter 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.920 in eighteen seventy three, the company made a couple of changes, 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.160 getting a little closer to the order that we're familiar 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:01.200 with today with the quirty letters. That's Q W, E 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.840 R T Y in the second row, the first letters 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.040 in the second row beneath numbers two through nine, a dash, 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.280 a common an underscore, and the layout of the letters 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:13.360 is pretty similar to what you would see in a 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.120 modern keyboard today, though the M was in a different place, 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:19.320 as it would be found to the right of the 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.559 L key and next to the N key at the 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.680 bottom row. Where the M is on modern keyboards was 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:29.120 actually a question mark, like where did the M go? Oh, 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:34.360 it's up there. The quirty keyboard became a standard around two, 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.640 fittingly with the Remington's standard typewriter number two. The story 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.240 I hear is that the reason for the changes, we're 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.760 moving the M key down to the last row all 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.000 that kind of stuff. That wasn't to make the keyboard 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.880 more efficient or to avoid issues with typewriters jamming. It was, 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.680 according to the story, an effort to avoid having to 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.640 pay royalties too Shoals After all, the keyboard was laid 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.520 out in different way, so it can't be Shoals design. 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.200 Now I should add that while I have heard this story, 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.040 I've never seen any definitive proof that this was actually 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.760 the reason why the Remington's Standard Number two keyboard was 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:16.000 slightly different from shoals Is design. May have turned out 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:18.880 that the folks at Remington's were just continuing to tweak 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.319 the key layout to get the best arrangement. Anyway, as 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.080 I said, this is when the M key migrated down 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.240 to be next to the N key. As for the 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.160 reason of the layout, well, that's one of those stories 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.000 that has a lot of mythology behind it. But the 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.880 commonly told story is that old typewriters, which were purely 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:42.720 mechanical inventions, had issues with type bars jamming. Once type 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.960 has got pretty fast, it typing the most common letters. 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.720 Then if those letters were too close together, or if 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.840 type has got too fast, then the bars would collide 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:56.680 with one another and jam up the machine. Because you 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.680 have to remember these were purely mechanical systems. The keys 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:04.400 were essentially connected to levers that would power a type 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.720 bar to strike the you know, usually an inked ribbon 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.920 and then print a letter onto a piece of paper. 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.080 So with that in mind, if you were typing super 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:17.040 fast and a bunch of these type bars were coming 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:19.760 up to that center spot at once, they could get 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:22.640 caught in each other and then the machine jams. So 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.360 that's the story that goes that that the reason the 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.439 keyboard was laid out was purposefully to slow people down 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:33.280 and to make sure that very uh frequently used letters 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:37.600 wouldn't be in positions that would cause jams. However, there 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.480 doesn't seem to be any definitive support for that theory. 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:45.040 Now it may have been coincidentally true, but generally the 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:47.959 thinking is that Shoals and the folks at Remington's got 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:53.120 feedback from various users, many of them telegraph operators, and 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.240 the tweaks they made were based on that feedback. And 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.600 this was before anyone had developed a touch typing method. 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.320 So maybe it was because of jamming. Maybe it was 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.840 just that typists were discovering that certain keys were just 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:11.079 not an ideal position for typing. It doesn't stop numerous 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.640 sites and videos and even this podcast once upon a 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:19.120 time from repeating that the real answer was because type 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.480 is typists were jamming machines, and that's why we have 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:25.199 a quarty keyboard and it's completely outdated and we should 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:29.200 change it. We just don't know that that's actually true. 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.400 It might be, but we can't say for certain. Anyway, 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.120 we can say that the modern keyboard layout can trace 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.760 its origins to around eight two, so the keys haven't 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.480 really changed in nearly a century and a half for 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.560 quarity keyboards for the English speaking world, which is pretty wild, 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.680 isn't it. And now we have all sorts of different 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:55.120 versions of the keyboard, from the physical keyboard that I 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.240 typed my notes on for these shows, two on screen 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.680 keyboards for stuff like smartphone. Now let's skip ahead a 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.800 little bit. The typewriter became a popular type of technology, 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.840 with several companies popping up to compete against each other. 