By Rauf Fadzilla

Pix Credit: qwerty-definition.seebyseeing.net
The QWERTY keyboard.
Ever wondered why the keyboard keys are arranged this way?

The QWERTY keyboard, named for the arrangement of letters on the top left row of the alphanumeric keyboard is the most common arrangement for keys on a keyboard or typewriter.


The QWERTY keyboard, designed by Christopher Sholes, was manufactured in 1874 by Remington & Sons and was called the Remington Number 1.

Interestingly enough, it may have been designed this way because of the limitations of early typewriter technology.

When you press a key, J for example, on an early typewriter, the character J would swing from a bar and hit a tape coated with ink which would then transfer the letter J onto the paper behind the tape.

The problem was that on this early typewriter, the bars would collide with each other and jam the device if the keys were typed too fast.

So the story is that Sholes arranged the keys with the most common letters in hard to reach parts of the keyboard, to slow down the typist's speed.

The Dvorak keyboard is an alternative to the QWERTY keyboard and arranges characters with vowels on one side and consonants on the other. Apparently it's easier to use because your fingers do less travelling between letters.

Pix Credit: workawesome.com
The Dvorak keyboard

I don't know about you but I've gotten so used to the QWERTY keyboard that I couldn't possibly use any other keyboard.
                         
I can type quite fast on it too and I couldn't imagine using a keyboard with say, all the letters arranged in alphabetical order.

Pix Credit: badhaven.com
His writings are indecipherable but he can type pretty fast.