Why are the letters on the keyboard in that order? Why are the letters on the keyboard not in alphabetical order. Truth: Thank you morse code

When someone sees a computer keyboard for the first time, he has a question “Why are the letters on the keys not located in alphabetical order? In this article, we provide a comprehensive answer to this question.

Look at the computer keyboard. Is it not true that it is difficult to find logic in such an arrangement of letters? The letters are not in their usual positions - according to the alphabet, the letter "A" should be located at the beginning of the first row of keys. Wouldn't it be ideal solution? Or the letter "W" which is on the first line instead of being on the last. This arrangement of letters is called the "QWERTY" layout - according to the first 6 letters on the keyboard. So why complicate everything and not make the keyboard clear and comfortable?

To understand the logic of the arrangement of letters according to the “QWERTY” standard, we must return to the past, to the end of the 19th century, when K. Scholes introduced the first typewriter with such an arrangement of letters. At that time, the arrangement of letters on typewriters was in alphabetical order. But here the producers were waiting for a technical problem. The typewriter had metal arcs, at the ends of which letters were located. And when printing text quickly, if the printed letters were nearby, these arcs interlocked with each other. This required a certain amount of time, and the overall productivity of typists fell.

To solve this problem, K. Scholes compiled a list of the most common combinations of letters in English words and, having studied it, came up with a new layout. Now, although the typing speed has slowed down a bit, adjacent letters in words have been spaced across the keyboard, making arcs less likely to tangle.

With the advent of computers in the 40s of the 20th century, typewriters were supplanted by new devices, and now it was possible to return to keyboards (already computers) the layout with the keys in alphabetical order. However, there was a problem: the people who typed on the computer were the same people who typed on typewriters. They needed to retrain to a new layout. However, companies did not want to spend money on retraining employees, and it was decided to keep the keyboard layout.

• on the existing layout, you can find a little from the alphabetical layout. Looking at the middle row of keys, you will find the letters "DFGHJKL" in alphabetical order, excluding "E" and "I";
• the eight keys on the middle row of the keyboard are called the "home row". These are the keys you have to put your fingers on in order to type faster;
• The "QWERTY" keyboard is more suitable for left-handed people, as there are letters on the left side that can be used to type more words than using right side keyboards;
• you can find all the letters of the word "typewriter" on the top line of the keyboard.

As we have seen, typewriters are to blame for today's keyboard difficulties. However, we are so accustomed to the existing layout that we even introduced it to mobile phones.

Question for connoisseurs: why are the letters in the keyboard not alphabetical. for example, it should be in alphabetical order a b c d e a in clave ts uk e why

Sincerely, Razor

Best Answers

Timothy:

It is clear that they are not just located. If you disassemble the keyboard on the computer and the typewriter and compare them ... Then it turns out that the arrangement of the letters on them is exactly the same. In fact, the keyboard was not invented for convenience, but, on the contrary, to slow down the speed of typing. And it was precisely this goal - to reduce the speed of the typesetter - that the inventor of the typewriter pursued!

The first commercial typewriter was invented by Christopher Scholes. It happened almost 150 years ago in the USA.

We can say that this machine was extremely inconvenient. The person who tried to print something was deprived of the opportunity to follow the result. Hammers with letters were under a sheet of paper. But in spite of everything, people have learned to type quite fluently even on these terrible typewriters. After some time, another problem arose: all the warranty repair shops were inundated with returned typewriters.

Separate hammers in the process of printing regularly interlocked with each other, and their separation often led to breakage. In those days, the letters on the keys were in alphabetical order.

Let's do an experiment - we circle with a felt-tip pen those frequently used in English language letters next to each other. It turns out that the situation when two adjacent keys were pressed is common. Too often! Two adjacent buttons, pressed almost simultaneously, caused the hammers to interlock and jam each other.

The conclusion suggests itself - it is necessary to space the frequently repeated letters away from each other. So Christopher Sholes did. Typing became inconvenient. But the hammers stopped breaking. The goal has been reached. And in 1874, the Remington 1 typewriter was born. The arrangement of letters on it did not begin as before with ABCDEF, but with QWERTY. This arrangement of Latin letters has survived to this day!

Mechanical typewriters have improved. It was on the QWERTY keyboard that the ten-finger typing method was first introduced. Up to this point, they typed with four fingers, although there are still people who use only two index fingers. The pursuit of excellence did not end there. In the 40s of the last century, the American Arthur Dvorak proposed his own version of the arrangement of Latin letters. He calculated that it is more convenient when frequently used letters are in the middle and upper rows. Under the left hand in the middle row, he placed all the vowels, under right hand the most frequent consonants. The load on the hands turned out to be more balanced.

