I am woNdering if there are any apps for alternate screen keyboards for ipad 1 that have different features such as cursor up down L -R?

There's a notepad app with its own virtual keyboard that has left-right cursor keys... called Extended Keyboard in App Store.

A virtual keyboard with a layout more like a MacBook keyboard would be a significant productivity improvement. The two primary features people would to see included are: up-down-left-right cursor keys and an additional top row of number keys (with shift for commonly used symbols). There's enough space to include these in the current virtual keyboard area, e.g. The four curser keys could go on the unused right hand side of the top previous/next bar (with extra space there also in the centre of that bar to include some user setable function keys). The excellent Cydia tweak called Five Row Keyboard demonstrates inclusion of a very usable additional top row of number keys. It's hard to understand why Apple doesn't include these two features in an iPad iOS update.

NB At date of this post Five Row Keyboard is not available for iOS 5.x upwards, but works brilliantly on 4.x.