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The QWERTY keyboard layout was devised in the 1860s by the creator of the first modern typewriter, Christopher Sholes, a newspaper editor who lived in Milwaukee. Originally, the characters on the typewriters he invented were arranged alphabetically, set on the end of a metal bar which struck the paper when its key was pressed. However, once an operator had learned to type at speed, the bars attached to letters that lay close together on the keyboard became entangled with one another, forcing the typist to manually unstick the typebars, and also frequently blotting the document[1]. Sholes solved the jamming problem not by forcing typists to slow down, but by separating common sequences of letters in English[2]. Pairs of keys that are frequently struck in succession were placed as far from each other as possible, so that the hammers that were likely to be used in quick succession were less likely to interfere with each other.

2007-01-31 18:23:32 · answer #1 · answered by lwcomputing 6 · 5 0

This goes all the way back to manual typewriters. Early manufacturers did try putting them in alphabetical order, but typists wanted an arrangement that let the more commonly used letters be easy to reach. When this was done, typists could type so fast that they jammed up the old mechanical typewriters and so a different arrangement of letters was devised that put more common letters on the left and and for the little fingers. This resulted in the goofy Qwerty layout used today.

When fast electric typewriters were made, a new, efficient layout was designed by Dvorak, but there were already a couple of generations of typists used to the Qwerty layout. With computers, some keyboard manufacturers again offered the Dvorak layout, but again, there were too many people already trained in the old layout.

So now we are stuck with an absurd layout of keys.

By the way, as a bit of trivia: some military computer systems have used alphabetic keyboards.

2007-01-31 18:31:34 · answer #2 · answered by I'm not tellin' 2 · 1 1

Alphabetical layout makes sense now, but almost all of the keyboards are in the traditional QWERTY layout explained by so many others.

The QWERTY layout doesn't make any logical sense nowadays.

In the 1930s a man by the name August Dvorak made a simplified keyboard to make things easier, less fatiguing, and
speed typing up after the electric typewriter was invented.

However, if you learned on a Dvorak keyboard, and then had to use a traditional keyboard, then you would be at a significant disadvantage.

Most operating systems allow you to remap your keyboard, and you can move the key-caps on many keyboards to the Dvorak, or even the sequential configuration.

Only a tiny fraction of people do - tradition wins out.

2007-01-31 19:08:32 · answer #3 · answered by Big Bruce 6 · 0 0

The computer's keyboard is arranged for the most convenience when typing. Depending on whether you have a QWERTY keyboard or a DVORAK keyboard, this may or may not help you. You might notice that three vowels, U, I and O are grouped together on the QWERTY keyboard. This is all to create the most ease when typing, so hopefully you don't have to move your fingers around as much.

2007-01-31 19:30:15 · answer #4 · answered by SabreFang 1 · 0 0

The qwerty keyboard was designed to try and slow down the typists fingers as the machines could not cope with the speed of usage and this was decided as the slowest keyboard that could be designed, obviously with the advance in science and the fact that we do not use typewriters nowadays this could be changed but it would be a mammoth task.

2007-01-31 18:26:47 · answer #5 · answered by charlie12444 2 · 2 0

Because in the old days, typewriters would jam if you typed too fast so the creators of the qwerty keyboard made it to slow the typists down.

2007-01-31 18:24:57 · answer #6 · answered by Pat M 3 · 0 1

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2007-02-02 23:22:34 · answer #7 · answered by jianfeng 1 · 0 0

they did it to be more confortable by pressing such keys during typing...rather than the previous one which was arranged alphabetically...

2007-01-31 18:24:44 · answer #8 · answered by aRnObIe 4 · 0 5

Thanks for asking this question. I have often wondered this myself and now I know!

2007-01-31 18:29:23 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1 1

because it would be stupid!

2007-01-31 18:28:48 · answer #10 · answered by witheringtonkeith 5 · 0 3

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