Let's try this invention on ourselves. And - let's calculate that for an 8-hour working day, our fingers make a path of about two kilometers on the new keyboard. While on a traditional QWERTY keyboard, the same figure was already 7 kilometers, which, you see, is much more!

Why did Dvorak fail to convince the whole world of the benefits of his rationalization proposal? Perhaps only because no one dared to renounce the millions of cars, by that time faithfully serving humanity.

Now let's move from America to Russia. Here, typewriters appeared later than in the United States. By this time, the designers have eliminated many technical imperfections. The hammers no longer clung to each other. That is why in Russia the letters were arranged rationally - the frequently used ones ended up in the middle of the keyboard.

Knoxville:

The most frequently used keys are in the center, the rest are on the edges.
For convenience and speed of writing.

Nikita Voronin:

If it's alphabetical, then it's not interesting

Fartushnaya Elena:

because there are strong fingers and weak ones
next to the strong are those letters that are used most often
and those that are least often - on the little fingers

overclocker:

in the center are the most used symbols.
the edges are rarely used.

Astaroth:

Here on the mobile phone everything goes in alphabetical order. And how is it? Convenient to use? For me, it’s not like that, only 1 finger is involved, even when you type on the keyboard of a smartphone where each letter is a key. Uncomfortable. Conclusion: the keyboard is a miracle of developers, created back when there was no PC, and no sensor can replace it 😉

Cactus on the tongue:

because in the center of the keyboard are letters that are often used ...

Video response

This video will help you understand

Expert answers

Shooter:

When you type text after 2 glasses, the main letters will be in the center!! ! :-))))))

Ivan:

because it needs to be

Aram Solahyan:

they are located so that the letters often combined in words go side by side and it is convenient to type.

You just studied the wrong alphabet.;)

Erika:

Well, to make it convenient to type quickly. Letters that are used more often are in the middle to find them faster. The letters b, b, e, e are away)

Mikhail Morozov:

ask.yandex /questions/i67464434.138/

Bynthys:

Valentina Lichikova:

so it is more convenient for fingers when typing blindly

I don’t know about you, everything is fine with me))) you were probably deceived, they sold a non-Chinese keyboard))

Because it's more convenient!

because smart people did Claudia

Tatyana:

because they are also located on the typewriter. Learn the ten-finger blind method according to Shakhidzhanyan, and you will understand 🙂

Maxim Melnikov:

hmmm….Nada vam zadat etat vapros v TEME Yumor. 😛

Grigory Faleev:

not comfortable typing

Rodion Kazanin:

to make it easier to type with two hands

Neighbor:

I don’t know why. But when I studied typing, the keyboard of a typewriter is exactly the same.

"B@u [email protected]/\o 8so":

What about the meaning? So that the brains soar until you learn))

Katya Megachiku:

This arrangement of letters (letters) is very convenient. The letters that we use most often are located in the center of the keyboard so that they are within the reach of our most developed and “working” fingers. The remaining keys have to be pressed less often, and therefore they are located at the edges of the keyboard, in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe weaker fingers - the ring and little fingers.

User removed:

In the distant nineteenth century, when typewriters looked like sewing machines, the issue of the location of the keys was not particularly acute. Engineering thought was occupied exclusively with the technique of reproducing letters on paper. Therefore, the most simple solution The keys were arranged alphabetically. However, here the authors were disappointed. It turned out that the letters with the most frequent letters began to shamelessly sink, clinging to each other and significantly complicating the printing process.

And if you imagine that the text was displayed at that time on the back of the sheet and you could see what was printed only at the end of the work, you can easily understand why Christopher Scholes (apparently, together with his mathematician brother) in 1868 compiled a new layout for printed cars. Since Scholes could not imagine that the era of mechanical typewriters would sink into oblivion faster than his own creation, he reorganized the layout so that the most frequently used letters were spaced as far apart as possible.

The principle was simple - not to allow the most frequently used letters to cling to each other. Simply put, spread them on different sides of the keyboard, or even better, scatter them in different rows.

The problem of letter jams has been resolved. Now the fingers simply do not have time to press the keys so quickly that the letters get stuck. They will have to work hard, typing the usual English words. This is how QWERTY was born - a layout that is still installed on 98% of computers around the world, although there is no longer any need to “imprison” the most common letters.

Of course, QWERTY did not immediately conquer the English-speaking world. But, having conquered the world once, she is not going to leave it, although today you cannot find a mechanical typewriter in the afternoon with fire.

A significant help in promoting the new layout was the invention of the blind ten-finger method in 1876 by Frank McGurin, a court stenographer, specifically for QWERTY. At that time, the ability to quickly and effectively master the layout was a decisive success factor. Typists capable of working on any layout were sorely lacking.

