“QWERTY”

MAY 2010

How often does “Qwerty” come up in conversation? Not much I’ll bet…

Well.. in honor of my last birthday (I won’t bring up which one) I finally got a cell phone…. The one with the large numbers and no keypad. My youngest daughter was in the car with me texting away ( I was driving! ) so I asked her if she was using a “Qwerty” keypad on her cellphone…

A what? She replied…(Not Really)

Anyway…”Qwerty” refers to the top line of of keys on your old typewriter keyboard. This was not an arbitrary arrangement of keys. The first application probably started out A,B,C,D, etc, but very soon proved to be an impractical solution. It turns out that in the english language the vowels (the mostly frequently used keys) must be located such that they don’t all stick together with usage. Each key after striking its letter must fall back out of the way before the next key can be struck. (for all those not privy to typewriter lore)

Another problem for the mix…the relative strength of an individuals fingers….the little finger being the “weaker” so that keys with less usage would be located at the extreme of the keyboard and reserved for those digits. Hence the “Q” being found in the upper left hand corner.

Long story short….the “Qwerty” arrangement of keys was thought the best solution for speed and accuracy.

…..By default actually…..there was a competition with another arrangement of keys, and most thought it was faster, in fact there was a national contest to determine a winner. Well…the champion to be, had the flu, lost the contest and everyone ended up with “Qwerty”.

As you probably have realized “Qwerty” serves no purpose for todays keyboards or cellpads other than a function of habit….What else is out there serving the same non-purpose?