Klarinet Archive - Posting 001221.txt from 1999/03

From: "Dee D. Hays" <deehays@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] re: QWERTY keyboard - why
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 00:29:00 -0500

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven J Goldman, MD <sjgoldman@-----.com>
Date: Monday, March 22, 1999 10:53 PM
Subject: RE: [kl] re: QWERTY keyboard - why

>I started reading this thread late, so if I am repeating what someone else
>stated, my apologies. There was an article about the typewriter in
>Smithsonian Magazine several years back. Interestingly enough, there was a
>very specific reason behind keyboard design. It was neither accident or
>stupidity. When the typewriter was introduced, it caused one hell of a
>reaction from copyists. These were the people that hand wrote the business
>correspondence at the time. They feared that the typewriter would take away
>their jobs, and tried to stop the production of the new machine. The
>original keyboards were much more reasonably designed, allowing typists to
>produce documents far quicker than the copy people. To appease this group
of
>workers, the keyboard was redesigned with the most used letters in the most
>difficult positions. This point was to slow down typing so the copyists
>could compete! Apparently this is all documented somewhere. Anyone
>interested can probably find the article by going through the Smithsonian
>index.
>
>Steve
>

I hadn't read this particular theory. The articles that I have seen always
state something to the effect that the early typewriters, which of course
were mechanical, could not "react" fast enough to a really good typist so
they had to slow the typist down so the keys would not hang up on each
other. Having typed on a very old Remington as a child, I can believe it as
even with the QWERTY keyboard, the keys would still occasionally hang up.

Dee Hays
Canton, SD

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