
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 26, 1995                   TAG: 9508280052
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BRIEFLY PUT . . .

THE STANDARD keyboard is a relic of the mechanical age, its QWERTY configuration designed specifically to slow users so that typewriters wouldn't jam.

In the computer age, that need has vanished. A configuration developed by statistician August Dvorak in the 1930s is faster and easier to learn.

Benefits aren't unlimited. It would take just as long for a monkey typing randomly to produce Shakespeare's Hamlet. And, while the power of logic argues for converting to a new keyboard, the power of tradition so far has proved mightier. Less than 1 percent of typists use the Dvorak keyboard.

We'll need to start with the kids.

WILL THERE be a save-the-debt-clock campaign? Considering how the Roanoke Valley loves its icons - the Mill Mountain star, the neon H&C Coffee sign - don't be surprised. Absent a last-minute rescue, though, it appears the national debt clock will come down next week from the downtown Roanoke rooftop it shares with a punked-up Big Boy and other pop-culture curiosities.

Seems there's no money to pay the electric bill to keep the clock ticking up the tally of the national debt. Its owners may also want the clock and Big Boy to part company. Where next? There's always the Poff Federal Building.

by CNB