Why are the letters on a keyboard not in alphabetical order?!
Question:
I don't know about keyboards from different countries, but what I do know is that American keyboards' letters are not in order. Why is this.? Wouldn't it be easier for people to use them if the letters were all in alphabetical order.?Q&A For PC
Answers:
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The name "QWERTY" for our typewriter keyboard comes from the first six letters in the top alphabet row (the one just below the numbers). It is also called the "Universal" keyboard for rather obvious reasons. 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.
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For years, popular writers have accused Sholes of deliberately arranging his keyboard to slow down fast typists who would otherwise jam up his sluggish machine. In fact, his motives were just the opposite.
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When Sholes built his first model in 1868, the keys were arranged alphabetically in two rows. At the time, Milwaukee was a backwoods town. The crude machine shop tools available there could hardly produce a finely-honed instrument that worked with precision. Yes, the first typewriter was sluggish. Yes, it did clash and jam when someone tried to type with it. But Sholes was able to figure out a way around the problem simply by rearranging the letters. Looking inside his early machine, we can see how he did it.
.
The first typewriter had its letters on the end of rods called "typebars." The typebars hung in a circle. The roller which held the paper sat over this circle, and when a key was pressed, a typebar would swing up to hit the paper from underneath. If two typebars were near each other in the circle, they would tend to clash into each other when typed in succession. So, Sholes figured he had to take the most common letter pairs such as "TH" and make sure their typebars hung at safe distances.
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He did this using a study of letter-pair frequency prepared by educator Amos Densmore, brother of James Densmore, who was Sholes' chief financial backer. The QWERTY keyboard itself was determined by the existing mechanical linkages of the typebars inside the machine to the keys on the outside. Sholes' solution did not eliminate the problem completely, but it was greatly reduced.
.
The keyboard arrangement was considered important enough to be included on Sholes' patent granted in 1878 (see drawing), some years after the machine was into production. QWERTY's effect, by reducing those annoying clashes, was to speed up typing rather than slow it down.Q&A For PC
The name "QWERTY" for our typewriter keyboard comes from the first six letters in the top alphabet row (the one just below the numbers). It is also called the "Universal" keyboard for rather obvious reasons. 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.
.
For years, popular writers have accused Sholes of deliberately arranging his keyboard to slow down fast typists who would otherwise jam up his sluggish machine. In fact, his motives were just the opposite.
.
When Sholes built his first model in 1868, the keys were arranged alphabetically in two rows. At the time, Milwaukee was a backwoods town. The crude machine shop tools available there could hardly produce a finely-honed instrument that worked with precision. Yes, the first typewriter was sluggish. Yes, it did clash and jam when someone tried to type with it. But Sholes was able to figure out a way around the problem simply by rearranging the letters. Looking inside his early machine, we can see how he did it.
.
The first typewriter had its letters on the end of rods called "typebars." The typebars hung in a circle. The roller which held the paper sat over this circle, and when a key was pressed, a typebar would swing up to hit the paper from underneath. If two typebars were near each other in the circle, they would tend to clash into each other when typed in succession. So, Sholes figured he had to take the most common letter pairs such as "TH" and make sure their typebars hung at safe distances.
.
He did this using a study of letter-pair frequency prepared by educator Amos Densmore, brother of James Densmore, who was Sholes' chief financial backer. The QWERTY keyboard itself was determined by the existing mechanical linkages of the typebars inside the machine to the keys on the outside. Sholes' solution did not eliminate the problem completely, but it was greatly reduced.
.
The keyboard arrangement was considered important enough to be included on Sholes' patent granted in 1878 (see drawing), some years after the machine was into production. QWERTY's effect, by reducing those annoying clashes, was to speed up typing rather than slow it down.Q&A For PC
They are the way the are, because in the days of the earliest typewriters, the various keys would get stuck if you hit two keys that were right next to each other (I don't know if you ever used a manual typewriter--if you're old enough to have done so--but this used to happen to me all too often). And so they wanted to place letters on the typewriter keyboard that would rarely if ever get pressed one right after the other--minimizing the chances of two keys actually getting stuck. This is why the letters are placed in the patter the way they are.Q&A For PC
Originally, the keyboard was laid out in a more logical pattern. However, this was on a manual typewriter. The typists got to be so fast that the keys would jam. The QWERTY keyboard was developed to slow down the typing speeds.
Over the years, there have been attempts to return to the more logical layout (like the DVORAK keyboards), but old habits die hard and the QWERTY keyboard transitioned from typewriters to computer keyboards.Q&A For PC
Over the years, there have been attempts to return to the more logical layout (like the DVORAK keyboards), but old habits die hard and the QWERTY keyboard transitioned from typewriters to computer keyboards.Q&A For PC
This will answer.
http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/whyqwe...
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY
Its started with typewriters to avoid frequent jams with the key strokes with successive keys when put in abc order.Q&A For PC
http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/whyqwe...
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY
Its started with typewriters to avoid frequent jams with the key strokes with successive keys when put in abc order.Q&A For PC
All keyboards are like that. they are called QWERTY keyboards. look at the first five characters/letters. i actually don't know why they are like that, i guess everyone is used to them...Q&A For PC
I know! I was wondering the same thing! HeeHee. [;
Maybe they wanted most of the vowels to be spread out, and not together in a cluster or something. I'm not sure, but you are right, it is weird. :PQ&A For PC
Maybe they wanted most of the vowels to be spread out, and not together in a cluster or something. I'm not sure, but you are right, it is weird. :PQ&A For PC
it's a holdover from the days when typewriters were mechanical. one of the early typewriter companies figured that they could reduce jamming by spreading out the most used keys and the least used keys.Q&A For PC
No because they are in the order of most to least used starting with the place your hands rest on the center of the board.Q&A For PC
they put them in order by how often you use the letterQ&A For PC
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