How good/bad is QWERTY? Seriously.
So in my previous write-up, while highlighting the benefits of alternative and custom layouts, I declared without much evidence that QWERTY is not that bad at all, and also that it is in the top 2% of all the possible layouts. Well, like so many times in life: it depends. I did my original research many years ago - the exact value was in fact 1.82% -, but I forgot to mention that this is only valid in a special case: using my personal corpus and ruleset. It makes sense since back in the day I did this to support the design process of my own custom keymaps. Anyway, it was high time to redo my original experiment, dive in this topic a bit deeper, and reveal the logic and method behind my calculations. Spoiler alert: I was wrong! Or was I? ;) QWERTY Everyone knows QWERTY I guess. Christopher Sholes, Remington 2 typewriter, preventing jamming of type bars, path dependence, whatever. I'm not going to cover it here, check this previous write-up of mine if you are interested...
Jul 1, 2024
Permalink - http://theboard.libsyn.com/the-board-another-solo-5940
Another solo week, and getting right into it:
- Cream Switch announcement (https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/96ilic/introducing_the_novelkeys_cream_switch/)
- Market Watcher launch (https://www.reddit.com/r/mechmarket/comments/96hepu/giveaway_mrktwtchrcom_launch_etf_scales_of_the/)
- Having a crucial conversaion (https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/97bj0y/jchan94_please_stop_scamming_people_and_give_them/)
- Too little too late? (https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/97w9x5/das_keyboard_unbans_users_from_the_5q_forums_and/)
- Box Switch Update (https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/985jx4/box_switch_update_new_stems/)
- How much difference does it make? (https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/983gpr/how_4mm_integrated_plate_looks_like/)
- More 3D printed community development (https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/97z14v/3d_printed_key_swappable_keybaord_idea/)
- Great article from Keychatter (https://www.keychatter.com/2018/08/16/unpacking-the-kailh-box-switch-debacle/)
- Impractical or not? You decide (https://en.zfrontier.com/products/redcomet-bigswitch-combo)
- More material science needed! (https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/979vyo/ultra_high_molecular_weight_uhmw/)
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