Okay before I introduce the New Standard Keyboard layout by John Parkinson, it’s time for a little history lesson…

The QWERTY layout on your keyboard in front of you has been around since it was patented by Christopher Sholes in 1868. It was originally designed for typewriters and frequently pressed keys were spaced far apart to prevent jamming. One unfortunate consequence of this is that your weak fingers (your pinkies, etc) press some of the most frequent letters like a and o and that some of the most common letters are not on the home row like e and t.

You would think more than 130 years later we’d have a better solution for computers since typebars jamming is no longer a problem :) It’s not like people haven’t been trying. The Dvorak keyboard was introduced in the 1920′s and 1930′s. It featured all the most frequent letters on the home row and makes it so the most common letters are on the right hand side. However, due to a steep learning curve it never took off.

However, The New Standard Keyboard is here and ready for its attempt to dethrone QWERTY. Learning from mistakes of the Dvorak keyboard, The New Standard Keyboard features color-coded letters in alphabetic order. Their goal is to completely remove the steep learning curve while still optimizing the keyboard for faster typing.

The full list of advantages:

• the alignment of the keys with natural movements of fingers to insure proper posture while typing
• alphabetical letters can be easily found and keys are color-coded
• all keys can be easily reached from the home position
• shift keys are centralized and shift characters can be easily typed one-handed; editing keys are integrated
• the keyboard has a smaller footprint, which allows the mouse to be placed right next to the typing keys
• there are only half as many keys to learn.

The New Standard Keyboard is available now for $69.95 and is compatible with Windows 95 and beyond.