In this
modern age, almost all people are aware of computer keyboards. Its reason is
that we have to use computers in our daily life. We use computers to increase
productivity at the workplace, we use the computer to connect to the internet,
we use the computer to store huge amount of data, we use computers to organize
the data and much more. To work on the computer, we have to use the keyboard. When
we see the keys of the keyboard, a question comes to our mind that why keys on
a keyboard are not arranged in alphabetical order. Here, we will try to get the
answer to this question.
Why Keys on a Keyboard are not in Alphabetical Order?
To find the
answer to this question, we have to date back to the manual typewriters. At the
time of the invention of the keyboard, the keys were arranged in the
alphabetical order. After the invention of the keyboard, the typewriters typed the
words fast and it had created ‘Typewriter Jam’ problems. Therefore, the person
who had invented the keyboard created the QWERTY design of the keyword to slow
down the speed of the typists. He had arranged the keys at hard to reach spots to
slow down the speed of the typists. By creating this design of the keyboard, he
had solved the problem of ‘Typewriter Jam’.
Christopher Latham Sholes had invented QWERTY keyboard. After knowing
the problem that was associated with the alphabetical order of the keyboard,
Christopher Latham Sholes struggled for five years to create the perfect design
of his invention. During these five years, he had made lots of trial and error arrangements
of the alphabetical arrangement of the keyboard. James Densmore was the business
associate of the Sholes. In 1873, he had sold the manufacturing rights of this
Type-Writer to the E. Remington and Sons. After buying the manufacturing rights
of this device, Remington made lots of adjustments in this device. At last, he had
created the essential layout of the modern QWERTY keyboard.
The layout
of the QWERTY keyboard is different from the layout of the Dvorak keyboard (an
alternative of the QWERTY keyboard). The inventors of the Dvorak keyboards had
tried to minimize the distance travelled by the fingers on the keyboard. For
this reason, they had made sure that the alternative hands of the typists are
on the consecutive letters as often as possible. For this reason, they had made
some changings in the QWERTY layout of the keyboard. They had placed the most
commonly used keys at the home row. While typing on this keyboard, if you want
to hit these keys, you don’t need to move your fingers at all. At the left-hand
side, they have placed all the vowels and some consonants. On the hand, they had
placed remaining consonants at the right-hand side. If you are using Dvorak
keyword, you can’t type enough words with one hand. It means you will have to
alternate hands constantly while typing different words.
Remington
had introduced the QWERTY pattern of the keyboard in 1878 and it is known as
the most successful pattern of the keyboard. In the QWERTY keyboard, both upper
and lower-case letters were introduced. With the QWERTY layout of the keyboard,
you can type more words with your left hand than the right hand. It means that
you can type thousands of words by using the left hand and you can also type a couple
of hundreds of words by using your right hand.
Relevant
Posts:
Why QWERTY keyboard is more successful than the Dvorak keyboard?
The most
desirable trait in the keyboard is to type by using alternating hands. It means
when one hand types a letter, the other hand prepares to type the next letter.
This thing makes the typing process faster and more efficient. This thing can
create jamming issues. This issue is related to the Dvorak keyboard. On the
other hand, if you are using a QWERTY keyboard, you will have to type a string
of letters with the same hand. This thing increases the chances of involuntary
repetitions. As a result, the speed of the typists decreases and it increases
errors. As a result, the QWERTY pattern of the keyboards doesn’t create jamming
issues.
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