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:13.400 You had Remington's, you had Underwood, Oliver, Corona Royal, and 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:15.880 many more. If you want to learn more about those, 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.880 just ask Tom Hanks. I understand he collects old typewriters. Anyway, 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.120 we're going to jump ahead to the nineteen tens. In 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.880 nineteen twenties, that's when a man named James Smathers decided 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.760 to advance typewriter technology. While it was possible to type 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:31.880 up a message in much less time than it took 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.920 to write things out by hand, presuming that you are 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:39.360 a fairly accomplished typist, that is, the experience could be exhausting, 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:43.120 particularly if you were typing all day, because you would 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.920 feel it. Because again, to to create the impression on 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.280 the paper, to stamp that letter onto a piece of paper, 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:52.440 you had to strike the keys with enough force to 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.160 move the type bar up to hit that inked ribbon 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.920 and leave a letter on the paper. So if you've 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:03.480 ever used an old like mechanical typewriter, you know what 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:05.760 I'm talking about. I used to have an old underwood 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.200 and typing on that thing was exhausting after a couple 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.320 of pages. But hey, what if we turned to technology 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:13.480 to do some of that work for us? What if 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:17.480 striking a key didn't connect to a mechanical system but 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.720 an electronic one. That was Smather's idea. He was working 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.600 on one in the early nineteen tens and he got 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.680 a patent for his invention By nineteen twelve. Now we're 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:29.960 reaching the point where the keys don't connect to a 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:35.040 mechanical lever that strikes the page, but are rather electronic switches, 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:39.200 and this transition would carry over to computer keyboards. In 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.760 nineteen thirty six, we got a serious challenge to the 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:47.680 quirty keyboard. August Dvorak and his brother in law, William Deely, 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.960 received a patent for a new layout of keys. At 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:55.000 this point, quirty was widely adopted throughout the industry, though 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.119 you would occasionally find keyboards that had some slight differences 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.960 in a few of the keys, but for the majority 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.440 of the keys, the layout was pretty much established. Dvorak 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.920 wanted to increase typing efficiency, which would mean reducing what 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:13.120 he called hurdling or jumping over a key for common 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.840 two letter combinations. In his mind, you know, very common 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:21.240 two letter combinations should either be split up between right 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.240 and left fingers, or they should be right next to 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:28.320 each other. But you shouldn't have to hurdle over and 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:30.760 jump across a different key in order to get to 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:34.200 the second letter of a two letter combination. Something that's 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:38.480 really common in English so uh. In the Dvorak keyboard, 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.520 he lays out the vowels of A, O, E, U, 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.560 and I in that order, from left to right on 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:47.600 the third row of keys, So the top row remains 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.920 the numbers and symbols, the second row is P, Y, F, G, 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:55.240 C R, L, and then some other symbols and so on, 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.480 and you can get Divorat keyboards to this day. You 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.360 can even remap keys in various programs and use a 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:06.840 standard quirty keyboard, but use the Divorac layout within the computer. 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:09.200 Now that means you might want to put some stickers 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:12.000 and all your keys to relabel them so you can 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:16.080 actually learn the Divorac system. Early claims about divor X 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:19.120 keyboard said the system was easier to learn and master 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.920 than the quirty keyboard, and that typists could reach and 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.840 surpass the speeds that they could hit with Quirty after 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.560 just a few days practice. Subsequent investigation found that these 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:33.800 early claims may have been at best exaggerated, but there 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.600 are people who strongly prefer the Divorac layout, and that 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:42.000 includes some people who absolutely swear that the original Divorax 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:46.520 study the Navy's studies were perfectly cromulent, and that these 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:49.880 subsequent studies that seemed to debunk the original one were 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.560 flawed and possibly fueled by some sort of big Corty 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.160 slush fund or something. I'm not really clear on the details. Now. 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.920 I've never used a Dvorak keyboard, having learned on the 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.320 puirty and never really tried anything else, so I can't 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:05.439 really comment on it. I can say that there are 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.800 a lot of anecdotes. I don't know about any actual, 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.920 like evidence based accounts, but there are a lot of 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:17.120 anecdotes that say that the divorate keyboard results in less 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:21.199 exhaustion and and fewer repetitive stress injuries and that kind 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.840 of thing, like it's arguably healthier to type on a 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:28.119 divorate keyboard than a quirty keyboard. But I haven't found 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:32.480 anything that definitively says that. It's all, like I said, anecdotal. 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.600 And of course I'm focusing on keyboards for English speaking 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.679 countries here. Keyboards for other countries can look quite a 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.919 bit different, with different numbers of keys and key combinations 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.120 to make various characters, but at the end of the day, 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.040 they're all keyboards. When we come back, I'll talk about 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:51.440 some of the different styles of keyboards and what makes 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.960 them tick, or really, in some cases at least click. 0:17:55.480 --> 0:18:06.399 But first, let's take a quick break. For most, but 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:11.440 not all keyboards, there exists underneath the keys a grid 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:15.840 of circuits called the key matrix. This is where keyboard 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:21.399 Neo and Morpheus and Trinity fight. Keyboard agent Smith. Hang on, 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:25.400 wait now, I'm being told off Mike that I got 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:29.959 that wrong. Apparently the key matrix is a grid of circuits, 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:34.200 and if you aren't pressing down on any keys, all 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:36.840 the circuits are open. I mean there's no signal flowing 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:39.720 through them because there's a break in the circuit. Right, 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.680 there's not a complete circuit, so a current cannot flow 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.040 through it. Pressing down on a key activates a switch 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.840 that closes the circuit and allows a weak signal to 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.199 pass through. That signal travels to a processor within the 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:57.800 keyboard itself, which registers which key or keys were pressed. 