From the Internet:
It is not really accurate that the keys on a QWERTY keyboard are set out based on how much letters are used. It is an old format that dates back to the 1870's. It was created by a gentleman named Christopher Latham Scholes, a newspaper editor who sought to arrange a keyboard in a way that keys on a typewriter keyboard would not jam. Typewriter letters were arranged on big metal bars that would jam up on early models because they would strike against each other if they were in close proximity to each other.
To that end, Scholes actually arranged the keys based on LESS probable word combinations, not most probable. So, for example, in typing the word "the", although the T, H, and E are fairly close to one another, they are arranged so that on an old typewriter, the metal bars that held the inked letter, that would strike the page, would not smack into one another and cause jams.
The popular theory behind QWERTY is that the English language makes the most use of the letters in the middle of the "home row" and less use of the letters at the ends of the keyboard. That is not exactly true. The wisdom behind the QWERTY keyboard was to actually SEPARATE letters that frequently appear together in words, so that their keys would not hit against each other and cause keys to jam. After many years, people got so used to the QWERTY keyboard that we have yet to change over from it, although superior typing models have been introduced.
3 comments:
Being one of those typing students who learned on an old manual typewriter, let me tell you....I'm glad this guy thought about what he was doing. To place the keys so that they don't jamb into one another as you type....what a genius! So I ask, why was it my keys always jambed in Mrs. Chambers Typing I & II class?!? Perhaps it was the old Bell and Howell model....
On a side note, I had a huge jump start on my peers. Many summers I spent indoors with my gramma typing out...."It is time for all good men to come to the aid of their country..." That's STILL the fastest sentence I can type. haha For some reason, the thought for me to be productive in life, that I needed to know how to type well.
And today, I'll not purchase a phone without a QWERTY keyboard! (I love how all those letters just fall together...haha) Some dinosaurs are still not extinct!
If you're buying a phone with a keyboard and living with a teenager, you were right on the money about typing in order to be productive in life!
I wonder how long it took you to type that comment?
Typing on summer break? Ah, how I loved heading out to grandpa's cottage and diagramming sentences...
Typing on grammas old typewriter was a heck of a lot more fun than cleaning out the barn or helping to wash their '76 Buick! Of which I have plenty of experience with both...
Sometimes it's the oddest of memories that stick with us most..
Post a Comment