Dvorak Alphabet Timer - Jim Waterman

This is the first entry to this year's comp, and something new from an old hat at this. Jim W., aka @TMD2003 has submitted this almost at the stroke of midnight on new year's eve. Interrupting his viewing of Die Hard to send in his entry.

As a left hander I often feel my kind were not considered by the designers and makers of this world. So imagine my delight when the first entry has a specific left handed mode! The excitement was short lived.

Basically this is a 'game' where you type all the letters of the alphabet as quickly as possible. The twist being, that the Spectrum now has the Dvorak keyboard layout rather than the QWERTY we are more familiar with.

Jim has taken a computer famous for its bad keyboard and made it worse! Or better, depending on your view? (Let me know in the comments below kids)

So I guess this is a game that could train you to use a Dvorak keyboard layout, and if you get really good you can go into blind mode where the visual aid is removed altogether (see image below).

Dvorak Alphabet Timer reminds me of the card game "Dobble" where you have to match pairs in a confusing and frustrating way.

It reminds me of my phone after I've added a new app and all the apps move along one space in the menu and now nothing is where I expect it to be anymore.

It reminds me of trying to find the right key on the tokenized spectrum 48k keyboard (I prefer the Gosh Wonderful rom). Where is RANDOMIZE USR again?

It also reminds me of being old and not being able to remember where anything is, or why I came into the kitchen just now. I'm sure there must be a reason.

Blind mode activated!

Nice loading screen Mr Waterman. Not crap at all.

As for left handed mode, it just means the numbers 1-9 are on the opposite side of the keyboard. But that is irrelevant here as Jim's game never asks you to input numbers!

Summing Up

This is something of a non game really. It's not really fun to play but could be useful as a learning tool.

Dvorak feels very well made and is a mixture of basic and machine code.

I very much like the presentation, that is it's real strength.

Mrs Bizzel spent 15 minutes reading about Dvorak keyboards and telling me Dvorak keyboard facts, and now has decided she wants one. Is this a good thing? I don't know. 

What's especially crap about this is it surely serves no purpose as you can't get a spectrum with this keyboard layout, so as soon as you press reset you're left with your old qwerty layout!

Now, I really must remember why I came into the kitchen just now.

Get it here.

UPDATE:

Dvorak Alphabet Timer was released on microdrive and +3 disc as well as tape - pretty awesome really.