Why are the letters on a keyboard situated where they are??

Question

That is who decided on the order of the letters on a keyboard, and why this such arrangement. Is it better than having them in alphabetical order? And what about the letter arrangement of keyboards in countries that do not use the english alphabet - that is, once you take into consideration translation do the letters of other languages (e.g. chinese) have a similar arrangement on the keyboard??

Answer 1

I can address only a part of your question so you can add to the puzzle of your answer:
You can find of lot of information on keyboards on the Wikipedia site. They have an interesting link to International keyboard layouts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard.
I am french and I used to be a fast and accurate typist, you know the kind who never looks at the keyboard, never makes typing mistakes and enters speeding contests… Then I moved to USA where the keyboards are different and I lost my speed and accuracy (boo hoo). I would understand some changes since the english language does not have all the accents of the french language but why did they not put ALL of the others letters in the same orders? (I do not know who they are, but they are evil). They did keep 21 letters in the same order but they displaced a handful of them, like someone was playing a joke to mess with people: “hey, let’s switch the letters on the left side with each others, that will be hilarious.” So they switched the Q and the A and they also switched the W and the Z. Also, the QWERTY layout put the M where the comma is located in a french keyboard (AZERTY layout) so when I take up some speed, I end up with little “m” where my commas should be…If they had not made those changes, I would be typing in english with less problems. Now if I use the english keyboard to type french, the biggest challenge are the accents which do not have their own keys or more precisely half keys since they most often share a key with a number. The é in under the 2, the è under the 7, and so on. To get them with a QWERTY layout, you usually have to hold down the Control key while pressing the key with the accent on it and then the desired letter, and those circumvolutions drive you up the wall when you are leaning them.
I think they should do an international keyboard for languages with the 26 letters of the alphabet used in english or french and so other many contries. It would be hard for the first generations of people having to adapt but then it would make it so much easier for everybody else afterward. Like switching to the metric system and such. When I came to USA, I had to adapt to the 12 inches in a foot but 16 ounces in a pound (abbreviated lb??) which made no sense to me.

Answer 2

In computing, a keyboard is an enter gadget partly modelled after the typewriter keyboard which makes use of an association of buttons, or keys which act as digital switches. A keyboard normally has characters engraved or imprinted on the keys, and each and each press of a key normally corresponds to a single written image. notwithstanding, to offer some symbols demands pressing and conserving various keys concurrently or in sequence. collectively as maximum keyboard keys produce letters, numbers or signs and indicators (characters), different keys or simultaneous key presses can produce movements or pc instructions. In commonly used utilization, the keyboard is used to sort textual content textile or numbers right into a word processor, textual content textile editor, or different software. In a well known pc the translation of keypresses is normally left to the applying. a working laptop or pc keyboard distinguishes each and each actual key from another and comments all keypresses to the controlling application. Keyboards are additionally used for pc gaming, the two with known keyboards or with tips from employing particular gaming keyboards that can expedite normally used keystroke combos. A keyboard is extensively utilized provide instructions to the working device of a working laptop or pc, such because of the fact the administration-Alt-Delete mixture, which brings up a job window or shuts down the device. i wish this facilitates :D

Answer 3

Blathers and Rachel C got it right - it was designed to slow down typists using the old mechanical typewriters because they were so fast with the letters in alphabetical order that they kept jamming the arms stamping the letters on the paper.
I suspect this was probably never a problem with languages that use different alphabets ... I shouldn't think the different alphabets translate directly to the one we use anyway.

Answer 4

The most common keyboard is the qwerty. These letters can be found on the top lefthand corner of the keyboard. This is the name of the man who developed it. The keyboard was designed for old typewriters with legs, thus the keys are placed in a manner that is meant to slow down the typer. This key layout was done to prevent the legs from crossing due to speedy typing!

Answer 5

Although many answers provided here are correct in a way or another (To separate commonly used alphabets to slow down typing so that keys does not get jammed in the "typewriter era"), I thought of sharing these sources I have from HowStuffWorks.

P.S. Just an additional "fun fact":
Qns: Did you know what's the longest word that can be typed on a single line in a qwerty keyboard?
Ans: typewriter. Try it! ;-)

Answer 6

The keyboards that we have are know as QWERTY keyboards. I do believe that at one time the alphabet was in alphabetical order on the keyboards, but it made it very hard to type. The reason the letters are aligned the QWERTY way is that it's just easier to type.

Answer 7

I just know that the computer keyboard was designed after the typewriter layout. I'm sure that the "home row" concept, etc. has something to do with the letters of the alphabet that are most frequently used

Answer 8

two answer your other question - otherlanguages -

I'm living in China at the minute and can confirm that the chinese girls in my office type using an english keyboard. they type using english style roman characters in the 'pinyin' format and use some special computer software to change it into chinese characters. Most Nokia mobile phones over here have the same facility (ie they text in pinyin using roman characters and the phone converts it to chinese).

Answer 9

It's called a QWERTY keyboard. Most accessed letters are conveniently located... Arrangement is supposed to be efficient.

Answer 10

Check out the link below.

It was the work of inventor C. L. Sholes, who put together the prototypes of the first commercial typewriter in a Milwaukee machine shop back in the 1860's.