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.520 If you hold the key down, the processor will detect 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:04.080 that as pressing the key repeatedly. At least with most keyboards, 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:08.439 this is essentially a mechanical keyboard, but there are several 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.439 subtypes of mechanical keyboards, and the thing they have in 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.880 common is that they all activate a switch to complete 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:18.640 a circuit. So let's tackle these in turn. You've got 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.800 your rubber dome keyboards. Underneath the keys, there's a pattern 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.520 of small rubber domes that are flexible, but they have 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.960 a hard center made out of carbon typically, and it 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.720 looks a little bit like bubble wrap. When you push 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.080 down on a key, the key pushes down on the dome, 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.520 causing it to squish, and the carbon center presses down 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:44.439 to complete the circuit. So every single letter, every single number, 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.200 every single symbol has one of these little domes over 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.119 its individual little switch. When you let go of the 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:53.880 key causes the dome to move back to its original 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:58.160 dome shape and the key moves back up. The keyboards 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.920 are pretty cheap. They also do it fairly decent job 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:04.679 at protecting keyboards from spills because there's effectively a rubber 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.880 sheet covering the circuitry. But I think most folks don't 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:11.160 really imagine these when they think of a mechanical keyboard. 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.120 Some of the dome based keyboards have a mechanism called 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.760 a scissor switch. This is a pair of plastic pieces 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:21.840 on either side of the key that look like scissors, 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:25.159 thus the name. They act as sort of a spring. 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:30.119 So the scissor switch style keyboards require less distance to 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:34.000 go from the key being up to being depressed as 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:37.680 it pushed down, not as in Feeling Blue. They tend 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.960 to be a little more quiet than other types of keyboards, 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.120 and they have a lower profile, you know, they don't 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.680 have to be raised up as high. So these are 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.600 the types of keyboards you find in laptops pretty frequently. 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:50.840 The laptop that I have in front of me, the 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.520 one I typed my notes on for this show, has 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:58.159 this type of keyboard. There's still a dome under the keys, 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:01.480 but the keys don't require much worse to press down, 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.359 nor do they go as far from a pure dome 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:09.120 based mechanical keyboard perspective. Similar to that type of keyboard 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.600 our membrane keyboards. These have a membrane that on the underside, 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:16.560 the side that's facing the circuitry has a pattern printed 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.840 on it, and pressing on a key pushes the membrane 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.439 against the circuitry, which completes the circuit at that point 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:27.760 or points. There are membrane keyboards that are totally flexible, 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:30.919 the kind that often come with stuff like tablet computers, 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:33.880 you know, like the rollable keyboards and stuff. They don't 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:37.720 have the clicky tactile response you get with other mechanical keyboards. 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.479 That's one of the reasons I don't really like this 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:43.479 kind of keyboard because it's hard to tell from touch 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.000 if the computer has registered the key press, and if 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:49.720 you're not looking at, you know, the screen where the 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.440 text is appearing, that can be a problem. Like I 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:56.720 can sometimes be typing notes while looking at a source 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.080 so I'm not looking directly at my document. I'm looking 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:02.720 at the source material and I'm making sure I'm getting 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:05.439 like dates, write and stuff. But that means that if 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:10.040 I'm typing by touch and I can't tell if the 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:13.119 key strike I just did was registered or not, i 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:14.719 might look at my notes and see that I've got 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:17.560 a ton of typos there because some of my key 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:21.719 strokes just didn't get registered. That's something that's irritating to me. 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:24.520 That's why I don't like membrane keyboards. However, they are 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:28.280 super cheap, so they are incredibly affordable. The other two 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:32.360 major types of mechanical keyboards are similar and that they 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:36.640 both have spring loaded keys, so a spring holds them 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:41.119 in position. That you have metal contact keys, which as 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.840 the name suggests, have a metal contact on the underside 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.920 of the key itself, so pressing the key compresses the spring. 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.879 It brings the metal contact into you know, contact with 0:22:53.960 --> 0:22:57.240 the circuit, thus completing it at that point and letting 0:22:57.280 --> 0:22:59.439 go of the key lets the spring expand back to 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:02.760 its normal size. Uh. Those tend to be really clicky 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:05.679 kind of keys. It's what I think most people associate 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:09.680 with mechanical keyboards, that clicky, clacky kind of thing. Then 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:13.000 you've got foam element keys, which are really pretty much 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.240 the same as the middle contacts, but of course instead 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:17.879 of having a metal contact under the key, there's a 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:21.160 piece of spongey foam that pushes down on the medal 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:25.000 strip that then makes contact with the circuit. Like I said, 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:28.080 these keyboards have the real mechanical clickiness to them, and 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:31.000 a lot of gamers like these types of keyboards. They 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.479 feel that that tactle response gives them the confidence they 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:37.000 need when they're making a lot of quick moves and games. 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:39.000