Exalt and Honor the Qwerty Continuum!
'The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas
as in escaping from old ones'.
John Maynard Keynes
Yes Ollie... Pigs Can Fly!
Have you ever tried to explain a deer... to a pit bull?
The Dvorak 2024 and 'Riches to Rags'
Well, bless your heart. The 150th anniversary of the Qwerty mechanical typewriter occurred on July 1st, 2024. That is a respectable run... did anyone take notice?
I do exalt and honor the Qwerty Continuum in its sesquicentennial year, and humbly bring you 'Riches to Rags'. This abomination has a novel human-factored physical layout and it sports an inapt letter scheme. It is the culmination of Qwerty.
Digital keyboards produced in the third decade of the 21st century have a 150-year-old typewriter at their core. Will the asymmetric structure of that keyboard with its Qwerty letter scheme persevere through the 21st century and into the next?
I hope not. Operating a typewriter-based digital keyboard caused the repetitive strain injury of my left hand and wrist. The act of encoding language into a 19th-century mechanical typewriter format is stressful and physically damaging.
Why are writers born in the third decade of the 21st century still being shackled to an injurious 150-year-old mechanical typewriter interface? Lord help them.
I build writing instruments that are designed for human hands. For over a year, I have exclusively used my plug-n-play Dvorak 2024 keyboards. Writing feels like a natural act; it no longer causes me pain. Young writers that use a Dvorak 2024 will flourish.
Dvorak 2024 is not a paradigm shift; it is an evolutionary juncture. Forty-three years ago, the IBM PC brought word processing to the masses, but it kept writers mired on the Qwerty Typewriter Expressway. Dvorak 2024 is an off-ramp for nascent writers.
Your sons and daughters will grow to love writing when they possess the best writing instrument available. As a parent, you must advocate for your child’s right to be free from Qwerty. Elevate your clan; build them all a Post-Mechanical keyboard.
Ronald Earl Walker - Advocate for Young Writers
Production of Qwerty Mechanical Typewriters Ended
The Qwerty typewriter was first marketed on July 1, 1874. Qwerty machines were adapted for other languages and produced in many countries. Godrej & Boyce, the last maker of mechanical Qwerty typewriters, stopped production at their Shirwal India factory in 2009. Mechanical Qwerty typewriters were produced for 135 years.
When the microcomputer arrived in the workspace, typists possessed the necessary abilities to make use of the new devices. Their Qwerty skill set was crucial to the rapid adoption of the personal computer. Productivity in the office increased greatly with minimal disruption of workflow. The typewriter became obsolescent.
The quick and unflagging embrace of PCs in the workplace motivated typists. Realizing that the future had arrived, many typists paid for PC training out of their own pockets. The Qwerty Continuum… continued!
After the turn of the century, I could no longer disregard my frustration with the PC keyboard. For fifteen years I was able to write using a conventional keyboard with the Dvorak letter arrangement. Although I struggled to follow the physical arrangement of the keys, I was touch-typing to a fair degree. After many years of typing a nagging pain developed in my left hand and wrist. My time writing with that keyboard was limited by the pain.
Analyzing my breakdown, I came to understand that the traditional asymmetric typewriter arrangement of the keys is an impediment to natural motion. The Dvorak letter scheme will not be perfected until the mechanical typewriter keyboard configuration underlying it is replaced with a human-factored arrangement of the keys.
That Dvorak keyboard did not exist; therefore, I designed and tested the first variant disclosed on the fifth page of this website. I built a “dumb” prototype out of two keyboards, which were cut up and glued together to make a tactile testbed. That enabled me to affirm the ergonomic correctness of the new physical keyboard layout. That testbed is shown in the photo gallery on the next page, alongside my 1991 Keytronics Dvorak keyboard.
Searching the USPTO database, I found "Bio-Mechanical Keyboard Structure and Method" (Herzog et al. - U.S. Pat. No. 4,669,903). My keyboard cannot be produced within Herzog's claims, they are structured prohibitively. Searches of foreign patent databases produced nothing referencing Herzog. I worked on a patent application for years.
Through the USPTO pro bono program I found a patent attorney to help me improve my application for a utility patent. During this process I became aware of my responsibility to produce single-hand Dvorak keyboards. I have willingly taken up the mantle from my fellow veteran August Dvorak. If I only had one hand I would want to use it.
