History of the qwerty keyboard

Also known as Sholes keyboards, QWERTY keyboards refer to the five consecutive letters in the upper left corner of the keyboard (qwerty). This type of keyboard has the layout used for Latin languages ​​and is the most commonly used keyboard in the United States. Do you want to know more about the origin of the word QWERTY and the keyboard ? Do not miss our article!

QWERTY keyboard history

It turns out that there is a lot of myth and misinformation surrounding the development of QWERTY, but all of these theories seem to agree that the QWERTY design was developed in conjunction with, and inexorably linked to, ancient typewriters.

QWERTY is over 100 years old and remains the world's most popular keyboard, despite being dated and outdated by various alternatives.

It should also be known that modern QWERTY keyboards are inefficient and promote the occurrence of repetitive stress injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome.

QWERTY keyboard history

In the 1860s, an amateur politician, printer, journalist, and inventor in Milwaukee, named Christopher Latham Sholes, spent his spare time developing various machines to make his business more efficient.

One of those inventions was a typewriter, which he developed with Samuel W. Soulé, James Densmore and Carlos Glidden, and which was first patented in 1868. The keyboard of the first typewriter resembled a piano and was built with an alphabetical arrangement of 28 keys. The team surely assumed that it would be the most efficient key layout for many years . After all, anyone using the keyboard would immediately know where to find each letter. But it was not so.

The myth about QWERTY

Popular theory claims that the Sholes had to redesign the keyboard in response to the failures of older typewriters, which were slightly different from the models most frequently seen in thrift stores and markets.

If a user quickly typed a sequence of letters whose bars were close, the delicate machinery would jam. Thus, Sholes redesigned the key layout to separate the most common letter sequences. In theory, the QWERTY system should maximize the separation of common letter combinations.

This theory could easily be discredited for the simple reason that "er" is the fourth most common combination of letters in the English language.

A myth regarding QWERTY is that it was designed to deliberately delay typists. Despite having a basis in truth, minimal interference was a priority, so the designers did not seek to achieve this through the forced reduction in typing speed. Instead, they focused on an "alternate hands" design, which improved speed and reduced interference.

Conflict of Stuck Keys

The original layout of the keys placed on the keyboard was in alphabetical order in two rows. Well, this arrangement caused the writing bars of the most commonly used combination letters of the alphabet to be placed close to each other, so that when the keys were hit right after each other with fast speed, the keys would get stuck.

Attempting to resolve this fault led to a rearrangement of the keys. In 1868, in collaboration with educator Amos Densmore, Sholes arranged the letters on the keyboard for better spacing between popular keys used in combination. The result was that at first this made it difficult for people to find the letters they needed to write efficiently.

However, someone who mastered this new key arrangement would actually be able to type faster because the keys would not get stuck.

QWERTY on early typewriters

In 1873, the typewriter had 43 keys and a decidedly counterintuitive arrangement of letters that supposedly helped to ensure that expensive machines were not spoiled. That same year, Sholes and his partners signed a manufacturing agreement with arms maker Remington.

However, just before his machine, dubbed Sholes & Glidden, went into production, Sholes filed for another patent, which included a new keyboard layout. Issued in 1878, the patent marked the first documented appearance of the QWERTY design. The Remington deal turned out to be a great success.

In 1890, Remington produced more than 100, 000 typewriters across the country. The reality of the keyboard became effective in 1893 when the five major typewriter manufacturers (Remington, Yost, Caligraph, Smith-Premier, and Densmore) came together to form the Typewriter company Union Typewriter Company and establish QWERTY as the standard that we know today.

There is a theory that attributes the popularization of QWERTY to the pre-Remington merger business tactics. Remington not only produced typewriters, but also provided training courses for a small cost.

Although it cannot be argued that the agreement with Remington helped popularize the QWERTY system, its development in response to mechanical error has been questioned by researchers at the University of Kyoto: Koichi Yasuoka and Motoko Yasuoka. In a 2011 article, researchers tracked the evolution of the typewriter's keyboard along with a record of its first professional users. They concluded that the mechanics of the typewriter did not influence the design of the keyboard.

