First Appeared in the Barrie Advance
Sunday September 22, 2002

Where at is is not where at should be!

Grade 11. Typing class. juj, frf, juj, frf and then the second finger-- kik, ded, kik, ded.

It was about that time that my grandfather retired from a lifetime of work in the automotive supply industry. He celebrated his retirement by giving me his typewriter. 1910 Underwood, it was. Black. Weighed a ton. Round keys with deep metal rims. Smooth carriage return. Stainless steel bits everywhere. And proudly, Underwood in red letters, outlined in gold.

Well, with a typewriter at home, I could really get into grade 11 typing. Really. And it was the number one skill I needed to master as I headed into my chosen career... journalism. I figured I might as well get typing out of the way so I could concentrate on journalism topics once I got out of high school.

lol, ses, lol, ses.

There's only one way to learn to touch type. Hide the letters on the keys (masking tape), close the eyes, feel the range from the home row. And do it over and over and over and over. ;p;, awa, ;p;, awa.

Night after night grandpa's typewriter would clack away as I mastered the machine. Red and black ribbon which had to be rewound once it had typed through its end. Carbon paper for copies. Typewriter erasers that looked like grease pencils with a concrete-type eraser on the end.

As I write this I realize how long ago it sounds. But we're talking 60's here. I guess that is long ago. Eeegads!

Anyway, when I topped my speed at 125 words a minute (on a manual typewriter with manual carriage return), I figured my fingers could likely keep up with my mind and I began to cruise through typing.

Imagine my chagrin years later when I discovered that the QWERTY keyboard, the arrangement of keys on the typewriter keyboards all over North America, was actually designed to be deliberately awkward, designed to "slow" down the typist. It seems that early typists on early machines jammed the rods holding the keys until in 1875 Christopher Sholes and the Remington Gun Company manufactured the first typewriters. The simpler, more efficient keyboard was abandoned in order to slow typists down.

It's also interesting that in the midst of speed, efficiency, technological wizardry, instant-this and instant-that, we continue to be committed to a keyboard that sends our fingers flying in all directions, ensuring that it takes longer to type anything and ensures less accuracy. The QWERTY keyboard has also been blamed for wrist fatigue and carpel tunnel syndrome.

So, what's the purpose of this missive, you ask?

It has to do with the @ sign.

I mean, in all our lives, did we ever think that the @ sign, a 'shift 2' maneuvre, would be the most common key on our keyboards? Not likely.

But it is. And it's hard to reach, takes a double action, and slows down the process.

So, today's column is in honour of the lowly @ sign, the most powerful communications tool of the millenium (so far!).

Today, for anyone with email, the @ sign is the power. Without it, none of us are going anywhere. We won't download , we won't communicate, we won't send, we won't receive.

And poor August Dvorak, who invented a simpler, more efficient keyboard, beat his head against the proverbial wall until he died in 1975 (exactly a century after the Remingtons hit the stores)wondering about the commitment of a continent to a keyboard system that made no sense at all.

And guess what? We need Dvorak today. It's the @ sign that's going to do us in!

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