Why a QWERTY Keyboard???

We have been using the keyboard everyday and in almost every aspect of our lives may it be the smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops and all our smart devices. Ever wondered why our keyboard is not laid out in alphabetical orders??

In the early typewriters, the keyboard was laid out in alphabetical orders. Then why did it happen that the layout of our keyboard was changed to the current QWERTY type??

Let’s find out this in this post.

The answer to this lies in the working of the old typewriters. In order to type something using a typewriter we hit a key. A mechanical system works such that with every hit a bar rises up and hits to the ribbon beneath which a paper is placed. Due to this hit an impression of the alphabet is printed on the paper. This chain of mechanical systems works so fast by the time another alphabet is pressed the type bar reverts back to its original position.

This was the layout of the earliest typewriters.

The issue with these typewriters was that the pattern was easy to remember and to use. You read it right!!!

The people got used to these type of typewriters very soon and were able to type very fast. Infact their speed was so fast that the bars were not getting sufficient type to come back to their original positions before the next key was pressed. Due to this the bars used to get stuck with each other.

To fix this issue, SHOLES and GLIDDEN started working and created a pattern of alphabets. This pattern was quite complex and was difficult to remember.

Due to this it took a lot of time to type and the type bar got enough time to come back to their initial positions. Due to this, the pattern was adopted commonly and further even in the Computers this pattern continued.. The computers in olden days also did not have great RAM as present in most of the computers today. The ram were like 128 Mb or 256 Mb. The RAM may still have the problem of coping up with the typing speed, if alphabetical pattern was used. As the first six words of this layout were Q, W, E, R, T & Y respectively, this layout was termed as QWERTY.

The number layout is arranged in a sequential manner. The reason to this is that the spelling of a particular word is applied universally , but the case with numbers is that they differ every time and not frequently used. The numbers in a typewriter is laid in a single line. The numbers in a keyboard was earlier laid out in a phone format. But since the keyboard is a machine also used for calculating the numbers are laid out in calculator format.

Calculator Format:

Phone Format:

History :

THE ORIGINAL LAYOUT
   

    

   

    In early 1980’s, a newspaper printer and also its editor from Milwaukee, Christopher Latham Sholes presented the first layout and it was like this :

  

Still not being the QWERTY keypad introduced by SHOLES & GLIDDEN in the model SHOLES & GLIDDEN TYPE-WRITER and was being tested.

    After this the manufacturing rights for the SHOLES & GLIDDEN TYPE-WRITER  were sold to E. Remington & Sons. After a few months the layout were finalized by Remington’s Mechanics.

    Further many quality and efficiency test were done on the keyboard and our well knowned QWERTY keyboard was born. The QWERTY keyboard became successful with the burning popularity of the Remington No. 2 of 1878. Our QWERTY keyboard distributes the frequently used keys between both the hands and balancing the task evenly and thus improving our typing speeds.