[Coco] CoCo 1/2 arrow keys versus CoCo 3 arrow keys

[Allen Huffman]

The WASD and modern arrow key layout works because you can rest three fingers on them, using the middle one to be up or down.

The TRS-80 layout with two fingers on up/down and two fingers on left/right was also easy to rest your hands on and play.

The CoCo 3’s diamond shape was … not … for most of us, it seems.

There were games I played the heck out of on the CoCo 2 that used keyboard controls that I simply couldn’t play once I moved to the CoCo 3.  I expect had the 3 used a WASD type arrangement it wouldn’t have been that big of a change.

The answer I was looking for now seems to be that it was really the diamond shape, more than anything, that was the issue. It looks good and logical, but was just a stepping stone towards unification of keyboards.

Recall, as recent as the CoCo 3, quote and many other characters were still on different keys.

But that’s a topic for another thread: which keyboard layout was better? And why did we move them?

		— A