Keyboards

Have you wondered why your keyboard looks the way it does today?  One would presume, there is a scientific reason for placing "D" or "A" where it is - to optimize speed.  Perhaps that is why seldom used keys such as "Z" or "X" have odd placing; so we can type faster?  Wrong.  The keyboard looks the way it does for precisely the opposite reason, to make you type slower.

When the first type writer was invented by Christopher Sholes in 1872, he had one problem - the keys would often stick together and jam because the typists were typing too fast.  After failing to invent keys that would not stick, he had but only one option - to slow down the typists instead.

After many experiments, Sholes placed the keys in the most illogical and random fashion that it nearly guaranteed slow typing.  Even after the invention of retractable typewriters eliminated key jamming, the keyboard remained essentially the same, as millions of people are forced to search for their "T's" and "N's."  That my friend, is how the "QWERTY" keyboard came to be.