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etatoby
Feb 12, 2003

China makes me cry
Who designed this idiotic keyboard layout and why?

They took the original US layout, with its known problems (asymmetry and unnatural finger positions) and managed to make it worse! Here two of the most used keys, left shift and enter, are twice further from home row. Who designed this crap? Are they screwing with us or are they just dumb?

I actually find it paintful to type on this crappy thing. Now I have to spend even more money for a US replacement part, just to get a decent keyboard that won't give me RSI

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peak debt
Mar 11, 2001
b& :(
Nap Ghost
You can't fit all those fancy üèåøñ letters on a lovely US keyboard that's why.

etatoby
Feb 12, 2003

China makes me cry

peak debt posted:

You can't fit all those fancy üèåøñ letters on a lovely US keyboard that's why.

I just mapped them all to Alt + key in 5 minutes with a freeware utility.

HalloKitty
Sep 30, 2005

Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

etatoby posted:

Who designed this idiotic keyboard layout and why?

ISO.

For what it's worth, I think every common keyboard layout blows chunks, but at least the ISO one gives you more keys, thus more options. I have my own keyboard layout designed so my right hand is shifted to the right one more key, so the enter key ends up being exactly the same distance as on an American keyboard, but I appreciate most people never think about changing poo poo like that.

HalloKitty fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Dec 30, 2014

RyceCube
Dec 22, 2003
gently caress this keyboard and gently caress being in Canada, where Lenovo decides to shove this piece of crap onto their laptops.

CuddleChunks
Sep 18, 2004

Something something FREEDOMKEYS :patriot:

Something something 101-KEY OR DIE :911: :human being:


I'm sorry that your rich mélange of cultures requires a lot of extra keys and differing layouts from we filthy colonials. Maybe once we all switch to Dvorak...





:haw:

Canine Blues Arooo
Jan 7, 2008

when you think about it...i'm the first girl you ever spent the night with

Grimey Drawer

CuddleChunks posted:

Something something 101-KEY OR DIE

This, except unironically.

ExcessBLarg!
Sep 1, 2001

peak debt posted:

You can't fit all those fancy üèåøñ letters on a lovely US keyboard that's why.
As a lovely US keyboard user, the compose key is fantastic for typing both accents and other symbols. Why was it never widely embraced?

Wild EEPROM
Jul 29, 2011


oh, my, god. Becky, look at her bitrate.

Phiberoptik posted:

gently caress this keyboard and gently caress being in Canada, where Lenovo decides to shove this piece of crap onto their laptops.

You can buy lenovo with regular us layout, but every major retailer decided against it so they could stock one fewer sku because of Quebec, so now we all get the stupid french canadian eu layout.

loving quebec ruins everything once again

Geemer
Nov 4, 2010



ExcessBLarg! posted:

As a lovely US keyboard user, the compose key is fantastic for typing both accents and other symbols. Why was it never widely embraced?

A good compromise is the US-International layout, where typing things like é requires just hitting ' and e. If you want just the ', you hit space after hitting ' and the right Alt key acts as Alt-Gr for typing fancier characters.

The ISO layout is a disgusting piece of poo poo and good luck ever getting a decent keyboard without that layout when you're in Europe, your best bet is to just skip straight to mechanical keyboards.

Edit: VVV This guy knows what's going on. :hfive: US-International is also the de facto standard layout in The Netherlands and MS really loving needs to stop adding the Dutch layout as secondary standard layout.

Geemer fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Dec 31, 2014

Turambar
Feb 20, 2001

A Túrin Turambar turun ambartanen
Grimey Drawer
^^^Like he said

ExcessBLarg! posted:

As a lovely US keyboard user, the compose key is fantastic for typing both accents and other symbols. Why was it never widely embraced?

No need. It can also work on a normal keyboard. I have my language set to "Dutch - United States international". When I press a ', nothing appears at first. If the next character is an e, the é appears. If it's a s, 's appears.

