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Anyone use the Dvorak method for typing? - Happy MT Robin

Posted: Aug 09, 2010

Like it? Don't like it? If you switched from the "traditional typing" method, how long did it take you to get back up to speed again?

Dvorak - switcharoo

[ In Reply To ..]
In 1993, I switched "cold turkey" from a regular keyboard to Dvorak. It wasn't carpal tunnel or anything, it just sounded interesting and I wanted a challenge. I was typing over 100 wpm. Working production every day, it took me about 2 months to get back to 70 wpm, but it was a year before I got back to 100 wpm. In 1996, we went to a platform that did not support Dvorak, and I had to go back to QWERTY. Bummer. It did not take me that long to switch back to QWERTY. I loved Dvorak. The movement is so natural, sometimes it is just like drumming your fingers on a tabletop.

That brings up an interesting question, then - Happy MT Robin

[ In Reply To ..]
Thanks for your info. You said you switched to a platform that does not support the Dvorak system. Is that a current problem with any of the platforms, do you know?

Thanks again.

Happy MT Robin - Dvorak and platforms

[ In Reply To ..]
In 1996, our clinic went to EMR, but it was a really dinosaur prototype program that had a word processing program that someone said was like the first WP programs of the early 1980s. Not only did it not support Dvorak, it did not support word wrap or inserting text midline (had to use a function key). So THAT is why I had to say goodbye to Dvorak. We upgraded EMR in 2000, but I stayed with QWERTY. Switching to Dvorak now is just a matter of going to your control panel in Windows and changing your keyboard layout. It's tied to the PC instead of the platform you use. Hope the info helps!

Did you ever break 100 wpm? - Tillie

[ In Reply To ..]
Curious if you were ever faster than norm with Dvorak? I thought that was supposed to also be a perk, although, since you were already so fast, maybe that's a top-out speed. ?

Speed on Dvorak - -

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm not sure if I topped 100 wpm on Dvorak. I am assuming yes; if I was 100 wpm after a year, and then did two more years. For some reason I never did pay much more attention to it after that. Maybe because they docked our pay, and super-speed was not the deciding factor anymore. The weird thing, when I had to go *back* to QWERTY in 1996, I never had the same speed again on QWERTY that I did before the switch, when QWERTY was all I knew (100+). There was always a very slight hesitation, maybe 0.0001 second, before my fingers would hit certain keys, like my subconscious brain had to think about something it didn't before. I am at about 100, but not over. Or maybe I was just faster in my 20s than my 30s (and now 40s). Maybe the lesson is: You can switch, but you can't switch back--?

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