The competition, arranged in 1888, which ended with a convincing victory for McGarin, decided the fate of QWERTY, and at the same time the blind method. From that moment on, all leading companies began to produce QWERTY typewriters, and all typists began to use the blind method.

The Russian analogue of QWERTY - YTSUKE, alas, is no better, since it is based on the same principles.

But why then is this layout installed on 98% of computers? The question inevitably arises: what is set on the other two percent?

The fact is that in 1936, a professor at the University of Washington, August Dvorak, decided to return to the origins of the standard layout and scientifically substantiate the need for a new one. The result of his research was a new layout bearing the name of the author. Its principle is maximum convenience for the typer. However, the issue of layout has long been a matter not of ergonomics, but of economics. The research of August Dvorak was discredited, the layout was ridiculed, the results were forgotten.

And although the Dvorak layout is designed by all the rules and takes into account most ergonomic considerations, although it is included in the list of layouts of any version of Windows, only two percent of computer users work with it ...

Truly habit is second nature. QWERTY is a brilliant confirmation of this.

Sergey Aldashov:

The letters are arranged in this way for ease of typing. In the middle are the letters that are more often used, the farther to the edge the letters are less often used.

Valery Kolosov:

because it's a car!

For user convenience. In the past, the entire layout on the clave was carefully thought out by philologists according to the principle of the most frequently present, and therefore frequently pressed letters in a particular language.
Try to track the movements of your fingers when typing and you will understand that most often you use exactly those letters that are located in the center of the clave.

Galina Rogova:

In the center of the keyboard are the letters that are most often found in words. And so, as it is in demand, the less often the letter is in demand, the further it is from the middle

Alexey Udalov:

it seems to me that the point is not the frequency of use, because the letters of the most frequently used Russian words - x * d and b * i are located on the edges of the keyboard))))) the layout is probably just conceived to reduce the use of these words, and this can be considered part Global Western Attack with the aim of destroying Russian culture, including mat)))))))))))))

The arrangement of letters on a computer keyboard is a legacy of typewriters that appeared in the 19th century.

The principle of operation of such a machine is simple. When a finger strikes a key with a letter, a lever (hammer) with a cast matrix of this letter on top is activated. He strikes a ribbon soaked in ink between the paper and the mallet, and thus leaves an imprint on the paper. When typing, the hammers alternately hit the drum with paper.

On the first typewriters, invented by Christopher Sholes, the letters on the keys were located in alphabetical order, in two rows. In addition, it was possible to print only in capital letters, and there were no numbers 1 and 0 at all. They were successfully replaced by the letters "I" and "O". At first, this suited everyone. However, over time, the printing speed became more and more, and then such machines revealed a serious problem: individual hammers did not have time to return to their place and constantly interlocked with each other. Very often, attempts to separate them led to a breakdown of the machines.

And this happened because English alphabet there are a lot of neighboring letters that are used more often than others (for example, p-r, n-o). As a result, it often turned out that adjacent keys were pressed one after another, which led to the clutch and jamming of the hammers.

Typewriter manufacturers have learned and developed a keyboard in which letters often found in texts were placed away from the index fingers (after all, before the invention of the "blind" ten-finger method, they typed mainly with the index fingers). This is how the famous QWERTY keyboard layout (according to the first letters of the top row from left to right) appeared, which is still used today. She migrated to computer keyboards, although the problem of clutching levers (hammers) does not exist on them at all.

It must be admitted that the arrangement of letters on the QWERTY keyboard is far from the most rational. Much more convenient is the layout, which was invented by Arthur Dvorak, professor of statistics at the University of Washington. In it, frequently used letters are in the middle and upper rows. Under the left hand in the middle row are all the vowels, and under the right hand are the most frequent consonants.

In this case, the load on the hands is more balanced. Judge for yourself: in an 8-hour working day, our fingers travel about 2 km on a Dvorak keyboard, while on a traditional QWERTY keyboard the same figure is already 7 kilometers. Accordingly, the typing speed on the Dvorak keyboard is 2 times higher compared to the QWERTY keyboard.

How are things with the Russian keyboard? Why are the letters on it in that order and not otherwise? The fact is that in Russia typewriters, like all technical innovations, appeared much later than in the West. By this time, many design flaws have already been eliminated. And the Russian keyboard was originally designed as ergonomic, that is, with a convenient and rational arrangement of keys. The most frequently used letters were placed under the strongest and fastest index fingers, and the rarer ones were placed under the weakest ring fingers and little fingers.

