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posted by on Sunday December 18 2016, @11:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the slow-news-day dept.

Just how this came to be is a narrative that remains murky and – ironically – far from fixed. It's a story that offers insights into the sometimes unexpected pace of technological change, and one that's peopled by unsung inventors and obsessive tinkerers. It taps a fervent debate that most of us are oblivious to.

The earliest typewriters were cumbersome, moody machines but there was nevertheless an order to their keys that any English-speaking user could readily glean: they were arranged alphabetically. So why change this logical layout? Legend has it that Qwerty – known for the jabberwocky-style word formed by the first six letters of its top row – was dreamt up with the express purpose of slowing typists down. One character even lectures another about it in a Paulo Coelho novel.

In fact, the Qwerty layout was concocted to prevent keys from jamming – or at least, that's what most experts have tended to believe. The letters on a typewriter are affixed to metal arms, which are activated by the keys; on early models, if a lever was activated before its neighbour had fully come back down to rest, they would jam, forcing the typist to stop. Enter Christopher Sholes. Born in small-town Pennsylvania in 1819, Sholes was many things, including newspaper editor and Wisconsin state senator. He was also one of a team of inventors credited with building the first commercially viable typewriter. Having already tried to build machines for typesetting and printing numbers, Sholes' adventures in type began in 1867, when he read an article in Scientific American describing the Pterotype, a prototype typewriter invented by one John Pratt. The article sounded the death knoll for that "laborious and unsatisfactory" instrument, the pen, soon to be set down in favour of "playing on the literary piano".


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 19 2016, @12:52AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 19 2016, @12:52AM (#442880) Journal

    Heh. The fingers know it all, that's for sure. If, for some reason, I actually LOOK AT my keyboard, I get lost. The only reason to ever look down, is to find the home position. Found home, look away quick before you screw it up!!

    Had one of the guys at work walk up to me one day. He's from Mexico, and moderately literate. He asked me a question, I turned my head and explained what he needed to know, but he wouldn't look at me. He was staring at my fingers on the keyboard instead. "How can you type without looking?" I answered, "Well you can't type when you ARE looking!" "But, how do you know where the keys are?" "They haven't moved since the last time I looked, have they? It's like shifting a car, or a big truck. Think about it, and you'll screw it up.

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday December 19 2016, @07:42AM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday December 19 2016, @07:42AM (#442992) Journal

    If, for some reason, I actually LOOK AT my keyboard, I get lost.

    Something similar......

    I get lost the instant I make a mistake. My fingers freeze, something's wrong, the muscle movement wasn't right, halt halt halt.
    Sure enough I will find an error within one character of where the fingers stopped.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:36AM

      by Snotnose (1623) on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:36AM (#443477)

      I don't freeze when I make a mistake, I know I made it and know why. Typically it's either stretching for a little used key (30%), or right finger wrong hand (e.g. bird finger left hand vs bird finger right hand. Think e vs i). (oh yeah, 70%).

      The whole left hand/right hand has plagued me for almost 40 years now. Why? hellifino. Good thing is I know immediately I messed up.

      --
      Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.