Turambar fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Dec 31, 2014

etatoby
Feb 12, 2003

China makes me cry

Geemer posted:

The ISO layout is a disgusting piece of poo poo and good luck ever getting a decent keyboard without that layout when you're in Europe

To give credit where credit is due, Apple has been offering the US layout as a free option on all their (horribly overpriced) products, all over the world, for many years. All the other brands (Dell, HP, Acer, Toshiba…) don't even mention the keyboard layout, let alone offering any choice.

I'm still waiting for the ability to 3D-print my own laptop keyboard, which will be in the Truly Ergonomic shape :eng101:

Baconroll
Feb 6, 2009
You better have a euro keyboard if you ever want me to give you a temporary reset password. I'll helpfully write it down as well

movax
Aug 30, 2008

Looked up the EU keyboards. :stare:

You poor, poor bastards. Do the Asian countries have it even worse?

1gnoirents
Jun 28, 2014

hello :)
I had no idea this was a thing. The enter key would piss me off so badly

keyboard anecdote - in 9th grade I took keyboarding and on the first day I scored so highly on the wpm test the teacher said I cheated to my face. Lol. It was something insane at the time like 140 wpm.

1gnoirents fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Jan 4, 2015

ate shit on live tv
Feb 15, 2004

by Azathoth
So the standard qwerty keyboard has been around for over 100 years, maybe even longer. No one has figured out a better layout, perhaps even one that would accommodate the english bastardizations of foreign languages?

td4guy
Jun 13, 2005

I always hated that guy.

movax posted:

Looked up the EU keyboards. :stare:

You poor, poor bastards. Do the Asian countries have it even worse?

Thanks Ants
May 21, 2004

#essereFerrari


Powercrazy posted:

So the standard qwerty keyboard has been around for over 100 years, maybe even longer. No one has figured out a better layout, perhaps even one that would accommodate the english bastardizations of foreign languages?

People are too used to the old layout to change it now. For what it's worth I don't find the UK layout as unusable as a lot of you seem to think it is, but that's probably because I use it every day. Hitting the return and left shift keys has never been an issue.

nescience
Jan 24, 2011

h'okay

Please tell me this is real.

edit: found the full image through Tineye:
http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/images/4/2010/03/drumkeyboard.jpg

HorseLord
Aug 26, 2014
I'm using a US keyboard in the UK and it's dogshit. Why is there a giant shift key on the left hand side? I don't like hitting the backspace key every time I hit Return, either.

awesome-express
Dec 30, 2008

I've got an EU keyboard and it's ok? The enter key is kinda weird, but it's the same otherwise :shrug:

movax
Aug 30, 2008

awesome-express posted:

I've got an EU keyboard and it's ok? The enter key is kinda weird, but it's the same otherwise :shrug:



The left shift is so tiny though, since the tilde is crammed into that corner; that'd bug the hell out of me personally.

Sharrow
Aug 20, 2007

So... mediocre.

awesome-express posted:

I've got an EU keyboard and it's ok? The enter key is kinda weird, but it's the same otherwise :shrug:



This is okay as long as you install a custom keyboard layout so you can touch type over Apple's weird half-UK/half-US abomination.

feedmegin
Jul 30, 2008

etatoby posted:

Who designed this idiotic keyboard layout and why?

They took the original US layout, with its known problems (asymmetry and unnatural finger positions) and managed to make it worse! Here two of the most used keys, left shift and enter, are twice further from home row. Who designed this crap? Are they screwing with us or are they just dumb?

I actually find it paintful to type on this crappy thing. Now I have to spend even more money for a US replacement part, just to get a decent keyboard that won't give me RSI



'EU keyboard'? I thought each European country had its own keyboard. Mine has a pound sterling sign on it which I really doubt is on a French keyboard, and theirs go AZERTY instead of QWERTY, and when I lived in Norway they had their own weird thing with æ ø å but not, like, Greek.

mobby_6kl
Aug 9, 2009

That's correct, but the image you quoted shows exactly what the difference is between the US and all the different EU keyboards: the weird Return and left Shift keys we have plus whatever's been moved in their places. Then of course the different countries have different symbols mapped as necessary.

