Teach It Tuesday: Qwerty

Look at your keyboard.

Ever wondered why the keys are in that order? Ever even thought about it? I bet you are now...

Here's the answer:
In the 1860s Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule were trying to create a typing machine. The found that when the keys were placed in alphabetical order the arms that printed the letters onto the paper would crash into each other, especially with speedy typists. They tried many configurations and discovered if the most used letters were operated by the pinky fingers it slowed the speed of the typing and prevent the arms from hitting each other and jamming. Also the four row configuration meant the hands had to move around more and therefore also slowed down the speed at with which one could type.

In the age of computers this logic doesn't matter anymore but it's ingrained in use that this is the way keyboards should look and so things will remain that way.

And that my friends, is why it so hard much harder to go from IMing on your computer to texting on a 9 button keypad... and why your Blackberry has a QWERTY keyboard.