scope:

This standard provides a performance-oriented keyboard arrangement that is an alternative to the keyboard presented in American National Standard for office machines and supplies - Alphanumeric machines - Keyboard arrangement, ANSI X3.154. This standard describes the arrangement of the 48 basic printing keys on the keyboard and the characters, uppercase and lowercase, that appear on the keys. The character assignments are divided into five application areas, in recognition of the different graphic character requirements of these application areas.

The application areas this standard addresses are:

- Input of American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) data characters. As specified in ANSI X3.4;

- Input of word processing data;

- Input of OCR-A data. As specified in ANSI x3.17;

- Input of OCR-B data. As specified in ANSI x3.49;

- Input of data for other application areas. This standard leaves much latitude for negotiation between equipment manufacturers and users in these diverse areas. Only the alphabet, the numerals, and a few basic symbols are required in the keyboard arrangement.

This standard also specifies the placement of two shift keys and a space bar. However, this standard does not specify the physical characteristics and dimensions of the keys and keyboard. It relates to the keyboard arrangement only.

This standard supersedes the American National Standard for office machines and supplies- Alphanumeric machines-Alternate keyboard arrangement, ANSI X4.22-1983.

Purpose

The purpose of this standard is to provide the greatest benefit to the user in the areas of operating, purchasing, and interchanging machines and training operators, while accommodating the user's applications' various graphic character requirements.