What are our modern keyboards called ? Why Keys on keyboard are not in alphabetical order ?
Answer: Keyboards that we use daily on PC , Typewriter , phone etc
are called QWERTY keyboard.QWERTY name is derived from the starting six letters
Q-W-E-R-T-Y sequentially from top alphabetic line of a standard keyboard.
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| QWERTY keyboard design |
The history of modern keyboard begins with the invention of
typing machine called typewriter invented in 1860s by Christopher sholes , Carlos Glidden & Samuel W. Soule.
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| First Typewriter by C.Sholes |
First typewriter looked like a sewing machine and it came
with a foot pedal to control carriage return as shown in above image.It had
metal bars known as typebars and each type bar had the mirror image of one
letter at its end.At first, letters were arranged in alphabetical order from A
to Z but in this format typist easily located the letters and typed very fast,
when typing fast on typewriter those typebars collide with each other and
sometimes jam. The faster someone typed the more often typewriter jammed.
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| Typewriter Keys get jam |
In order to minimize this drawbacks Christopher Sholes researched and
made a list of combination of letters that are used frequently and put those
letters in hard to reach spot which slower the speed of typing .After trails
on different designs QWERTY format was finalized.
You might be thinking that our modern keyboards are
electronic and there is not chance of collision & jamming of keys then why alphabets are not in order. The reason behind this is,
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| Modern Keyboard |
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