Imagine you're on the maiden flight of that new ultra-modern aircraft, the Dreamliner. And you notice it's being towed to the runway by donkeys. Better still, by camels. In exactly the same way, the QWERTY keyboard is an ancient system attached to our most modern devices. And like the metaphorical camel, it was designed by way of a series of compromises.
The QWERTY layout is attributed to American inventor Christopher Latham Sholes, and it made its debut in its earliest form on July 1, 1874. Sholes had been for some years developing the typewriter, filing a patent application in October 1867. However, the original key layout, with the second half of the alphabet in order on the top row and the first half in order on the bottom row, led to some problems. The keys were mounted on metal arms, which would jam if the keys were pressed in too rapid succession. Sholes' solution was to separate commonly used letter pairings, such as "ST" and "TH" and "HE", to avoid these jams, effectively allowing the typist to type faster, rather than slower.
In the early 1930s, time-and-motion expert August Dvorak denounced QWERTY and produced an ergonomically designed keyboard which allowed for faster, more accurate typing and reduced keyboard clashes. But it was too late. Just as AC beat DC, the audio cassette beat 8-track and VHS beat Betamax, QWERTY won the format war.
(only kidding; it'll be compulsory only from NEXT year)
Well, Adrian Monk fixed the keyboard by going right back to the original key layout, with the whole alphabet in, well, yes, alphabetical order - and it seems to work, right down to "Go to ....".
