Keyboard

[DA Master]

I was wondering, who decided where letters should go on a keyboard and why? Does anyone know?

[revsorg]

"In 1872, Remington produced the first mechanical typewriter, patented by C. Latham Sholes. Soon typists were going so fast that they were able to jam the keys which flew up to hit the typewriter ribbon. In the late 1870's: the "improved" Qwerty layout was designed to slow down typing, so those pesky keys would not jam anymore. Here is the speed trap we are stuck with today, 130 years later."

(I just searched Google for "qwerty keyboard history" and copied a bit of text from the first page that came up in the serps)

[AutisticCuckoo]

According to a popular myth(?) the qwerty layout was designed to slow down typing as much as possible. The old mechanical typewriters had problems when you typed too fast, because the typearms would get caught up in one another and jam. Therefore letters that were often typed next to each other were placed so that it would be difficult to type them in rapid succession.

I don't know how much truth there is to it, but it seems likely.

A Google search suggests that the qwerty layout was invented by (or caused by ) a C. L. Sholes in 1878. Source.

<edit>Too late. </edit>

[DA Master]

Thanks for the info, I was looking on Google but didnt really know what to search for.