I searched here, and the concept has been somewhat touched on, but specifically:
I think that the usage of the colon (careful now) is now more prevalent than that of the semi-colon. It should therefore switch places with the semi-colon and no longer require a shift depression to activate.
Furthermore, @ is used enough that it should be remapped to somewhere that does not require a 'shift'. Programmers may grumble, but I would suggest replacing the backslash with the @.-- snikrepkire, Apr 21 2004 I demand they replace the lowercase z with an uppercase I. (yawn)-- Worldgineer, Apr 21 2004 Plenty of keyboards had/have @ as a regular key (i.e., not shifted). Buy a new keyboard and quit yer complainin'.-- DrCurry, Apr 21 2004 // It should...switch places with the semi-colon//
Methinks if you switched the keys, the ; would suddenly become more common again (due to typos)
Why they don't have two-pressable key keyboards yet? Then you could hit "," and "." together for a ";", and the colon could have its own key.-- phundug, Apr 21 2004 (presses : and ) simultaneously)-- Worldgineer, Apr 21 2004 [snikrepkire], for your real job are you one of those people in charge of changing the scientific names of things every few years?-- bungston, Apr 21 2004 [phundug] They do, they're called chording keyboards and I use one sometimes (FrogPad).-- bristolz, Apr 21 2004 Do they make 106-key chording keyboards? I know they make ones with only 10 keys or so, but that doesn't help when you want a "p" overstruck by a "%" and you want it now.-- phundug, Apr 21 2004 The MonoManus is a 144 key chording keyboard.-- bristolz, Apr 21 2004 Buy a Commodore 64. Then see if you can amaze your friends by writing a workable TCP/IP stack on it (should be possible, actually, if you get a 2400-baud modem). Let us know when you're done.-- supercat, Apr 21 2004 There is nothing wrong with my colon and the @ is also just fine.-- kbecker, Apr 21 2004 Shouldn't this be called @&:?-- nilstycho, Apr 22 2004 Suggested name: eBoard.-- sartep, Apr 22 2004 Suggested name: Don't read this.-- yabba do yabba dabba, Apr 22 2004 Oh...I thought this would be a domain for proctologists.-- Salted Nuts, Apr 22 2004 .ass?-- Worldgineer, Apr 22 2004 So this really should be called @&@.-- FarmerJohn, Apr 22 2004 Would this classify a "let's all ... "?
(I just read the rules today and I am trying to gauge how they apply and are applied)-- Bamboo, Apr 22 2004 I don't think it does [Bamboo], it is more an idea to increase the importance of the @ on a keyboard (by making it easier to type), as opposed to telling us all to consider @ more important in a general sense.-- MikeOliver, Apr 22 2004 random, halfbakery