Actually, there is no need of the digits at all! Why even have them?
With my Japanese IME, I simply type the number as words (japanese number words are much shorter than the English) and convert!
Or, you can say, why in English do we have the words "two", "three", etc., when we can merely write "2", "3", etc.?
You could say that it is because a sentence must begin with a capital letter, and that the capital must be there to prevent ambiguity, but what about sentences beginning with proper nouns? The proper noun does not shift the case of its first character!!
There is no need of "digit keys".
I have an idea, this would be very good for chord keyboards.
The idea works only for Japanese.
Use "numeric shift" plus kana {re,i,ni,sa,yo,ko,ro,na,ya,ki} for digits. Use this numeric shift also for math symbols: "ta" for plus, "hi" for minus, "ka" for times, "wa" for divide, "ha" for equals (this is why our eight is "ya"), "ru" for root, ....
What for English?
<ruby><rb>$B$8$e$&$$$C$A$c$s(B</rb><rp>(</rp><rt>Juuitchan</rt><rp>)</rp></ruby>
Well, I guess what you say is true,
I could never be the right kind of girl for you,
I could never be your woman
- White Town
--- Original Message ---
$B:9=P?M(B: "Carl W. Brown" <cbrown@xnetinc.com>;
$B08@h(B: Unicode <unicode@unicode.org>;
Cc:
$BF|;~(B: 01/09/22 13:54
$B7oL>(B: RE: [lojban] (from lojban-beginners) pi'e
>Edward,
>
>Typewriters, computer keyboards, and school recitations still put 0 after 9
>rather than before 1. Such is Human Stupidity.
>
>This is logical. Originally typewrites had no 1 or 0. You code use the
>letters l and O. They look the same so that is good enough until computers
>came along and actually needed a distinction. They did not want to change
>the relationship between the numbers and letters ( the two between the q & w
>on a qwerty keyboard). There was not room enough left of the 2 for both the
>1 & 0 so they put one on each end.
>
>Carl
>
>
>
>
>
>
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