My last work laptop came with the US-international layout as the default layout, and while it's nice to be able to make umlauts and other accents with composition, it was absolutely infuriating for any kind of programming as all string literals suddenly become a huge pain in the rear end to type, among other things.

blogo
Oct 1, 2004
I always miss the enter key on US keyboards as my finger hits the upper part of the key on the EU layout. I guess both layouts have their pros and cons

Geemer
Nov 4, 2010



feedmegin posted:

'EU keyboard'? I thought each European country had its own keyboard. Mine has a pound sterling sign on it which I really doubt is on a French keyboard, and theirs go AZERTY instead of QWERTY, and when I lived in Norway they had their own weird thing with æ ø å but not, like, Greek.

This is correct. But some countries, like The Netherlands, have abandoned their terrible layout and started using US-International as default layout.

Here's the Dutch layout, the one we abandoned:


The last time I saw a physical keyboard that had this layout was over 10 years ago and even then, it was the first time in my life I'd seen one. My touch typing course, which was profoundly Dutch and halfway through the '90s, used the US-International layout.

However, Windows still "helpfully" sets it up as secondary keyboard type when you set your locale to Dutch. Imagine accidentally hitting alt+shift and then trying to enter a password with symbols in it. It's always a "fun" surprise the first time you install Windows or if you ever mess with the locale settings.

Sri.Theo
Apr 16, 2008

Geemer posted:

This is correct. But some countries, like The Netherlands, have abandoned their terrible layout and started using US-International as default layout.

Here's the Dutch layout, the one we abandoned:


The last time I saw a physical keyboard that had this layout was over 10 years ago and even then, it was the first time in my life I'd seen one. My touch typing course, which was profoundly Dutch and halfway through the '90s, used the US-International layout.

However, Windows still "helpfully" sets it up as secondary keyboard type when you set your locale to Dutch. Imagine accidentally hitting alt+shift and then trying to enter a password with symbols in it. It's always a "fun" surprise the first time you install Windows or if you ever mess with the locale settings.

That looks exactly like a UK keyboard. I switch the campus lock key for control as is annoying right in the corner.

Smoke
Mar 12, 2005

I am NOT a red Bumblebee for god's sake!

Geemer posted:

This is correct. But some countries, like The Netherlands, have abandoned their terrible layout and started using US-International as default layout.

Here's the Dutch layout, the one we abandoned:


The last time I saw a physical keyboard that had this layout was over 10 years ago and even then, it was the first time in my life I'd seen one. My touch typing course, which was profoundly Dutch and halfway through the '90s, used the US-International layout.

However, Windows still "helpfully" sets it up as secondary keyboard type when you set your locale to Dutch. Imagine accidentally hitting alt+shift and then trying to enter a password with symbols in it. It's always a "fun" surprise the first time you install Windows or if you ever mess with the locale settings.

Back in the dark days between 2002 and 2006 I worked support for Medion. They managed to have a tiny amount of laptops with this layout, and it was always hell to support because users had trouble finding the right symbol keys, and the Windows image had a habit of being set to US International, or users selected it during installation(Many a Medion user installed a pirated version of XP Professional because it sounded like it was better than Home)

Supporting those was good fun if you failed to remember the model numbers with that layout.

Then again, this was the same company that managed to roll out an entire batch of desktop PCs with the same MAC address hardcoded in the NIC(we sent out firmware update CDs for this for about 3 years, or as long as we got calls about them)

EssOEss
Oct 23, 2006
128-bit approved
On the flip side, gently caress that terrible US enter key, tiny and hard to hit. Whenever I shop for keyboards I am barred from using many well thought out keyboards because they do not offer the normal key size. Instead, there is some half height enter that I constantly miss, causing me to type weird symbols at the end of every line.

It needs to be said, though, that on many of these pictures the "European" enter key is deformed and very squished together horizontally. The true enter key is very large also in width and extremely easy to hit even without trying too hard.

Wild EEPROM
Jul 29, 2011


oh, my, god. Becky, look at her bitrate.
So what you are saying is that you want this

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Wild EEPROM posted:

So what you are saying is that you want this


I agree, the model M is the keyboard of the gods.