Unfortunately, the Russian computer keyboard also has drawbacks. For example, for a comma, which is used, you see, very often, they did not bother to allocate a separate key, but placed it on the same key on which the dot is located - in upper case! Therefore, in order to print a comma, you need to press two keys. Maybe that's why modern schoolchildren who like to surf the Internet miss commas so often? ..

Every day we face dozens of secrets. And in order to find them, it is not at all necessary to spy on someone else's personal life and fish out someone's skeletons from closets. Just looking around is enough.

One of the household mysteries right now is at your fingertips. Why are the letters on the keyboard arranged in such a strange order?
Let's try to figure it out.

Do you think you are fast at typing on the keyboard? Do you make a lot of mistakes? Perhaps if the letters were in alphabetical order, things would be much more productive? Japanese researchers asked this question and tried to find out why, instead of the “normal” arrangement of keys, the whole world uses the QWERTY (or in the Russian version YTSUKEN) layout. Documents have been raised, answers have been found, and in parallel, two popular myths about the origin of the modern keyboard have been debunked.

Myth 1: QWERTY layout was designed for speed typing and because of the low "popularity" of individual letters

This version is the most common and quite logical. At first sight. But practical studies have shown that if the subjects used exclusively a specially designed keyboard with a different arrangement of letters for some time, they got used to it. And the dialing speed practically did not differ from working with QWERTY.

Myth 2: the keyboard is a descendant of the typewriter, and there the QWERTY order helped to avoid “freezing”

This version was completely opposite to the first. Its essence was that the unusual and "illogical" layout of the keys on the typewriter was supposed to slightly confuse typists. They could not print at high speed and, accordingly, the typewriter did not freeze. And everyone was happy. But the counterargument to an interesting theory lies on the surface: rote memory. That was proved by the experiment from the previous paragraph. Over time, we adapt to any conditions, so you can learn to type quickly and almost blindly on an "illogical" keyboard.

Truth: Thank you morse code

It turned out that the first prototypes of modern keyboards were provided with just the same alphabetic layout. And they began to "test" them on telegraph operators. Testers who had to quickly transcribe messages found the alphabetical order annoyingly awkward. And in order to work more efficiently with Morse code, they offered their own version - QWERTY. The proposal was heard, and after a few years all telegraphs switched to QWERTY. And behind them is the rest of the printed world.

The usual layout of keys on a computer keyboard is a legacy of typewriters. On the first of them, the letters were arranged alphabetically, in two rows. But with fast printing, this led to the fact that neighboring levers did not have time to return to their place and clung to each other. The keys "sticky", and the person typing the text had to interrupt work frequently.

The father of the QWERTY layout is American Christopher Scholes. He decided to arrange the letters included in the most frequently occurring digraphs as far apart as possible. So the frequency of clutches was reduced to a minimum. It took a dozen years and several dozen prototypes - two-, three-, four- and, finally, five-row machines to come to just such an option. The final version appeared in 1878.

The cars improved, the speeds of the levers increased, the clutch problem disappeared, but the layout remained. Moreover, she migrated to the keyboard of computers.

But that doesn't mean they haven't tried to replace her. University of Washington professor August Dvorak was convinced that the QWERTY layout could be improved. He noticed that typing frequently occurring combinations of letters required the placement of fingers in a rather clumsy manner. And typing such common words as “was” (was) and “were” (were) must be done with the left hand.

Dvorak patented a keyboard where frequently used letters were in the middle and top rows. Under the left hand in the middle row were vowels, in the lower and upper row - rare consonants. And under the right hand were the most frequent consonants.

"The YTSUKE Russian layout is easier. It was designed so that the letters that are used most often are placed under the index fingers.<…>There is also the so-called phonetic layout YAVERTA, or YAZHERTA, but it is more convenient for foreigners"

Despite the obvious conveniences, the Dvorak layout did not take root, like another Latin layout - Colemak. There are several reasons for this. First, the need to retrain. Secondly, the need, at least at first, to rename the keys. Also, do not discount the habit and the fact that most keyboards are sold with a QWERTY layout. You can switch to another layout, but for this you need to make an effort. But is it worth it if you have to work on different computers?

With the Russian layout, YTSUKE is easier. It was originally designed so that the letters that are used most often are placed under the index fingers, and those that are less common are placed under the ring and little fingers.

There is also the so-called phonetic layout YAVERTA, or YAZHERTA, but it is more convenient for foreigners studying Russian. Russian letters in it are located on the same keys as Latin letters similar in phonetic sound: A-A, B-B, V-V, G-G, D-D, F-F, KK, OO, etc. True, the phonetic layout is even rarer than the Dvorak and Colemak layouts.