QWERTY was not designed to intentionally slow typists down (was: Unicode normalisation [was Re: [beginner] What's wrong?])

[Steven D'Aprano]

Oh no, it's the thread that wouldn't die! *wink*


On Sun, 10 Apr 2016 01:53 am, Random832 wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 8, 2016, at 23:28, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> This is the power of the "slowing typists down is a myth" meme: same
>> Wikipedia contributor takes an article which *clearly and obviously*
>> repeats the conventional narrative that QWERTY was designed to
>> decrease the number of key presses per second, and uses that to defend
>> the counter-myth that QWERTY wasn't designed to decrease the number of
>> key presses per second!
> 
> Er, the footnote is clearly and obviously being used to cite the claim
> that that is popularly believed, not the claim that it's incorrect.

That's not clear nor obvious to me. But I won't quibble, I'll accept that as
a plausible interpretation.


>> These are the historical facts:
> 
>> - Sholes spend significant time developing a layout which reduced the
>>   number of jams by intentionally moving frequently typed characters
>>   far apart, which has the effect of slowing down the rate at which
>>   the typist can hit keys;
> 
> "Moving characters far apart has the effect of slowing down the rate at
> which the typist can hit keys" is neither a fact nor historical.

Actually, yes it is. At least, according to this website:

http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/Dvorak/history.html

  [quote]
  Because typists at that time used the "hunt-and-peck" method,
  Sholes's arrangement increased the time it took for the typists
  to hit the keys for common two-letter combinations enough to
  ensure that each type bar had time to fall back sufficiently
  far to be out of the way before the next one came up.
  [end quote]


The QWERTY layout was first sold in 1873 while the first known use of
ten-fingered typing was in 1878, and touch-typing wasn't invented for
another decade, in 1888.

So I think it is pretty clear that *at the time QWERTY was invented*
it slowed down the rate at which keys were pressed, thus allowing an
overall greater typing speed thanks to the reduced jamming.

Short of a signed memo from Shole himself, commenting one way or another, I
don't think we're going to find anything more definitive.

Even though QWERTY wasn't designed with touch-typing in mind, it's
interesting to look at some of the weaknesses of the system. It is almost
as if it had been designed to make touch-typing as inefficient as
possible :-) Just consider the home keys. The home keys require the least
amount of finger or hand movement, and are therefore the fastest to reach.
With QWERTY, the eight home keys only cover a fraction over a quarter of
all key presses: ASDF JKL; have frequencies of

8.12% 6.28% 4.32% 2.30% 0.10% 0.69% 3.98% and effectively 0%

making a total of 25.79%. If you also include G and H as "virtual
home-keys", that rises to 33.74%.

But that's far less than the obvious tactic of using the most common
letters ETAOIN as the home keys, which would cover 51.18% just from those
eight keys alone. The 19th century Blickensderfer typewriter used a similar
layout, with the ten home keys DHIATENSOR as the home keys. This would
allow the typist to make just under 74% of all alphabetical key presses
without moving the hands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blickensderfer_typewriter

Letter frequencies taken from here:

http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2003-2004/cryptography/subs/frequencies.html


> Keys 
> that are further apart *can be hit faster without jamming* due to the
> specifics of the type-basket mechanism, and there's no reason to think
> that they can't be hit with at least equal speed by the typist.

You may be correct about that specific issue when it comes to touch typing,
but touch typing was 15 years in the future when Sholes invented QWERTY.
And unlike Guido, he didn't have a time-machine :-)



-- 
Steven