However, that enter key is upside down.

etatoby
Feb 12, 2003

China makes me cry

Powercrazy posted:

So the standard qwerty keyboard has been around for over 100 years, maybe even longer. No one has figured out a better layout, perhaps even one that would accommodate the english bastardizations of foreign languages?

I'm glad you asked. They have. This is what I use at work and it beats every other input device ever made.

Truly Ergonomic Mechanical Keyboard with blank keys and customized Programmer Dvorak layout

The customized part is where i swapped quote and semicolon, because I'm more comfortable with their original Dvorak position, and I mapped my àèìòù accentend characters as Alt + key. It's even easier to type than with dedicated accented keys, because aeiou are already in the home row in Dvorak.

You can learn Dvorak in a week with ABCD: A Basic Course in Dvorak. It helps to use a non-Dvorak (Qwerty or blank) physical keyboard, because then you are forced not to look at the keys. I think I reached and beat my previous Qwerty speed after a few weeks. The advantage of Programmer Dvorak over traditional Dvorak is that all programming symbols and numbers become much easier to touch-type.

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sleepy gary
Jan 11, 2006

At my job I have to use US-QWERTY, EU-QWERTZ, and EU-QWERTY on a daily basis. It's loving hell.

Nolgthorn
Jan 30, 2001

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense

awesome-express posted:

I've got an EU keyboard and it's ok? The enter key is kinda weird, but it's the same otherwise :shrug:



I moved to Europe and bought a new retina mbp when those were new. Spent a ton of money on it and when it arrived I noticed that the keyboard is all hosed up, I'm a software developer and this thing is hell. Where are the brackets I need? When the gently caress am I ever going to use: öäü? Never.



The freeking squiggly key is ALT-n: ~

Backslash is freeking ALT-SHIFT-7: \

Motherfucking square bracket is ALT-6: ] so, that means to indent a block of code I need to press freeking ALT-SHIFT-6. It's bullshit and I can't wait for an opportunity to replace it.

Wild EEPROM
Jul 29, 2011


oh, my, god. Becky, look at her bitrate.
You can change it to US english, settings keyboard add a layout and then US.

Nolgthorn
Jan 30, 2001

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense
I just realised I can buy a keyboard cover for this to relabel the keys to uk. I am literally doing that right now.

Flagrama
Jun 19, 2010

Lipstick Apathy

mobby_6kl posted:

That's correct, but the image you quoted shows exactly what the difference is between the US and all the different EU keyboards: the weird Return and left Shift keys we have plus whatever's been moved in their places. Then of course the different countries have different symbols mapped as necessary.

My last work laptop came with the US-international layout as the default layout, and while it's nice to be able to make umlauts and other accents with composition, it was absolutely infuriating for any kind of programming as all string literals suddenly become a huge pain in the rear end to type, among other things.

I personally started using USA International (AltGr dead keys) on Windows. Mainly after I started using the same layout on some Linux distros. It's a godsend for programming while still having access to everything the International layout gives you, it only adds an extra key press to get all those fancy symbols and characters.

GoonyMcGoonface
Sep 11, 2001

Friends don't left friends do ECB
Dinosaur Gum
I've been using the TypeMatrix, which is actually really awesome despite it being a little mind-fuckey to get used to the enter key at first.



It really helped with my RSI. But I also switched to Workman at the same time, so :shobon:

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spankmeister
Jun 15, 2008






Nolgthorn posted:

I moved to Europe and bought a new retina mbp when those were new. Spent a ton of money on it and when it arrived I noticed that the keyboard is all hosed up, I'm a software developer and this thing is hell. Where are the brackets I need? When the gently caress am I ever going to use: öäü? Never.



The freeking squiggly key is ALT-n: ~

Backslash is freeking ALT-SHIFT-7: \

Motherfucking square bracket is ALT-6: ] so, that means to indent a block of code I need to press freeking ALT-SHIFT-6. It's bullshit and I can't wait for an opportunity to replace it.

Protip: German keyboards are very bad.

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