Why are the letters on the keyboard in the order that they are in?

Question

They might have taught us this in school ,I dont remember.

Answer 1

It was done to make it more difficult to learn to type... so that not every woman out there would be able to do it...

Answer 2

When the keyboard was originally designed, it was in alphabetical order, but the problem was that the typewriters were mechanical. That meant that the person doing the typing had to kit the key to physically move it so that it struck the paper. Some letters are used more frequently in the English language than others, and when the typists got good at the keyboard, they would type too quickly and the keys would all mash together and stick and the person would have to take time to untangle them. Damage could also be caused to the keys.

So, they scrambled out the letters so the the most commonly used ones were not next to each other, allowing for much fasher typing.

The trouble today is that the machines are no longer mechanical--we have digital machines and electronics. The keyboard as it is now is archaic. But what to do with all the people who have learned to touchtype with the QWERTY keyboards?

You can purchase different keyboards, with the frequent letters designed to used by the more dominant fingers. (For example, so that the well used letter "a" is not typed by the weak left hand pinkie finger.) But, the time it takes to become proficient at the keyboard and the troubles of using that keyboard and that skill will be problematic when you go out into a world full of QWERTY keyboards.

Answer 3

Frequently used pairs of letters were separated in an attempt to stop the typebars from intertwining and becoming stuck, thus forcing the typist to manually unstick the typebars and also frequently blotting the document[1]. The home row (ASDFGHJKL) of the QWERTY layout is thought to be a remnant of the old alphabetical layout that QWERTY replaced. QWERTY also attempted to alternate keys between hands, allowing one hand to move into position while the other hand strikes home a key. This sped up both the original double-handed hunt-and-peck technique and the later touch typing technique; however, single-handed words such as stewardesses and monopoly show flaws in the alternation.


This French Matra Alice uses the AZERTY layoutMinor changes to the arrangement are made for other languages; for example, German keyboards add umlauts to the right of "P" and "L", and interchange the "Z" and "Y" keys both because "Z" is a much more common letter than "Y" in German (the latter seldom appearing except in borrowed words), and because "T" and "Z" often appear next to each other in the German language; consequently, they are known as QWERTZ keyboards. French keyboards interchange both "Q" and "W" with "A" and "Z", and move "M" to the right of "L"; they are known as AZERTY keyboards. Italian typewriter keyboards (but not most computer keyboards) use a QZERTY layout where "Z" is swapped with "W" and "M" is at the right of "L". Portuguese keyboards maintain the QWERTY layout but add an extra key: the letter "C" with cedilla (Ç) after the "L" key. In this place, the Spanish version has the letter "N" with tilde (Ñ) and the "Ç" (which is not used in Spanish, but is part of sibling languages like French, Portuguese and Catalan) is placed at the rightmost position of the home line, beyond the diacritical dead keys. Norwegian keyboards inserts "Å" to the right of "P", "Ø" to the right of "L", and "Æ" to the right of "Ø", thus not changing the appearance of the rest of the keyboard. The Danish layout is like the Norwegian, only switching "Æ" and "Ø", and Swedish has their umlaut letters "Ä" and "Ö" in those places. Some keyboards for Lithuanian used a layout known as ĄŽERTY, where "Ą" appears in place of "Q" above "A", Ž in place of "W" above "S", with "Q" and "W" being available either on the far right-hand side or by use of the Alt Gr key.

Answer 4

The current keyboard layout, called the QWERTY, was developed over a hundred years ago by typewriter inventer C. L. Sholes. It was chosen over the obvious alphabetical order because the old mechanical typewriters used long bars to print the letter on paper, and these bars would get stuck if the typewriter was typing English words very quickly. To reduce the bar clogging, Sholes placed letters that would be used together often as far apart as possible, like the letters "T" and "H".

Answer 5

Frequently used pairs of letters were separated in an attempt to stop the typebars from intertwining and becoming stuck, thus forcing the typist to manually unstick the typebars and also frequently blotting the document[1]. The home row (ASDFGHJKL) of the QWERTY layout is thought to be a remnant of the old alphabetical layout that QWERTY replaced. QWERTY also attempted to alternate keys between hands, allowing one hand to move into position while the other hand strikes home a key. This sped up both the original double-handed hunt-and-peck technique and the later touch typing technique; however, single-handed words such as stewardesses and monopoly show flaws in the alternation.

Answer 6

The "Qwerty" keyboard was designed on a manual typewriter to space out the letters that are commonly used in typing, in order to slow down the typist so the mechanical typewriter's letters would not jam (so the popular myth goes). There are alternative keyboard layouts, like "Dvorak", but "Qwerty" remains the de facto standard and most popular.

Answer 7

This format (qwerty) originated with the invention of the typewriter in the 1800s. The keys kept getting jammed together so the inventor tried to move the keys so the ones used most often would be far apart.

Answer 8

The Dvorak keyboard layout is a control panel option on almost every current computer. It is a vastly more comfortable and efficient alternative to the standard "QWERTY" pattern, which was designed in the 1800s with no effective attempt at typing comfort.

Answer 9

They were originally in this order because of typewriters. The original inventor separated letters that were often used together so that the typebars on the typewriters didn't get tangled. Also, it helps you to use both your right and left hands, which allows you to type faster. Mostly, it's the typewriter thing though.

Answer 10

To make typing faster. The letters are set in a pattern to balance common words between different fingers and hands to aid in faster typing. I can't remember who came up with the modern day version.

Answer 11

to slow up typing.
QWERTY keyboard was invented along with mechanic typewriters, which jammed if you type to fast. So keyboard layout deliberately placed letters apart from their natural neighbours in the language to slow up typing.

When non-jamming typewriters and computers came along, it was just too much work to re-train the typists for any new layout.