ISO layout.

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Eszett

12 Apr 2015, 15:18

Hi! Where can I read about the history of ISO-layout?

Especially those questions nag me:
1) Was it developed as a later variant of ANSI layout?
2) What was the intention to develop it? To allow one extra key?
3) Why the different shape of enter/return? It allows no additional key, so there is no gain.

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seebart
Offtopicthority Instigator

12 Apr 2015, 15:30

Not sure if this has enough info for you:

http://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T2_(Tastaturbelegung)

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Eszett

12 Apr 2015, 15:43

Hi seebart! Thanks, but there are these 3 questions I still have, and which are not issued in this article you posted the link to.

Findecanor

12 Apr 2015, 16:26

I would guess that standardisation came pretty late. In the beginning there were typewriters - and those had all sorts of layouts. When computer keyboards came along, they also had all sorts of layouts. What we call "ISO" and "ANSI" layouts existed in the wild long before they became standards, and I think they apply almost only to computer keyboards - I can't see that typewriter manufacturers really ever adopted them.

Most typewriters that do have a Carriage Return key, have only one key for both returning the sled (or print head) and adding a new line. The early IBM Selectric typewriter had a rectangular key which would be like the ANSI return key but occupy also the row above it. Other typewriters had a similarly large key but located one step down. There doesn't seem to have been too much standardisation on how much to the right that this key was. Which layouts that have caught is usually more about which layout was used by the more successful company at the time. IBM with its typewriters, then DEC with its terminals and then IBM again with its IBM PC.

Many vintage computer keyboards before-PC have both a Carriage Return key and a Line Feed ("New line") key, and sometimes also a separate "Enter" key. Sometimes the Return key is horizontal and on the QWERTY row.
Many vintage keyboards have also been designed by manufacturing concerns rather than standardisation or ergonomics in mind - having stabilisers for no other key than the Space Bar - and that would make the Return key horizontal (because QWERTY is row-oriented and a 1.5 high key would be weird)

jacobolus

13 Apr 2015, 03:32

The first keyboards to really match modern ISO layout were IBM 122-key boards, I think, in the mid-1980s. Like:
Image

I’m not sure if the DIN standard specifying the precise layout came before those specific keyboards, or after. I know many other features of the IBM Model F keyboard (like gray keycaps and cases, relatively low profile, and the specific tilt chosen, were entirely driven by a need to conform to specific bullshit features of other DIN (later adopted as ISO) standards. Silly Germans always trying to force everything to be completely uniform (usually in an ugly, corporate, conformist kind of way), even attributes that are totally irrelevant to anything....

I think you can blame the DIN for a significant part of the stagnation of computer keyboard development since the mid-1980s. (Obviously another main driver of stagnation is the commoditization and decreasing overall cost of computers and thus smaller and smaller budget available for keyboards. And you can probably blame Microsoft for the rest, driving other operating systems and nearly all of the non-Wintel hardware companies out of business via underhanded anti-competitive business practices.)

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seebart
Offtopicthority Instigator

13 Apr 2015, 08:34

Good summation jacobolus.
Silly Germans always trying to force everything to be completely uniform (usually in an ugly, corporate, conformist kind of way), even attributes that are totally irrelevant to anything....
unfortunately that is true to a point where Germans forget to question such standardizations. Is this change necessary? Do we need this? And I don't mean ISO layout now. A nice example is the daylight savings time change.

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bhtooefr

13 Apr 2015, 11:53

However, I would argue that most of ISO layout (the enter, and the left shift treatment) was around a few years before that, in 1977:

Image

Really, the difference there is the one additional key below Enter, and .25 U of width missing from the layout. There's also the IBM PC layout (which is a clear close relative to the 5251 layout):

Image

That avoided a staggered Enter, but instead made the key above it 1.25 U wide. However, I don't think it's the ultimate basis for ISO layout. I think that may well be the 96-character Selectric III keyboard (I can't find a good picture of one quickly, so here, have something else with the 96-character keyboard, and no, I have no idea what it actually is - Selectric III prototype maybe?):

Image

And that was based closely on the DisplayWriter layout, which AFAIK came a few months earlier, but I suspect the Selectric III was the actual basis for ISO. In the 96-character version, it was the same layout, it was only the 92-character version that changed from a Selectric II-style L-shaped enter to a straight Selectric III-style enter.

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mondalaci

13 Sep 2016, 10:59

I opened a similar thread the other day and folks referenced this one. It's certainly relevant so I hope it's of your interest.

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