Why the keys on a keyboard are not alphabetically placed?

Answer 1

it will be tougher to wirte words rather than how i am writing noew

Answer 2

The keys were originally placed this way due to a design flaw in the first typewriters. Typing nearby keys in rapid succession caused the hammers to jam. The qwerty keyboard was designed both to slow typists down and separate letters that are often used together in words.
For example, the most commonly used letters are on the left-hand side - the weaker hand for right-handed typists. Common letters are often located under the weakest fingers - like a and s - or on the top row - like e, r, and t.
Typewriters eventually improved enough that jamming was no longer a problem, but many typists had grown so used to the qwerty keyboard that they resisted attempts to make the keyboard more efficient.

Answer 3

A Short History of QWERTY

In 1867, Christopher Latham Sholes, a Milwaukee printer, filed a patent application for a mechanical writing machine. Unlike the manual typewriters you may remember from your youth, his machine had its typebars on the bottom, striking upward to leave an impression on the paper. This arrangement had two serious drawbacks. First, because the printing point was underneath the paper carriage, it was invisible to the typist. Second, if a typebar became jammed, it too, remained invisible to the operator. Sholes worked for the next six years to try to eliminate this problem, trying mechanical changes and different keyboard arrangements.

In 1873, E. Remington & Sons licensed the design from Scholes, and set their engineers to work to on the design. One of their keyboard layout changes was driven by a clever marketing idea. The Remington brand name, TYPE WRITER, could be most speedily typed if all of its letters were on the same row. Remington's salesmen used this slight bit of subterfuge to impress potential customers.

Competing designs continued to be introduced over the next six decades that solved the mechanical jamming problem, and enabled faster typing. These designs ranged from the so-called "Ideal" keyboard, which placed the most commonly used letters of the alphabet -- DHIATENSOR -- in the home row (circa 1880), to the more well-known Dvorak keyboard, patented in 1932.

How much better were these other designs? During the second World War, the US Navy conducted experiments and discovered that the Dvorak layout increased typing productivity so significantly, that the payback time to retrain a group of typists was only ten days! But these designs were never successful in the marketplace.

Why would firms consistently buy an inferior product? The answer lies not in the device, but in the context of how the devices were employed. Typewriters by themselves, are unproductive objects. Their productive employment requires the presence of a skilled operator - the typist. In the late 1880's, the practice of "touch typing" (where you don't cheat and look at your fingers) was developed. And it was developed for the Remington keyboard. So while competing typewriter designers were heralding their advantages to potential typewriter purchasers, the typists were learning how to use the Remington QWERTY keyboard.

Economists describe the outcome of situations like this with terms like "system scale economies," "entry barriers," and "quasi-irreversibility of investment." Most of us would describe it more simply as:

GAME OVER

Answer 4

The old QWERTY keyboard came about in the days of the manual typwriters. They were place as they are because the hammers that struck the ribbon to make the letters kept getting stuck together.

Everyone learned the old way and no one wants to change. Kinda like everyone in the US not wanting to go to metric.

Answer 5

Qwerty key pattern was set up to allow the most commonly used letters to be placed most conveniently for the finger placement on the keyboard.

Answer 6

this stems from the early days of typewriters. In designing a key layout, it was found that the "qwerty" araingement you have now worked better. It was widely adopted and continues to this day.

If you examin the text of most documets, you will find that certain letters are used much more than others. This fact was a major determining factor in the original design of key placement.

Answer 7

The letters on a keyboard are arrange in a qwerty layout becuase It easier to type commonly used words. For instance you type "Q"with your pinky finger becuase it is weaker and you don't type the letter "Q" often. But letter slike T and R and typed with your pointer finger which are stronger.

Answer 8

Cause everyone uses the old typewriter qwerty key layout, which has been a standard for over 100 years.

Answer 9

The keys were arranged to equally distribute the frequency of use amongst the fingers of your hands. For instance, your right hand pinky would probably go to sleep waiting for you to type V,W,X,Y and Z!

Answer 10

I think that they are placed according to how frequently they are used. The most used letters are the ones that you can reach with your pointer fingers making it easier to learn to type accurately... or something like that.

Answer 11

Easy answer was to keep the keys from sticking, but to get the full story check out this site, http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://home.earthlink.net/%7Edcrehr/whyqwert.html