3 ms·

Chording keyboards [are] a poor idea that will never fly. How then do you explain the success of stenotype keyboards, which use chording heavily? According to

Chording keyboards [are] a poor idea that will never fly. How then do you explain the success of stenotype keyboards, which use chording heavily? According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenotype, "a trained court reporter or closed captioner must write speeds of approximately 180, 200, and 225 words per minute (wpm) at very high accuracy." I don't believe any non-chording-keyboard users can sustain a rate of 225 wpm. Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8510409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8510409 ("Plover: Text to thought at 240 WPM") It would be interesting to know if these high speeds be achieved with a non-chording keyboard using sequential keypresses, if the keypresses were post-processed in a manner similar to the stenotype.

kazinator 12y ago
Is that 200 WPM counting expanded words or the raw steno notation? From the same Wikipedia page: "Some court reporters use scopists to translate and edit their work. A scopist is a person who is trained in the phonetic writing system, English punctuation, and usually in legal formatting." I.e. there is a post-processing pass whereby phonetic gibberish is translated into legible English with good spelling, grammar and punctuation. Is the WPM calculation done on the raw input to the scopist, who expands it to proper English, or is it calculated over their output? See, in ordinary English-language typing tests, you type full sentences. Mistakes in spelling and punctuation subtract from your WPM score.
- bumbledraven 12y ago
  Is that 200 WPM counting expanded words or the raw steno notation? It counts expanded words. In steno, the typist's chord (known as a "stroke") is a phonetic abbreviation that is automatically expanded into a word or phrase by software with a lookup table. Some steno software does slightly more complex expansion, but the vast majority of it is pure dictionary lookup. in ordinary English-language typing tests, you type full sentences. Mistakes in spelling and punctuation subtract from your WPM score. I see what you mean. It looks like WPM in steno is measured at sub-100% accuracy rates, whereas on a QWERTY keyboard it's measured at 100% accuracy. I'm not sure how to precisely compare steno speeds to QWERTY, but no QWERTY typist has ever come close to the speed of the fastest stenographers. For example, according to http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/3000/fastest-realtime-court-reporter-(stenotype-writing) http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/3000/faste..., "Mark Kislingbury of Houston, Texas, USA is the National Court Reporters Association speed and real-time champion, achieving 360 words per minute with 97.23% accuracy, at the NCRA 2004 summer convention on 30 July 2004."

kazinator 12y ago

Is that 200 WPM counting expanded words or the raw steno notation? From the same Wikipedia page: "Some court reporters use scopists to translate and edit their work. A scopist is a person who is trained in the phonetic writing system, English punctuation, and usually in legal formatting." I.e. there is a post-processing pass whereby phonetic gibberish is translated into legible English with good spelling, grammar and punctuation. Is the WPM calculation done on the raw input to the scopist, who expands it to proper English, or is it calculated over their output? See, in ordinary English-language typing tests, you type full sentences. Mistakes in spelling and punctuation subtract from your WPM score.

bumbledraven 12y ago
Is that 200 WPM counting expanded words or the raw steno notation? It counts expanded words. In steno, the typist's chord (known as a "stroke") is a phonetic abbreviation that is automatically expanded into a word or phrase by software with a lookup table. Some steno software does slightly more complex expansion, but the vast majority of it is pure dictionary lookup. in ordinary English-language typing tests, you type full sentences. Mistakes in spelling and punctuation subtract from your WPM score. I see what you mean. It looks like WPM in steno is measured at sub-100% accuracy rates, whereas on a QWERTY keyboard it's measured at 100% accuracy. I'm not sure how to precisely compare steno speeds to QWERTY, but no QWERTY typist has ever come close to the speed of the fastest stenographers. For example, according to http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/3000/fastest-realtime-court-reporter-(stenotype-writing) http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/3000/faste..., "Mark Kislingbury of Houston, Texas, USA is the National Court Reporters Association speed and real-time champion, achieving 360 words per minute with 97.23% accuracy, at the NCRA 2004 summer convention on 30 July 2004."