

Cilo and the Economics of QWERTY (1985) - prostoalex
http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/knowledge_goods/david1985aer.htm

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guylhem
Great article. After using AZERTY in France, I remember experimenting with
alternative layouts, then preferring the Canadian CSA layout (standard on
Macs, PC picture on
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACNOR](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACNOR)) for
2 reasons: \- it had the accents I needed for french \- it was QWERTY, which
mean no more problems in the BIOS or anything else like grub, lilo etc. \- it
was easy to get - in any Applestore, and also for Thinkpads - even as a
replacement part!. Now try to order a mainstream laptop with a Dvorak
keyboard.

Everybody else around me was still using AZERTY, but it just made sense to
switch. I haven't looked bad ever since, except I'm now using the US QWERTY as
the accents in the 3rd level (using the control keys for the 3rd level, and
caps as a control key) are even easier.

Is QWERTY perfectible? Yes. It QWERTY good enough? Yes too, even for French.

So with the network effects, bothering with anything else is a waste of time
and money.

