who came up with the layout of the keyboard?

Question

Just wondering, and how did they come up with it? also, were there any other designs that were used or rejected?

Answer 1

Christopher Latham Sholes according to what I found searching google for "qwerty history" there were definitely competing designs I remember, but qwerty won out because it kept the typewriter keys from being jammed in the beginning and then just tradition kept it going. Other designs like the dvorak layout (vowels on home row) are more logical for modern keyboards that don't have mechanical parts, but most people already know qwerty and don't want to relearn

Answer 2

Christopher Sholes designed the "qwerty" style keyboard in the 1860's, which is the standard issue. There is however another design. The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (pronounced /'dvoræk/) is a keyboard layout patented in 1936 by Dr. August Dvorak, a professor of Education at the University of Washington. Google that to see the layout.

Answer 3

In 1829 William Austin Burt patented a machine called the "Typographer." Like many other early machines, it is sometimes listed as the "first typewriter"; the Science Museum (London) describes it merely as "the first writing mechanism whose invention was documented," but even that claim may be excessive, since Turri's machine is well known.[2] Even in the hands of its inventor, it was slower than handwriting. Burt and his promoter John D. Sheldon never found a buyer for the patent, and it was never commercially produced. Because it used a dial to select the character instead of having an individual key for each character, it was an "index typewriter" rather than a "keyboard typewriter," if it is to be considered a typewriter at all. From 1829 to 1870, many printing or typing machines were patented by inventors in Europe and America, but none went into commercial production. Charles Thurber developed multiple patents; his first, in 1843, was developed as an aid to the blind. See Charles Thurber's 1845 Chirographer, as an example.

QWERTY, (pronounced /ˈkwɝrti/) is the most common modern-day keyboard layout on English language computer and typewriter keyboards. It takes its name from the first six letters seen in the keyboard's top first row of letters. The QWERTY design was patented by Christopher Sholes in 1868 and sold to Remington in 1873, when it first appeared in typewriters.

Answer 4

I forget the name of the person. but it haponed because of this. First came typewriters, but the problem was that with the letters in a row the parts of hte typewriter kept getting stuck. so they changed the location of the keys in a way that the bars of hte typewriter would be far enough away to not get stuck

there is a different layout. google dvorak. this layout has changed the keys in a way that your fingers have to move as small of a distance as possible enabling you to type faster. there is even a layout for using only your right or left hand.

Answer 5

there are loads of keyboard layouts depending on your needs.. for example if you only have one hand.. but he qwerty layout was introduced apparently to slow typists down... before that there was an ABC layout which was so fast and efficient that typist used to jam the keys of the old type writers.. (remember the thing that came before the computer and had letters on arm that actually struck the paper :) )

I have added the source pages... the second source is from a company selling the abc type of keyboard.. but if you go to the yellow bit it tells you the history and gives you links to more history.

interesting in a geeky way...

good luck

Answer 6

Can't remember who it was back in the eighteen hundreds that came up with the design but the QWERTY keyboard design was one of many and it was adopted until very recently by all manufacturers because it was designed to stop 'key jams' on old fashioned typewriters.

Answer 7

The basic layout is basically the same used for typewriters. They simply added the keys for other functions...

Answer 8

It was originated back in the days when first manual typewriters were the craze, by who is a mystery to me.

Answer 9

there were other designs that werent efficient, it is based on how often you use each letter/character

Answer 10

shamus mcqwerty