Re: tlug: US student moving to Tokyo

["Manuel M. T. Chakravarty" <chak@example.com>]

Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com> wrote,

> On Mon, 21 Sep 1998, Andrew S. Howell wrote:
> 
> > Just to keep opinions balanced :), I have to put in a vote against
> > Japanese keyboards. In fact, many of the Japanese in my office use
> > English keyboards. I just don't like the placement of several keys;
> > underbar '_', tilde '~', and the small space bar come to mind.
> 
> > If I've been missing out on the benefits of Japanese keyboards,
> > please, someone enlighten me.
> 
> OK, consider yourself englightened :-)  I find that Japanese keyboards are
> not only superior for Japanese input, I just plain prefer them, even for
> English input.  If a person is used to a regular QWERTY keyboard, it may
> take some time to learn to type on a Japanese keyboard, but now I hate it
> when I have to use a computer that has  a U.S. keyboard [1].  I've
> been typing on Japanese keyboards for nearly three years and using a U.S.
> keyboard nearly reduces me to hunt and peck typing.  It's even worse when
> I run across a computer that has a Japanese keyboard but not a Japanese
> keymap.

There is a much simpler reason, why using a JP keyboard in
Japan is preferable: You get used to the layout used on most 
computers around you.

BTW, did you ever use a German keyboard?  It does not only
change the layout of some special characters...it exchanges
the position of Y and Z.  Really funny :-)  Thus, as a
German you learn early to switch between different keyboard
layouts at will (US layout at the university, German at home 
etc).

And if we are at it, I think the WORST thing is that
industry exchanged the position of the CTRL and CAPS keys at
some point (world wide, I guess) .  So, the most important
xmodmap sequence is

remove Lock      = Caps_Lock
remove Control   = Control_L
keysym Control_L = Caps_Lock
keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L
add    Lock      = Caps_Lock
add    Control   = Control_L

Manuel
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