Talk:Stenotype/Archives/2013

Name of article
In addition to a bit more description of the writing theory, I changed the word "Stenograph" to "stenotype" throughout, as Stenograph is a registered trademark and the name of a company selling equipment in this field.

Gary D Robson 01:09, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Forgive me chipping in a bit off-topic for this section heading, but I don't know how to create a new one. The article contains only one external reference, and that to a site that may or not be "authoritative". There are several statements made in the article (just one example: prices of machines, new and second-hand) that are not backed up with any verifiable references at all. For all we know, the entire article is one piece of original writing by a single author - is that within the spirit of the Wiki, or am I misunderstanding something here...?

ChrisB600 (talk) 22:03, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * No, you aren't misunderstanding anything. You are absolutely correct. This articles quality is severely lacking. BTW: to create a new section, all you have to do is click the "New Section" link at the top of the page. --SentientParadox (talk) 20:27, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

PC keyboard?
Is this used for a PC keyboard? If not, why?

--- Stenotype keyboards require years of training to achieve the speed and accuracy we're speaking of here (minimum of 225 wpm+ at 98% accuracy), and while they're very efficient at words, steno keyboards are comparatively weak on numbers and symbols. Certainly they can be used as a replacement keyboard for a PC, and several machines were originally designed for just that purpose, but they've never been a commercial success as PC keyboards. Gary D Robson 11:37, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

--- You betcha! It may not be available right now, but I was meandering about the patent office's records and found this from 2001: [|Patent Record No. 20020150416]. This is interesting. It is a patent awarded for a system that emulates the stenograph keyboard on the QWERTY keyboard on which you are likely typing right now. I would like seeing this idea flourish. It surely beats paying a few thousand dollars for a shorthand machine. —Andrew


 * Not sure if it is still relevant with today's QWERTY keyboards, but the older ones were not made for chording of regular keys. I'm not sure if it can be worked around in software using timing, but pressing two adjacent letter keys on a keyboard used to result in one of the two keys not being sent to the operating system, or the keyboard queuing them and sending them to the PC as if you had hit one after the other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.109.135.80 (talk) 12:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

--- These aren't anything new, Andrew. A company called MicroCAT had a system for steno input (including chording) using a QWERTY keyboard in the late 1980s. The project was killed when MicroCAT was acquired by a company that manufactured stenotype keyboards. Last I checked, Stenograph Corporation still owned MicroCAT's patent. (Please note that Stenograph is a trademark, not a generic term for stenotype keyboards) Gary D Robson 18:02, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

--- Well, that makes sense. I wouldn't expect it to be anything new, as the stenotype is an old technology, constantly being improved upon (Stenograph issued two pimp-tight new writers this year!). Unfortunately, I cannot find any information anywhere regarding the MicroCAT company. Where did you hear of this? On another note, how many different brands are there of the STKPWHRAO*EUFRPBLGTSDZ shorthand machine? It always seemed to me that Stenograph had exclusive rights to the technology, since they can sell their machines for swich high prices. Whom am I hurting by saying "Stenograph Machine" in my everyday speech? I am not challenging you; just getting information. —Andrew 2005-08-14

--- There are currently a half-dozen companies making stenotype shorthand machines. For details, see the updates I just did to this article, and read the recent article I wrote for the Journal of Court Reporting at http://www.robson.org/gary/writing/jcr-paperless2.html. Your question on prices is a good one, so I've answered it by updating this Wiki article. As for the "who am I hurting" question, it's like any other trademark. You hurt Stenograph because it dilutes their trademark. You hurt all of their competitors by giving the impression that there's no alternative to Stenograph. Just for the sake of full disclosure, I was the inventor of one of the competing machines, but I sold the rights to it in 1998, so I've got no dog in this fight any longer.Gary D Robson 15:47, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Since about 1993 there has been local (ie in Perth, Western Australia) system available which uses the QuickCorrect function of the WordPerfect for Windows program as a faux stenotype using the ordinary keyboard. Speeds of 210 wpm have been achieved with better than 98% accuracy.

Proword (talk) 12:11, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Stenotype image used
This image is used without permission and is not public domain, please discuss on the Image_talk:Stenkeys.gif page. Nathan J. Yoder 01:41, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

talk redirect
Note that Talk:Stenograph redirects to this page, making things rather confusing. Articles should have separate talk pages - Skysmith 12:41, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

ram?
since when is RAM nonvolatile? --84.189.53.143 11:30, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Good call, it's not, I removed it from the article. Nathan J. Yoder 15:28, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
 * When it's nonvolatile RAM. To explain, the original machines used standard RAM with a separate battery path, so that when the user turned off the machine, the RAM retained the information. It was still subject to loss of data if the batteries lost their charge fully, so newer machines use NVRAM or flash RAM.Gary D Robson 23:07, 3 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Correct. Non-Volatile RAM has been around for a long time. I see that's already been added back in, but no citations are offered, which so far seems to be par for the course for this article. --SentientParadox (talk) 20:24, 2 September 2011 (UTC)--

