About Hisao Yamada: "A Historical Study of Typewriters and Typing Methods" (1980)

I am not very keen to criticise a paper written in 1980. The paper is Hisao Yamada: "A Historical Study of Typewriters and Typing Methods: from the Position of Planning Japanese Parallels", Journal of Information Processing, 2(4) (February 1980), pp. 175–202. You can download full PDF freely, without any account.

The paper has a fair amount of influence. For example, Google Scholar finds 192 citation. It seems that in certain fields, it has become customary to cite this paper. So I feel that I should do what I should do.

My overall thoughts: The paper describes about 1980 well, but not very well about 1873-1979. In 1980, Dvorak layout (Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, DSK) seemed like a good option, far better than it really was in 1980. The paper describes why DSK seemed so good in 1980, but did not describe how good it actually was.

Actually I read the Japanese translation featured in a Japanese magazine. It contains a must-see information which is not included in the original English paper. About the part of "Dvorak, being naive on business affairs" in the paper:

After reading the original English paper, Mrs. Dvorak sent a letter, “I have some doubts about this part. The facts were actually the exact opposite.” (Bit, vol. 13, no. 10, pp. 1248)

I think there are probably far more people who agree with Mrs. Dvorak now.

The original English paper also contains a must-see information:

Malt also states that the long held belief of the superiority in speed of alternate hand keying over lateral keying (i.e., the stroking of adjacent keys by the same hand) has now been disproved, bringing back the belief of some early investigators such as Nelson (1920, 1921).

Malt is the Maltron's Malt. Maltron:

Needless to say, the belief that lateral keying is inferior stems from the mechanical limitations of manual typewriters. One of the design principles of DSK was this brief. In the age of good key rollover, lateral keying is superior. Malt studied and observed very well.

The author of the paper, Hisao Yamada, also pointed out a truth about chording keyboards. But this part is also not included in the original English paper:

Considering the history of chording typewriters, what is known today about stenotypes, and the fact that, in general, performing multiple tasks at once is much more difficult than performing a single task—it is difficult to argue that chording offer any advantages over sequential keystrokes except for very specific purposes. In fact, the opposite appears to be true. (Bit, vol. 13, no. 11, pp. 1554)

Although this remark was an implicit criticism of Fujitsu's Oyayubi Shihuto (親指シフト) in the context of that time, it remains a universal truth even today.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article, but I also hope you are not encouraged by this article. Truth is like the legal system in a normal society. If you make it your enemy, you’re in for trouble. If you want to make it your ally, you’re already in trouble.