Posted on 10/24/2001 7:07:47 AM PDT by Cagey
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Daryl Fazekas is a man on a mission.
He's spent six months working on an invention to help men improve their typing skills.
Fazekas was fed up with the "Qwerty," or the standard keyboard, when he started his journey in April. He had never been able to type well on it and heard several rumors that it was intended to slow typists down. It was then that he realized his gender might be why he couldn't type.
"Ninety-eight percent of women can type, and 80 percent of men can't," said Fazekas.
Although Fazekas admits those numbers are "strictly anecdotal," he has not let that stop him from taking on the challenge of inventing a more male-friendly keyboard. The result is what he calls the "Guy's Keyboard," a rearranged keyboard that supposedly helps men learn to type faster and is "ideal for the hunt-and-pecker."
"It's always puzzled me that nobody had tried this before," Fazekas said.
If someone pitches an idea for a new type of keyboard, most corporations would reject it, Fazekas said.
Fazekas spent the next few months toiling over his creation until he had what he believes is "a logically arranged keyboard."
One of the first changes he made was moving all vowels into the center of the keyboard. He then spread the remaining letters out left and right according to frequency. He also placed common letter pairs next to each other, and "to make it more fun," inserted mini-words such as "sing," "the" and "your."
Fazekas said this design is great for the "hunt and pecker" because it decreases the total distance the fingers must travel by as much as 54 percent.
Fazekas explained why he believes women are better typists than men.
"I think their brains are wired differently," he said.
Women's brains are wired differently from men's in a way that could improve their word-processing skills, said MU professor of psychology David Geary.
However, he is skeptical whether or not the arrangement of keys is what makes the difference.
"Rearranging the keys probably wouldn't make any difference," he said. "I would have to see some actual scientific evidence before I would believe that."
MU sophomore Matthew Becker, a pre-journalism and computer science major, said he does not see the problem with regular keyboards.
"I've been using a standard keyboard for about six years, and I can type 75 words per minute," he said.
Becker also said he warns potential buyers of this product to consider the source of the information you are given.
"If all of this were coming from a scientist, then that would be one thing," he said. "But I don't think this guy knows what he is talking about."
More information about the keyboard can be found at guyskeyboard.com
If he were married He would know their brains were wired different!
And I don't want it to talk back.
I think you do have the right explanation and I this keyboard won't catch on. This guy has a gimmick and he'll make a few $$$'s with it more as a gag than anything else.
Keyboards will probably go the way of the IBM Selectric once voice recoginition software gets all the bugs out. I'll miss the clatter of a keyboard.
However, he should have done some more research. This type of thing has been available for quite sometime.
The physical location and the key mapping on keybards are both configurable.
If you can't type, my suggestion would be to learn the Dvoark layout. There are lots of places on the net which reference it.
Do a scan on http://www.google.com
Gey??? Hahahaha. Looks like this keyboard is for you.
Hell, if that's what he's doing, no wonder he can't type.
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