Why arn't the buttons on the keyboard of you'r computer in alphabetical order?

Answer 1

So typist would not type as fast. This is true. Early type writers were the hammer type and when typist typed too quickly, the hammers would cross and jam up the type writer. The arrangement we use today is called Qwerty. Dvorak is a more efficient arrangement (places most common keys in middle row, very fast), however, we are used to the qwerty arrangement now and transition would be difficult. You can view Dvorak keyboards on-line at...http://images.google.com/images?q=dvorak&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&tab=wi

Answer 2

The first typewriters were real clunkers - if the keys were struck in sucession too quickly, the second type arm would reach the paper before the first one returned and this would jam up the works. The solution: no more alphabetical sequence of the keys - randomly scatter the keys and the "hunt and peck" method was invented. Too bad once the people became familiar with the key layout, they typed as fast or faster than ever and the real solution was simply to build better typewriters. The ol' "qwertyuiop" key layout simple never went away.

Answer 3

The arrangement follows the tradition of the typewriter keyboard, which people are used to. Originally, typewriter keyboards were arranged in alphabetical order. This caused the machines to jam, because people could type faster than the typewriters could reset (let the arm of one letter drop back before the next one was struck). In attempt to slow people down, different arrangements were tried until the current one was finally adopted.

Answer 4

It's what's called negative reinforcement, when the first typewriter was made the keys were in a different order and cos they were worked by arms and levers fast typists would jam them up so it was reconfigured into the qwerty system to slow typists down, once it became popular it was imposible to change the keyboard setup when better machines came along like electric, daisywheels and now PCs. So because it's now ingrained and too costly to reconfigure and hence retrain millions of typists and others we are stuck with an inefficient keyboard.

Answer 5

Inventor C. L. Sholes put together the prototypes of the first commercial typewriter in a Milwaukee machine shop back in the 1860's.

When Sholes built his first model in 1868, the keys were arranged alphabetically in two rows. At the time, Milwaukee was a backwoods town. The crude machine shop tools available there could hardly produce a finely-honed instrument that worked with precision. Yes, the first typewriter was sluggish. Yes, it did clash and jam when someone tried to type with it. But Sholes was able to figure out a way around the problem simply by rearranging the letters. Looking inside his early machine, we can see how he did it.

The first typewriter had its letters on the end of rods called "typebars." The typebars hung in a circle. The roller which held the paper sat over this circle, and when a key was pressed, a typebar would swing up to hit the paper from underneath. If two typebars were near each other in the circle, they would tend to clash into each other when typed in succession. So, Sholes figured he had to take the most common letter pairs such as "TH" and make sure their typebars hung at safe distances.

He did this using a study of letter-pair frequency prepared by educator Amos Densmore, brother of James Densmore, who was Sholes' chief financial backer. The QWERTY keyboard itself was determined by the existing mechanical linkages of the typebars inside the machine to the keys on the outside. Sholes' solution did not eliminate the problem completely, but it was greatly reduced.

Sholes and Densmore went to Remington, the arms manufacturer, to have their machines mass-produced. In 1874, the first Type-Writer appeared on the market. No contemporary account complains about the illogical keyboard. In fact, few contemporary accounts even mention the machine at all. At its debut, it was largely ignored.

Sales of the typewriter did not take off until after Remington's second model was introduced in 1878, offering the only major modification to the keyboard as we know it today.

The first machines typed only capital letters. The new Remington No. 2 offered both upper and lower case by adding the familiar shift key. It is called a shift because it actually caused the carriage to shift in position for printing either of two letters on each typebar. Modern electronic machines no longer shift mechanically when the shift key is pressed, but its name remains the same.

In the decades following the original Remington, many alternative keyboards came and went. Then, in 1932, with funds from the Carnegie Foundation, Professor August Dvorak, of Washington State University, set out to develop the ultimate typewriter keyboard once and for all.

Dvorak went beyond Blickensderfer in arranging his letters according to frequency. Dvorak's home row uses all five vowels and the five most common consonants: AOEUIDHTNS. With the vowels on one side and consonants on the other, a rough typing rhythm would be established as each hand would tend to alternate.

With the Dvorak keyboard, a typist can type about 400 of the English language's most common words without ever leaving the home row. The comparable figure on QWERTY is 100. The home row letters on Dvorak do a total of 70% of the work. On QWERTY they do only 32%.

The Dvorak keyboard sounds very good. However, a keyboard need to do more than just "sound" good, and unfortunately, Dvorak has failed to prove itself superior to QWERTY. It appears that many of the studies used to test the effectiveness of Dvorak were flawed. Many were conducted by the good professor himself, creating a conflict of interest question, since he had a financial interest in the venture. A U.S. General Services Administration study of 1953 appears to have been more objective. It found that it really didn't matter what keyboard you used. Good typists type fast, bad typists don't.

Answer 6

On the old typewriters the common letters put together in words were too close together usually so would get jammed up.Remember those old fashioned typewriters?with the letter stamps on the ends of these little poles and the ink on the ribbons?

Answer 7

This is only my personal speculation. I belive that the lettters a positioned on the keyboard so that the more commonly used letters use your dominate fingers and the not so commonly used letters like ZQX are used with your pinky fingers which are much less agile.

Answer 8

it just followed the style of the old manual typewriters that people have been used to for ages.

the resaon why it's not alphabetical is that the "qwerty" system was set up, supposedly, to put the letters that you use more frequently with your more dominant fingers..

Answer 9

They used to be, but back in the olden days everyone knew where the letters were too well and it was all happening to quick so they mixed them up and got people to slow down with their typing.

Answer 10

they are put in order of the most common ones at the easiest reach.