AZERTY

I present the AZERY keyboard. Contrary to popular belief there is no actual evidence that it or the QWERTY keyboard were designed to slow typists down. We do know from patents that the QWERTY keyboard goes back to the Remington No. 2 typewriter, and that the French AZERTY variant appeared before the start of the twentieth century. Both layouts remained relatively stable and when computers appeared were adopted and extended for computer use.

It is fair to say that the ANSI or ISO layout of the QWERTY keyboard isn't perfect and for programmers it has some annoyances, with highly useful and commonly used symbols in awkward places. However the French AZERTY keyboard is utterly dire, it is in fact so bad that the French government has tried to get rid of it, there is a government web site dedicated to the new AZERTY layout. Having used AZERTY and having had a look at the new design I can understand why many French programmers use an ISO QWERTY layout instead.

Anyhow this keyboard is Microsoft wireless keyboard that my mother-in-law wasn't using. I've put batteries in, and nothing happens, no light comes on, and I think that a battery that leaked may have messed up the contacts... There are 20 screws to take it apart, and I don't know if I've the motivation to removed them all, to see if I can fix it...

I'm still back blipping...