Keyboards

Episode notes

Alex Schmidt is joined by writers/podcasters Jeff Rubin (‘The Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show’ podcast) and Cody Ziglar (Rick & Morty, Marvel Comics) for a look at why keyboards are secretly incredibly fascinating.

Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week’s bonus episode.

LINKS FOR THE GUESTS:

• LiesGame.com
• ‘The Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show’ (Headgum)
• JeffRubinJeffRubin on YouTube and on TikTok
• ‘The Dark Weeb’ podcast
• ‘X-Ray Vision’ (Crooked Media)
• Cody Ziglar’s IMDb page
• Cody Ziglar’s Podchaser page for guest spots all over
• Cody Ziglar’s writer page at the Marvel Comics website

RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

• native-land.ca
• U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
• The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland (Smithsonian)
• Mapping Manahatta: 10 Lenape sites in New York City (6sqft)

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• 6 Non-QWERTY Keyboard Layouts (Mental Floss)
• What Does a Chinese Keyboard Look Like? (Slate)
• Fact of Fiction? The Legend of the QWERTY Keyboard (Smithsonian Magazine)
• I’ve Used Dvorak For 10 Years, And I’m Here To Tell You It’s Not All That (The Verge)
• Perhaps August Dvorak Is More Your Type (Hackaday)
• Malling-Hansen’s 1878 Model Writing Ball (The Early Office Museum)
• The Mother of All Demos (Smithsonian Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation)
• How Doug Engelbart Pulled off the Mother of All Demos (Wired)
• 99% Invisible: “Of Mice And Men”, produced by Louisa Beck
• Extra note: we did not discuss an experimental Japanese typewriter, patented in 1915 by Kyota Sugimoto. Link about that here: https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=4831 It apparently included 2,400 characters. Unclear whether it was ever widely adopted.

Picture of French “AZERTY” keyboard layout:

Picture of German “QWERTZ” keyboard layout:

Picture of Russian “JCUKEN” keyboard layout:

One example of the Hansen Writing Ball:

Diagram of how letters work on a five key “keyset” keyboard: