New Keyboard Layout Project: New Results
After fixing the bug, I modified the program and got a rather different (though good) result.
; g u c b x h p w . a t e s d l n i r o ' v y f z j m , k q Fitness: 20.38 Distance: 7814.03 Inward rolls: 7.59% Outward rolls: 5.49% Same hand: 22.26% Same finger: 0.77% Row change: 9.10% Home jump: 0.39% To center: 3.55%
This layout has nice inward rolls and great same finger and distance. It has pretty low usage of the right middle finger, though, and pretty high usage of the left ring finger. Other than that, though, it’s very nice.
Also, I added a function to my program that shows what the easiest and hardest digraphs are. The theory is that more common digraphs should be easier. For this layout, the easiest digraphs are in, es, te, and ri. The hardest are ‘;, ‘a and uy. You can see why ‘; is so hard: it involves jumping over the home row on the same finger to hit two of the hardest spots.
And here’s the source code, if you want to check it out.
Categories: Keyboard Release, Keyboards, Software Release
Mathematical Multicore 
Ah, the code. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything interesting. (Being intentionally vague, here.)
I couldn’t get it to compile with Watcom and I don’t have easy access to gcc. Oh well.
http://gcc.gnu.org/mirrors.html
Does that not work for you?
@Phynnboi To run gcc on Windows you’ll probably need to install cygwin. I had never heard of Watcom before. I’m curious, what errors does it give you?
Well, the first errors were because the source files have the .c extension, but use C++ syntax*. So, I changed them all to .cpp files. Then, I didn’t have (I think), so I hacked out most of that code (it’s irrelevant to what I’m doing, anyway). Then, there were issues with being unable to declare static array sizes using variables. I hacked those away. Then, there were a crap-ton of linker errors and by that time I was so tired of fighting with the code that I just gave up.
I don’t want to have to go through the rigamarole of installing cygwin and gcc just for this, since I’m otherwise quite happy with Watcom. I may try uploading it to my old school account and seeing if I can compile it there–they have gcc.
* Or is it C with gcc-specific extensions? Whatever it is, it’s not C89 compliant.
That should say, “Then I didn’t have sys/time.h (I think)….” I forgot this thing parses angle brackets.
I believe that syntax is actually C99. If I use the C89 flag I get lots of errors. It looks like Watcom has incomplete C99 compliance and you’d need to turn that on using the -za99 flag.
is a Unix thing I think so it’s probably not available on Windows.
This is first time I tried to compile it from the command line in Mac OS X (I was using the Xcode IDE) and there are warnings but it does compile.
Alright, that seems to have done it, although there were several hundred linker warnings.
I was mostly interested in dropping in my simulated annealing-type algorithm in place of Michael’s genetic algorithm and seeing how it did. Here’s a sample output:
, y c d b x l u w .
a i s t g h n e r o
q ' f p j v m ; k z
Fitness: 2387397
Distance: 2099974
Inward rolls: -202695
Outward rolls: -10614
Same hand: 88576
Same finger: 164155
Row change: 144671
Home jump: 29040
To center: 74290
Evaluation: 2387397
Time elapsed: 0 hours, 0 minutes, 3 seconds
I’m doing a run with Michael’s genetic algorithm at the moment. It will be interesting to compare the results.
Oops, I see in my previous post it lost part of my sentence due to the angle brackets. I should have read:
I added a new version. (You can get it at the same URL.) This version has more easily readable output for the Final Best Keyboard output.
From my run with Michael’s genetic algorithm:
. y h c b x l u g ,
o i n s d m r e t a
q ' p f j k w ; v z
Fitness: 2324530
Distance: 2110406
Inward rolls: -184575
Outward rolls: -9513
Same hand: 84674
Same finger: 111955
Row change: 130453
Home jump: 18470
To center: 62660
Time elapsed: 0 hours, 18 minutes, 10 seconds
From a run of my simulated annealing-type thingy:
, y u c b x l d p .
a i e s f h r t n o
; j ' w z k m g v q
Fitness: 2322457
Distance: 2104697
Inward rolls: -178890
Outward rolls: -5839
Same hand: 73096
Same finger: 108160
Row change: 112183
Home jump: 39960
To center: 69090
Time elapsed: 0 hours, 1 minutes, 34 seconds
It’d actually found a fitness 2324944 layout by 34 seconds.
Anyway, I just wanted to compare algorithms. It seems they produce comparable results, although the simulated annealing approach is much faster.
Interesting. Could you send me your source code? I want to see how that thing works.
Where to?