Yet, in 1936 the Dvorak standard was suggested. The jamming problems had stopped with better designed typewriters and computers of course eliminated this problem all together. The Dvorak standard seems to offer us more. Frequently used keys are closer together. Dvorak standard benefits us in three main ways, it means we can type faster, more accurately and also reduce RSI by requiring less finger and wrist movement.

Typing faster with Dvorak is probably not particularly useful to most people, with today's UI's being considerably mouse orientated, but accuracy is almost certainly improved as you are jumping about less and therefore less likely to miss the keys. Most importantly, I feel, is the reduction of RSI.

I'm sure I don't need to preach to this particular audience being the educated people you are about the problems of RSI. I'm also quite sure If I asked previous RSI sufferers to e-mail me right now, my inbox would be flooded very quickly. For those of you who do want me to churn out a statistic, apparently around 1.1 million people in Great Britain suffered from a musculoskeletal disorder in 2001-02 developed in the work place. That's a worryingly large figure but then again, so is Jo Brands.

So why wasn't the Dvorak standard adopted when we made the change from the mechanical to the electronical? I think we can blame it only on the cost of retraining and possibly people's unwilling to learn something new. Because of this, we are now locked in with an inferior standard and to change would be a lot harder than it would have been back then.

So how could we change now? Well, you can turn any keyboard into the Dvorak standard at the switch of a button in most operating systems. So, you can take a keyboard, some sand paper and a marker pen and remark your keyboard. Then with a small amount of training become a touch typist on the Dvorak standard. Once this has been achieved, any machine you use you can temporarily switch to the Dvorak layout and rely on the fact you know by heart where the keys are.

The cost of moving everyone over to the Dvorak standard would mainly be in training. The software can already cope and the cost for manufacturers to produce a Dvorak based keyboard is minimal.

In fact, here's a marketing strategy for you. If you build your own computers, chances are, you've been using the same keyboard for many years. In fact, the only market keyboards are currently selling in is on new machines - very few people bother changing a keyboard they already own that does the job. Change the standard and you would then temporarily open up your market to a lot of people who have been using the same keyboard forever. The money you would make from that would at least cover your costs.

As far as training is concerned, give people new keyboards with the right letters on and they will learn as they go along. So we are looking at a slight drop in performance for a while. And considering the amount of people who are not touch typists, they shouldn't be hugely affected as they will still have their heads firmly stuck staring at their keyboard with their “hunt and peck” approach.

So next time you are complaining of wrist pain, don't blame yourself. Blame the people that felt money was worth more than their grandchildren's well being. Blame the people who aren't willing to collaborate together, spend a little bit of money to change an old standard.

Please, someone, just think of the children! µ

Andrew 'Spode' Miller is editor of Spode's Abode