Why isn't a standard keyboard in alphabetical order..wouldn't it make it so much easier to learn?

Answer 1

It was arranged this way to slow down typists so they wouldn't jam the keys in manual typewriters. This was accomplished by separating frequently paired characters and arranging the keys so that the hands would typically alternate their strikes.

If you're interested in a more efficient keyboard layout, try the Dvorak keyboard (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard ).

Answer 2

The common myth is that Sholes, the designer of the first typewriter, made the keys confusing to slow down the typists.

This, however, isn't true. Our weird little keyboards, also known as "QWERTY" keyboards for the first six letters from the left, were supposed to help us go faster.

Here's how it works (with help from this site: http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/whyqwert.html)

1. The first typewriter had its letters on the end of rods called "typebars." The typebars hung in a circle. Here's a picture of them: http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/vangogh/111/typebar.BMP

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.

In other words, a typewriter was basically a collection of small hammers. You trigger the end of the hammer by pressing a letter key (e.g. "A") and the hammer swings up and smacks an "A" into the paper.

2. If two typebars were near each other in the circle, they would tend to clash into each other when typed in succession.

In other words, if two letters that often go together in words, are arranged next to each other on the keyboard, the two hammers might smash into each other on the paper, or otherwise get tangled up.

3. So, Sholes figured he had to take the most common letter pairs such as "TH" and make sure their typebars hung at safe distances.

In other words, make sure that the hammers don't "clash" by keeping common letters far from each other. He figured out which letters should go where using a study by an educator named Amos Densmore.

So while slowing people down may have happened as they learned the new system, the original QWERTY keyboard was big improvement on clashing typebars.

Answer 3

maybe at first, but there are reasons for the way the keyboard is laid out. Actually, the first manual typewriters were designed to make it a little slower to type, so that the keys would not jam as much. It is not a very efficient layout, as there are some commonly-used letters, most notably A, that are difficult to type because you have to use your pinky. People have designed keyboards that would allow faster typing by putting the more commonly-used letters near the stronger fingers, but everyone is so used to the traditional qwerty keyboard that these newer keyboards have not been adopted very widely.

And here's the funniest story about the reason the keyboard is the way it is. When the guy who invented the typewriter wanted to demonstrate his invention, he wanted to make it easy to type the word "typewriter," so he put all the letters in the word "typewriter" on the top row!

Answer 4

The keyboard model on your computer is called a QWERTY keyboard, named for the first six letter keys on the top. It's an unmodified descendant of a typewriter keyboard, and the typewriter's inventor, Charles Sholes, made it that way deliberately so (it's thought) to keep a typist from jamming two or more keys at the same time.

Whether an alphabetical order keyboard would be easier to learn . . . maybe, but the reason we haven't gone over to it is partly cultural inertia. I know I'd find it hard to relearn!

Have a great day! I hope this helps.

Answer 5

Part of it probably has to do with the fact that if it were in alphabetical order, one hand would do more typing than the other due to common letter usage. On top of that, think of how annoying the number keys can be...the 1 and 0 are the hardest keys to reach. Also, the QWERTY keyboard (the one we have in use today) I believe was based off of a short-hand typewriter, which was set up in a way to be able to take notes the fastest

Answer 6

Learn to type properly (by touch, without looking at the keyboard) and you wouldn't have a problem. Home row keys are asdfjkl; Once you know how to type properly, you'll easily know where all the keys are. No need to search around on the keyboard for them.

Anyway, to explain the keyboard layout:
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 letter 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 7

When the typewriter was invented there were 4 characters on each metal bar (upper & lower case each of 2 letters, or number & punctuation). The positioning of each letter was designed so (1) the most common letters would be easily hit with your fingers and (2) any two letters likely to be struck in succession would not be on the same bar, which would cause the keys to jam. (Jamming remained a potential issue when the letters were all moved to separate keys. I certainly remember keys jamming in typewriters I used.)

As you must know, not every keyboard is the same: the two most common are QWERTY and AZERTY (French) but there are others. My keyboard is set up by default as a French Canadian keyboard so I can type accents easily (on a PC I can get accented characters with the number pad because I've memorized their codes, but that doesn't work on my Mac).

From time to time easier formats have been invented that are said to be faster and easier, and of course with computers you can invent your own and move the key tops about. But with so many devices committed to the existing system it is unlikely to be changed. From country to country most of the keys stay put.

Funnily enough when I needed to type Russian or Greek (I studied Russian a bit but never Greek but the alphabets are smiliar) I set up the keys arbitrarily so that the sounds matched the Roman (Eng/Fr) letters. It turned out to be the quickest way to type a document I couldn't understand. (Then I just verified the document letter by letter.)

Answer 8

The keyboard was arranged back when people used typewriters. The QWERTY keyboard has commonly used keys spread out across the board to prevent, or reduce the instances, of the striking keys from getting jammed in the old typewriters.

They kept the QWERTY keyboard with the advent of computers so experienced typists wouldn't have to learn a new keyboard (effecting production).

Answer 9

Several of the answers above include elements of the correct answer, but let me add another element. On the original typewriters, each key cause a small hammer to strike the inked ribbon and print a letter on the page. The location internally of these hammer was directly related to the position of the keys on the keyboard. A factor in the position of the keys was to prevent the rising hammer from striking or locking up with the falling hammer as the typist typed.

Answer 10

Since space is your main limiting factor, i join the chorus in advising you to get a good - quality keyboard with 88 "weighted" keys, which have almost the same feel as those of a real piano. That way, the transition from keyboard to real piano will be very easy. I congratulate you on your choice of instrument, and your determination to do things right - more great music has been written for the piano than any other instrument except perhaps the organ or the violin - and a good piano player is very often the life of the party or any other gathering where there is both singing and a piano!!

Answer 11

According to Wikipedia the QWERTY layout is certainly far from the most efficient, since it requires a touch-typist to move his or her fingers between rows to type the most common letters. A popular story suggests that it was used for early typewriters because it was inefficient; it slowed a typist down so as to reduce the frequency of the typewriter's typebars from wedging together and jamming the machine. A more likely explanation is that the QWERTY arrangement was designed to reduce the likelihood of internal clashing by placing commonly used combinations of letters farther away from each other inside the machine . This allowed the user to actually type faster without jamming.

Hmmmmm - I learned something new today!