Cilo and the Economics of QWERTY (1985)

http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/knowledge_goods/david1985aer.htm

by prostoalex • 11 years ago

12 1 11 years ago

guylhem• 11 years ago

Great article. After using AZERTY in France, I remember experimenting with alternative layouts, then preferring the Canadian CSA layout (standard on Macs, PC picture on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACNOR) for 2 reasons: - it had the accents I needed for french - it was QWERTY, which mean no more problems in the BIOS or anything else like grub, lilo etc. - it was easy to get - in any Applestore, and also for Thinkpads - even as a replacement part!. Now try to order a mainstream laptop with a Dvorak keyboard.

Everybody else around me was still using AZERTY, but it just made sense to switch. I haven't looked bad ever since, except I'm now using the US QWERTY as the accents in the 3rd level (using the control keys for the 3rd level, and caps as a control key) are even easier.

Is QWERTY perfectible? Yes. It QWERTY good enough? Yes too, even for French.

So with the network effects, bothering with anything else is a waste of time and money.

Cilo and the Economics of QWERTY (1985)

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