Rather, the QWERTY system arose as a result of how the first typewriters were used. Early testers included telegraph operators who needed to quickly transcribe messages. However, the alphabetical arrangement was found by operators to be confusing and ineffective in translating Morse code. The Kyoto document suggests that the keyboard of the typewriter evolved over several years as a direct result of the input provided by these telegraph operators.

In this scenario, the typist came before the keyboard. The Kyoto newspaper also cites Morse code to further disprove the theory that Sholes wanted to protect his machine from jamming by rearranging the keys with the specific intention of slowing down typists.

His competition: Dvorak

A prominent attempt to replace the keyboard occurred in the early 1930s, when Professor August Dvorak of Washington State University set out to develop a more user-friendly keyboard. Finally, he redesigned the keyboard so that all the vowels and the five most commonly used consonants were arranged in the initial row (AOEUIDHTNS).

The aim of the Dvorak keyboard was to identify all QWERTY deficiencies in relation to typing error frequency, sub-optimal typing speed and finger fatigue for typists. After at least 18 years of study and research, the Dvorak model was born.

Much of the design emphasis was placed on the start row (where the typist's hands would be at rest) due to research that found that writing to the start row was faster while writing to the bottom row was slower.. Thus, the common keys were placed along the start row while the least used keys were at the bottom.

The result? Dvorak typists required approximately 60% less finger movement compared to QWERTY typists. Not only was it faster, but Dvorak's typists were less prone to repetitive stress injuries caused by typing.

The most notable downside to Dvorak is that it is too different from QWERTY, making it too difficult for most everyday computer users to learn.

Although the design required a typist to alternate hands frequently to type most words, with the Dvorak keyboard, a person could type approximately 400 of the most common English language words by simply using the keys in the start row, in Compared to the 100 words on the QWERTY keyboard . Also, using the Dvorak keyboard, a typist's fingers wouldn't have to scroll as far as they did on the Sholes keyboard to type most words.

Dvorak set out to demonstrate that his machine was superior to Sholes', but his keyboard never took off. Many of the studies used to test the effectiveness of his keyboard were flawed or were considered a conflict of interest since Dvorak conducted them himself.

A 1953 study by the United States General Services Administration of the Dvorak keyboard determined that it did not matter which keyboard was used. Experienced typists on either keyboard wrote at approximately the same speed, based on their individual ability and not so much on the design of both keyboards.

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This ended up "killing" the Dvorak keyboard, since most people did not want to compromise the time or resources it would take to be trained on a new keyboard. Therefore, the QWERTY keyboard has persevered to this day and will apparently continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Although the Dvorak design certainly has its followers, it has never earned enough to overthrow King QWERTY. After all, the world learned to type using the Remington keyboard.

When the first generation of computer keyboards emerged, there was no longer any technical reason to use the system: computers didn't get stuck. But of course, there is the minor fact that millions of people learned to type on QWERTY keyboards.

But not only that, but as early as 1910, the system had been adopted by Teletype, a company that would produce widely used electronic typewriters and computer terminals worldwide, thus securing QWERTY's place as a new technological standard.

The success of the QWERTY keyboard

As the typewriter grew in popularity, people stopped complaining about the strange arrangement of the keys and began to memorize the keyboard and learn to type efficiently. Although other alternative keyboards tried to break through on the market, most people decided to stick with the QWERTY panel, and none of the other typewriters were successful.

QWERTY variations

From the era of computer terminals, localized variations to QWERTY have occurred, including QWERTZ (common in Central Europe), AZERTY (common in France), and QZERTY (primarily used in Italy). These variations are ultimately minor.

QWERTY vs. Other keyboards

So should I change QWERTY? It depends. If you spend most of the day typing on a computer, it is worth investigating. The speed gains and injury reductions are real and add up over time. However, there are a few caveats to be aware of.

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You will experience a great drop in typing speed while learning a new design. How much time will it take? A fast learner may need only a week, but others may need more than a month or more. However, with the help of typing tutors, this problem will only be temporary.