why dont the letters on keyboards read across in alphabetical order?

Question

How did they come up with the idea of having the letters how they are? For example from left to right they read qwertyuiop, wouldnt it have been easier to read abcdefghi......?

Answer 1

THrowback from typewriters. the first ones were set like that to keep the keys from jamming when commonly used letters like st were next to eachother

Everyone got used to it, and peoples habits are hard to change.

Answer 2

Back when keyboards were invented, people were using those old typewriters with the letters on arms that swung up. The keys were laid out to purposefully slow the typist so that the arms wouldn't get tangled up with each other. Seems like a stupid thing for nowadays, but everyone knows where the keys are, so it's hard to change it now.

Answer 3

In ancient times soon after typewriters where invented they discovered that typists where typing too fast and the mechanism was getting stuck. The qwerty keyboard was designed to slow the typists down, so the machines would work.

Even when the machines became more reliable so many people where used to the layout they where unable to introduce a more efficient one, although there have been many attempts to try.;

Answer 4

They put the more often used keys around your stronger fingers and more central to the keyboard
... but hey you know what annoys me .. is the keypad on the computer and the telephone enter numbers all day on the computer no need even to look at the computer but when it come to make a phone call have to look at the telephone the layout of the numbers are totally different ,,, why ohh why cant it be the same??????

Answer 5

I think it has something to do with the letters you use most, cuz to me i hardly ever use 'q' but im always using 'a'

and if you think about it, it would be just really hard to type something if the letters are perfectly arranged in alpha. order.

*and dont listen to those people who say "ask real questions" i was really interested to answer this, i think it's a great question that ANYONE should be curious about.

Answer 6

I seem to remember the `qwertyuiop` system was designed to slow the typing down.

Answer 7

Professional typists were becoming too fast for typewriters (they keys would get locked).. so the qwerty format was adopted to slow them down.
Once you learn to touch type, it's not a problem. Easy to do.

Answer 8

the qwerty key board goes back to the typewriter groups of letter were positioned in such a way that letters which are often used together are near each other

Answer 9

The most commonly used letters are assigned to easier fingers

Answer 10

Because the person who created the keyboard didnt want it that way. Ask google.