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

[Rob Rosenbrock]

You could get used to anything if you used it long enough.

But…

The problem with the CoCo3 keyboard is that left and right are next to each other with up and down placed on either side. And they seem small/cramped to me. If you try to use one finger for up/down as you would for WASD, your left/right fingers are in the way.

At least some games on the PC allow you to redefine keys.

> On Jan 14, 2023, at 2:36 PM, Allen Huffman via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
> 
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