atari portfolio

[Thelen]

why is it that the atari portfolio has an qwertz keyboard, they swpped the y and z ?

 

yesterday i got one, and i thought wtf have they swapped the y and z ? i should correct it....

 

thelen

[t.skid]

Probably your Portfolio have the qwertz keyboard because it is a german version, with German keyboard.

About the o.s. language, my portfolio is multi-language, with Italian, English and French.

[Markimus of K.]

Yeah, the Germans seem to have a thing about Y & Z for some reason. I have a German Commodore 64 emulator for my ST that suffers from this.

 

Can anyone shed some light on this Tuetonic plight?

 

As always,

Markimus of K.

[t.skid]

Well, I think is due to the german language itself: usually the keyboards tends to have the most common letters put in easiest place to use. I.E. standard keyboard for France is AZERTY, for Italy QZERTY etc.

[LinkoVitch]

the layout of the qwerty keyboard is actually designed to slow down your typing. This was done because in the olde days of mechanical typewritters it was possible for people to type faster than the machines could handle and caused them to jam quite often. So by spacing out the most common keystrokes it made typists slow down.

 

For the most uber typing keyboard you need a DVorak keyboard (those weird looking ones with to pits that you rest your hands in with the keys under your fingers.. if you get what I mean )

 

Just a bit of trivia.. I thought it quite interesting

[AtariDude]

What you said is true that the Qwerty setup of keys was purposely done to slow down typists to keep the typewriter keys from jamming. However once someone has learned the setup of the keys for Qwerty, you can not switch to Dvorak very easily. It is the faster setup but difficult to switch to if someone has learned Qwerty.

[LinkoVitch]

yeah this is true. Probs why only a few people use them and they cost soo much to buy. Would be nice, it's a deffinate way to stop people using your computer at least

[AtariDude]

Oh by the way, for those who have Terminator 2: Judgement day, John Connor in the movie uses an Atari Portfolio to break into bank ATMs as well as getting a key from a locked computer cabinet in the movie. I thought it was kind of neat to actually see it in the movie.

[LinkoVitch]

Why do you think I want one? I have got this Android already (I call him Tim). I have had my mum commited, I just need to be able to hack banks and security doors to make me happy..

[AtariDude]

I think Best Electronics still sells the Portfolio. I am not sure what it costs but I believe that is still sold. Certainly it would make a nice portable but I wonder how comfortable it is to type with it since it has such a small keyboard.

[RucasRiot]

What you said is true that the Qwerty setup of keys was purposely done to slow down typists to keep the typewriter keys from jamming. However once someone has learned the setup of the keys for Qwerty, you can not switch to Dvorak very easily. It is the faster setup but difficult to switch to if someone has learned Qwerty.

I just use a DVORTYboard (you can switch from qwerty to dvorak by flipping a switch!)