Interesting Keyboard History

Many people are surprised to learn that the traditional layout of a keyboard is not the same layout that typewriters had when they were first invented. The "QWERTY" arrangement that is standard today was made by Christopher Sholes so that the most used letters were not close together. This means that the standard keyboard layout is not designed with the typist in mind because it was purposely designed to make the typist reach farther to hit the most common letters.

The arrangement was made to prevent the type bars on typewriters (way back before computers were ever though of) from sticking together and jamming the machine. Typists would type so fast on the old typewriters and strike keys that were next to each other so often that they would stick.

There are other keyboard layouts you can use today, but that is another story, and because the QWERTY keyboard is the hands down standard in keyboard layouts, it is still important to know how to type on this albeit archaic layout.