a question on keyboard letters...
By mylesnarvaez
@mylesnarvaez (5451)
Philippines
July 16, 2007 6:00am CST
i'm not so sure if this has been asked several times before or if there's a rationale behind it but once again, i was caught offguard by my nine year old niece who recently received a bratz laptop as a gift from her parents. she asked me why the keyboard's letters are not in alphabetical order. fo a nine year old, this doesn't make sense. and honestly, i don't have any aswer for that. would you know why?
she's the same niece who asked me before why there are silent letters in some words and the sense of putting the silent letters if we are not going to say them in the first place.
2 people like this
3 responses
@mylesnarvaez (5451)
• Philippines
16 Jul 07
really, i'm not really aware of it. and i don't know how to explain to my niece either. :)
1 person likes this
@kaplya (1578)
• India
16 Jul 07
the main purpose behind this was stopping the jamming during typing. and i have read at many places that it is so because it makes typing faster as most commonly use letters are in the middle! in my opinion because it was what was used on the typewriters so while designing something like this(the keyboard layout)they couldn't think of anything better or original. now all of us has grown a habit of seeing such keyboard!:)
here you can read an interesting article about its history--
http://abckeyboard.co.uk/qwerty.htm
i hope you would be able to explain to your niece the reasons:)
@ElicBxn (63638)
• United States
16 Jul 07
I'm sure you've heard this by now, but....
The keyboard was laid out on a manual type system so that the keys didn't get stuck because of the typist being so fast that they would hit at the same time.
The bizarre layout did a better job of preventing it than the "Alpha" one would have.
I'm sure these something in the wikipedia about it.
@mylesnarvaez (5451)
• Philippines
16 Jul 07
thanks. :) i know that the keyboard is based on the typewriter itself, what i could not explain to my niece was why the letters are not in alphabetical order.