IP for a product that is meant for world-wide distribution is possible, if the inventor can secure patents with every patent office in the world. After that, the inventor must be prepared for litigation in every jurisdiction that a patent is held... I am not HP. Furthermore, I realized that demanding royalties for the Post-Mech keyboard is bad form.
So, pursuing a vanity patent is an expensive indulgence. When my lawyer finally sent me the first draft of the patent claims I rewrote them and sent them back, he dropped me like a hot potato. Some professionals have no tolerance for kibitzing. That quickly ended my quest for a patent and, in the end, saved me a lot of money.
The Dvorak 2024 is not being imposed upon the world by a Harvard-educated functionary. This website was created to foment bottom-up evolution. It teaches writers across the world how to build a 21st-century writing instrument. In early 2025, I will begin selling personalized keyboards for your enjoyment. I encourage all capable hobbyists to build and sell them. Join 'The Post-Mechanical Trust', I will help you make a few bucks and change the world.
I declare my inventorship of the Post-Mechanical and transfer ownership of that IP to the public domain.
Ronald Earl Walker - Selfless Inventor
Does the Mechanical Typewriter Linger on Forever?
American writers are indoctrinated into the 150-year-old Qwerty typewriter tradition; I am a rare exception. In 1970, I rejected the Qwerty typewriter. In 1992, when PCs became affordable, I began using a Dvorak simplified keyboard.
Dvorak writers are marginalized by the orthodox guardians of institutional inertia. In the workplace, I have struggled with management to secure the use of my personal Dvorak keyboard. My local public library has denied me the use of my personal writing instrument when I use the public access PCs; 'You can't bring your own keyboard'.
The bottom-up Dvorak 2024 keyboard evolution puts young writers on the front line. Your smart child will be forced to abandon their cherished writing instrument at the schoolhouse doors. Do not expect your eight-year-old child to succeed when they lobby for keyboard freedom.
Without a top-down directive, the system will feel duty bound to pound your precocious 'square peg' into a common round hole. Education factories have narrow comfort zones.
Here is a thought experiment that I am not qualified for, but I will dive right in:
1. My daughter has been raised on Dvorak; she despises Qwerty. My child has refused to embrace stupidity.
2. The PC that my daughter uses at school is a Qwerty notebook, my daughter loathes it.
3. I build hardwired Dvorak 2024 digital keyboards. My offspring absolutely loves the new home-built keyboard.
4. My hardwired USB keyboard will work with the school’s notebook PC, plug-n-play. Presto chango... my daughter can now write her lessons using her Dvorak 2024 keyboard in the public school.
5. Notwithstanding, the system refuses to allow my daughter to use her USB keyboard with the school's PC.
A. The notebook is school property. It, or the network, might be damaged by the student's personal keyboard.
B. Every child uses Qwerty. If we let one student exercise self-determination, then others will demand the same.
C. My crazy ideas would cause irreparable damage to my daughter's future education, employability, et cetera.
D. Other students would be made to feel disadvantaged... Did you bring enough keyboards for everybody?
6. Going up the chain of command every administrator backs the foot soldiers. The local public school system is now locked-in, defending my daughter from my less-than-optimal parenting skills.
The questions that arise are:
1. How can my daughter get a good education when she is forced to write using an inadequately designed Qwerty mechanical typewriter interface that thoroughly distresses her?
2. At what point in this unfolding tragedy do I seek legal counsel for my daughter?
3. How much of a fight, against my child's freedom of choice, does the school system have the stomach for?
4. If the local public-school bureaucrats choose to remain dug in, would the state government back my daughter's individual right to keyboard choice, or shoot that quixotic notion down before it costs the taxpayers any money?
5. Would mass media find this modern 'David and Goliath' struggle controversial, irresistible, and profitable?
Some smart influential minds will immediately recognize that the future has arrived and become the champions of young writers' Dvorak 2024 insurgency. Qwerty lemmings will fight those harbingers of doom. The public debate may be long and bitter. Young writers will decide the outcome. Will they wimp out and join the Qwertyverse?
Ronald Earl Walker - Infallible Futurist