On 12/04/2021 23:03, Fredxx wrote:
On 12/04/2021 22:19, Rod Speed wrote:
"Fredxx" wrote in message
...
On 12/04/2021 18:31, T i m wrote:
On Mon, 12 Apr 2021 07:12:18 -0700 (PDT), whisky-dave
wrote:
Don;t forget that the keyboard is designed to slow typing down.
The 'qwerty' keyboard you mean ... I thought it was more to balance
the speed out (and so make it faster)?
A disputed reason is so the hammers were less likely to interfere and
clash for high speed typing.
It isnt disputed by anyone with even half a clue.
There are a number of links to the history of the Query keyboard than
debunk the idea.
Just one of these with a greater 'clue':
https://www.newscientist.com/article...erty-keyboard/
Quote:
One often-repeated explanation is that it was designed to €śslow the
typist down€ť in order to stop the mechanism from jamming, a bug that
dogged earlier designs. This was supposedly achieved by keeping common
letter pairs apart.
But that cannot be true. E and R, the second most common letter pair in
English, are next to one another. T and H, the most common of all, are
near neighbours. A statistical analysis in 1949 found that a QWERTY
keyboard actually has more close pairs than a keyboard arranged at random.
Another urban myth is that it enabled salesmen to impress customers by
rapidly typing €śTYPE WRITER QUOTE€ť from the top row. Its a nice idea €“
and it does seem unlikely that these letters would appear together by
chance €“ but there is no historical evidence for it.
Perhaps a more convincing though prosaic reason is that the keyboard is
simply a semi-random rearrangement of the original piano-style keyboard.
Well probably never know. A century after Sholes finalised the
keyboard, historian Jan Noyes of Loughborough University published a
lengthy analysis concluding: €śThere appears €¦ to be no obvious reason
for the placement of letters in the QWERTY layout.
Doesn't explain why it isn't ABC...
--
Max Demian