why keyboard's letter are not arranged alphabetically?

Answer 1

The first typewriters were mechanical, not electric. Pressing the keys caused rods with the different letters engraved on them to rise up and strike a colored ribbon. The ribbon was pressed between the engraved letter and the paper, so the ink on the ribbon was transferred to the page.

If two keys were pressed at once, the rods they moved would hit one another. They often hit each other while one rod was coming down and a second rod was rising up. To help prevent this problem, the keyboard layout we use today, called "qwerty", was used on these early mechanical typewriters. The "qwerty" layout seperated the keys used most often from one another, so that common words like "and" and "the" used keys on different sides of the keyboard. This lessened the chance of the rods striking each other if the typist was typing fast.

By the time electrical typewriters and computers were introduced, everybody was familiar with "qwerty". Market forces came into play. Typists would rather buy an outdated keyboard that was familiar, rather than a more logical but less familiar keyboard. So "qwerty" is still in use today.



All the best.

Answer 2

"The current keyboard layout, called the QWERTY, was developed over a hundred years ago by typewriter inventer C. L. Sholes. It was chosen over the obvious alphabetical order because the old mechanical typewriters used long bars to print the letter on paper, and these bars would get stuck if the typewriter was typing English words very quickly. To reduce the bar clogging, Sholes placed letters that would be used together often as far apart as possible, like the letters "T" and "H".

And since that day we have been stuck with this layout, phasing it out would be too difficult since we've been used to it for generations."

Answer 3

The QWERTY keyboard was not slapped together just by putting all the letters in alphabetical order. Rather, when it is originally designed for typewriters, the idea was to one, slow people down, and two, make it so that keys which were often pressed together were not near each other. Both these things would make it less likely for the typewriters to get stuck.

Answer 4

As poster 1 said, the keyboard is arranged for maximum speed while reducing conflict at the typehead. A skilled typist can type at 100WPM or more using the QWERTY keyboard.
There are other arrangements, said to be more efficient, and they may be so but one would have to learn on that type, I suspect.

I can type consistantly at 75-80WPM with a QWERTY arrangement, but using the DVORAK I'm lucky to make it to 5 WPM. It's all in how you are trained and I, for one, am not going to make the adaptation to any other setup.

Answer 5

You can set your keyboard, into a Dvorak style which is in alphabetical order, however you will need to rearrange the keys.

Answer 6

The earliest typewriters were but due to them being mechanical and clunky, the typists would get keys hitting each other beacause they typed so fast. They mixed up the keys to slow the typists down and its been that way ever since.

Answer 7

Probably because that is not the most efficient way to do it.