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> If I recall well, Polish typewriter layout (PN-87) was still available on Windows 95/98.

It's way worse: it's installed by default up to (at least) Windows 7, along with a silent (no feedback!) Left Alt-Shift shortcut that switches the keyboard layout. Press it unknowingly and BAM - suddenly your diacritics don't work anymore and Y/Z are swapped. Annoys the hell out of an Average User.

PS. I'm not saying that the layout was bad - just that there shouldn't be a magic shortcut for a "break my keyboard now!" feature.



Well, not quite. You are confusing it with 214. That's a different layout. PN-87 is the original one, take a look at https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/1601/1*3uODrDDA876... from the article - note where ń, ś, ć are located.

PN-87: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Polish_QWERTZ_PN87...

214 is some computer-era invention: http://charsetplus.tripod.com/Keyboard/Latin/PL-214.htm

I agree that the alt + shift shortcut is sneaky, but Microsoft wasn't exactly known for its great UX expertise.

It's been frustrating the hell out of not-that-savvy users who would often restart their machines to "fix the keyboard" :)




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