Why are the numbers on a calculator arranged differently to those on a telephone?

Question

On a telephone, number 1 is at the top letf, on a calculator, number 1 is at the bottom left. Why has it been invented this way becuase I find it incredibly annoying.

Answer 1

My understanding - from my aunt who used to work for the Post Office as a Travelling Telephone Supervisor just after the war (she was so proud!) is that what kicked off the problem is the decision about how to arrange the numbers on the old-fashioned telephone - the kind before keypads, when you actually had to dial the numbers. In these phones, the time taken to transmit a '1' was actually longer than that needed for a '9.' What drove the design decision was an existing decision that the emergency number for the UK would be 999. Reasons? 1: you had to be able to feel for the number in the dark, so it had to be at one end or the other of the dial, and 2: they didn't want kids playing with dialling any old numbers on the phone and thought that anyone just playing would opt for the easier numbers.

Once we went on to touch-dialling for phones this reasoning didn't apply but folk had 999 in their heads.

And with alphanumeric keypads designers could start afresh. So we're left with the legacy of a decision taken in the early part of the previous century ...

The same reasoning applies to the layout of the traditional computer keyboard ... that is, when typewriters were mechanical and each letter was created by banging a hammer onto some paper, they looked to see which letters were least likely to be typed in such a sequence as to cause the hammers to get tangled with one another when a fast typist was at work. Alternative keyboards, such as Dvorak, have been designed to be more user-friendly and less likely to cause RSI, but many people have got used to the existing legacy layout.

Odd old world, isn't it?

Answer 2

The buttons on a telephone dial replaced the rotary dial and the arrangement is closer to that of the rotary dial than that of a calculator. Also, to remember phone numbers easier the names of telephone exchanges were used such as Fieldbrook 5 - 5555 (or FB5-5555 or 325-5555) and the dial or key pad had to include letters as well as numbers. For example 1 is also ABC, etc. Therefore, arranging the rotary dials and telephone pads in alpha/numeric order made sense. Calculators do not have that problem and each number on the pad may have an alternate mathematical function (such as square root of...) The calculator keypad should be designed for speed of calculations (an accountant's hand is a blur!) and tests or opinion dictated a different solution for calculators than for telephones. If you don't like this answer, I could guess again, right?

Answer 3

the short answer, before digital, telephones had the 0 come after the 9.

Calculators count from 0 to 9

and on your desktop keyboard in front of you, the numbers on the right go from 0 to 9 set up like this:

789
456
123
0 .

Now look above the letters, they go from 1 to 9, then 0

Confussed yet? Maybe that's why laptops only have numbers above the letters

Answer 4

I believed it was fashioned after the "Keypunch" method of keying in digits. Punch Cards were used for the big computers by many companies in the 60's and 70's. The key board was set up for speed and accuracy. And if you look at the numeric key broad on your computer, it is still set up the same way. (My Mom was a Keypunch operator back in the
late 60's)
PS it's like a count down. 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0

Answer 5

Whoever designed the phone liked starting with the top left. Whoever designed the calculator or computer keyboard liked starting on the bottom left. Someone out there who speaks Hebrew is probably designing one that starts on the bottom right. If they had invented it in China it would have started at the top right and down.

Answer 6

sorry if you are annoyed but calculators are for adding numbers up, with a phone you are counting down the minutes until someone calls. OK

Answer 7

sounds like you work in the accounting field, those of us that don't, don't mind. Probably because most people read from top to bottom.