pic would be nice
it would be nice to have a picture here. I wonder if we can ask someone who might have a stenotype keyboard to take and make available a picture. anyone here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.131.186.218 (talk • contribs)
 * I definitely agree that a picture would be nice. I also think that this page needs 1 or 2 examples of sentences written in Stenotype and how they look on paper. - Zepheus 21:33, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I've added a sample sentence in steno shorthand (BTW, the word "stenotype" doesn't need to be capitalized) Gary D Robson 19:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Ask and you shall receive. Excellent work! - Zepheus 22:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Link to www.phoenixtheory.com
I think this link should be removed. Looking at the layout of the page, it looks like a personal site, and not an informative one. What do others think? ElMorador 16:01, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed the link for now, and notified the (anonymous) user of the fact that I whish to discuss it at this talk page. ElMorador 13:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

--- The link to Phoenix Theory is a link to a site which is owned and maintained by the inventor of Phoenix Theory, which is the theory that the Stenograph corporation sells exclusively, and which the National Court Reporters' Association lauds as a superior and phenomenal stenotype theory. The site is rather informative, containing its history, several of its details and basic principles, excerpts from steno dictionaries, extremely comprehensive guides to realtime writing, speedbuilding tips, and updates to the theory books that are currently sold. The fact that the site is not designed very well or professionally is tangential to its value in content. --72.24.62.153 07:05, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Article needs a TON of work.
In its current state, to be blunt, this article is terrible. Three citations for the entire article is just plain dismal. Explanations of how stenotype machines actually work and are used, from a layman's standpoint, are extremely lacking. I read the entire article and I understood very little of it. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be easy for anyone with no knowledge of the subject to understand. This article fails that test horribly.

Many statements are made that simply make no sense at all, or even conflict with other statements made in the article. Here's a couple of examples:

"The stenotype keyboard looks more like a piano than a conventional alphanumeric keyboard."

Really? From the only image on the page, it looks to me like it looks as much like a piano keyboard as it looks like a rhinoceros. Then again, to me, so does a qwerty keyboard. The statement just makes no sense at all, and offers no useful comparison in my opinion.

The following paragraph is a MESS:

"The first shorthand machine (the word "stenotype" was not used for another 80 years or more) punched a paper strip and was built in 1830 by Karl Drais. The first machine was made in 1863 by the Italian Antonio Zucco and was in actual use since 1880 in the Italian Senate. An American shorthand machine was patented in 1879 by Miles M. Bartholomew. A French version was created by Marc Grandjean in 1909. The direct ancestor of today's stenotype was created by Ward Stone Ireland in about 1913 or so, and the word "stenotype" was applied to his machine and its descendants sometime thereafter."

Let's take a close look at the timeline there.

I assume the "80 years" mentioned refers to how long it was between when the first shorthand machine was built (1830), and the first stenograph. But the following sentence tells me "The first machine was made in 1863..." Uh, that's only 33 years by the calendars I use. But then that sentence doesn't say "The first machine" was a stenograph though, so we're left to either assume it was, in which case the previous sentence is wrong, or we must assume it was NOT a stenograph, or at least wasn't referred to as one. But the entire paragraph gives no indication of which is true. In fact, the entire paragraph makes all sorts of statements and offers NO citations for a single one.

I'm not going to bother pointing out all the similar glaring lacks in this article, because they are virtually everywhere.

(No offense intended to the user who took the time to put this in, but...) The chart of letters at the bottom is frankly totally useless to anyone who has never used a stenograph or studied them. It teaches me absolutely nothing. What is an "Initial B," a "Final M," "RCH?" None of this makes any sense to anyone who's never used the machines or trained for them.

People when you write articles about technical things like this you really need to remember that Wikipedia's purpose is about disseminating information to people with NO prior knowledge about the subject. Only someone with at least some familiarity with stenographs could possibly make any sense of most of this article.

I would help clean it up some, but I know nothing at all, and am not qualified. All I can tell you all is that I came hear to learn something about stenography, and was sadly disappointed with what little I was actually able to learn.

I don't mean to be harsh or unappreciative. I just mean to give you some unbiased perspective. --SentientParadox (talk) 20:24, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I've added a slew of citation tags. Maybe a little bit overzealous, but I honestly tried to be fair. Once I went through the entire article, it became clear that practiCally ALL of it seems to be written by people who may very well know what they're talking about, but amounts to original research, which is not supposed to be the basis for any Wikipedia material. Sources and references must be given, and cited. It's that simple. There aren't enough of them here. I would flag the entire article for lack of citations, but I've forgotten how. If somebody else gets to it before I remember, please flag it. This needs to be fixed! I dare say the only reason the article is rating as high as it is is because only the editors themselves have rated it, or only people with foreknowledge of stenotype have read it. --SentientParadox (talk) 21:08, 2 September 2011 (UTC)