tasti: What No One Is Talking About
If you were asked to redesign the computer keyboard, chances are you would end up something very different from the standard QWERTY layout, which was developed more than 130 years ago.
The New Standard keyboard ($70, www.newstandardkeyboards.com) is one recent attempt that minimizes travel distance for fingers and reduces the number of keys almost 50 percent.
The inventor, tasto John Parkinson, says he built it because “things that make no sense have always bugged me.” The letters are in alphabetical order, each thumb has its own space key and the arrows sit prominently in the center of the keyboard. There is a standard silver-and-black version and a color-coded model to assist experienced keyboarders as they convert from QWERTY.
After hunting-and-pecking a few words, it becomes obvious that this keyboard requires something that few of us have: the gumption to learn how to type all over again.
