Question for experts: why are the letters on the keyboard not in alphabetical order? for example, it should be in alphabetical order a b c d e a c keyboard e c u e why

Best regards, Razor

Best answers

Timofey:

It is clear that they are located for a reason. If you disassemble the keyboard on a computer and a typewriter and compare them... You will find out that the arrangement of letters on them is absolutely the same. In fact, the keyboard was not invented for convenience, but, on the contrary, to slow down typing speed. And it was precisely this goal - to reduce the typist's speed - that was pursued by the inventor of the typewriter!

The first commercial typewriter was invented by Christopher Scholes. This 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 monitor the result. Hammers with letters were under a sheet of paper. But despite everything, people have learned to type quite fluently even on these terrible machines. After some time, another problem arose: all warranty repair shops were overwhelmed with returned typewriters.

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

Let's conduct an experiment - circle with a felt-tip pen those frequently used English language letters that are next to each other. It turns out that the situation when two adjacent keys were pressed occurs frequently. Too often! Two adjacent buttons pressed almost simultaneously resulted in the hammers interlocking and jamming each other.

The conclusion suggests itself - it is necessary to space frequently repeated letters further away from each other. That's what Christopher Sholes did. Typing texts has become inconvenient. But the hammers stopped breaking. The goal was achieved. And in 1874 the Remington 1 typewriter was born. The arrangement of letters on it began not as before with ABCDEF, but with QWERTY. This arrangement of Latin letters has survived to this day!

Mechanical typewriters improved. It was on the QWERTY keyboard that the ten-finger touch typing method was first introduced. Until this point, typing was done 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 was more convenient when frequently used letters were in the middle and top rows. He placed all the vowels under his left hand in the middle row, and the most common consonants under his right hand. The load on the hands turned out to be more balanced.

Let's try this invention for ourselves. And let’s calculate that during an 8-hour working day, our fingers travel 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 didn’t Dvorak manage to convince the whole world of the benefits of his rationalization proposal? Perhaps only because no one dared to renounce the millions of machines that by that time had faithfully served humanity.

Now let's move from America to Russia. Typewriters appeared here later than in the United States. By this time, the designers had eliminated many technical imperfections. The hammers no longer cling to each other. That is why in Russia the letters were placed rationally - 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
near the strong ones are the letters that are used most often
and those that are least common are on the little fingers

Overclocker:

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

Astaroth:

On a mobile phone everything is listed in alphabetical order. And how is it? Is it convenient to use? For me, no, only 1 finger is used, even when you type on the keyboard of a smartphone where each letter is a key. Inconvenient. Conclusion: the keyboard is a miracle of developers, created back when there was no trace of a PC, and no sensor can replace it 😉

Cactus on the tongue:

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

Video response

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Answers from experts

Shooter:

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

Ivan:

because it's necessary

Aram Solakhyan:

They are located so that letters that are often combined in words are located next to each other and are convenient to type.

You just studied the wrong alphabet. ;)

Erika:

Well, to make it convenient to quickly type. Letters that are most often used are placed in the middle to make them easier to find. The letters Ъ, ь E, Ё are located further away)

Mikhail Morozov:

ask.yandex/questions/i67464434.138/

Bynthys:

Valentina Lichikova:

it’s more comfortable for your fingers when typing touch-type

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 clave smart people did

Tatiana:

because they are also located on a typewriter. Learn the ten-finger blind method according to Shahidzhanyan, and you will understand :)

Maxim Melnikov:

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

Grigory Faleev:

typing words is not convenient

Rodion Kazanin:

to make typing with two hands more convenient

Neighbor:

I don’t know why. But when I studied typing, the keyboard on the typewriter was exactly the same.

"Z@iII@/\o 8so":

What's the point? So let's steam your brains until you learn))

Katya Megachiku:

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

User deleted:

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

And if you imagine that the text was displayed at that time on the reverse side 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 printing cars. Since Scholes could not imagine that the era of mechanical typewriters would fade 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 - do not allow the most frequently used letters to cling to each other. Simply put, place them on different sides of the keyboard, or even better, scatter them in different rows.

The issue of letter jams has been resolved. Now your fingers simply won’t have time to press the keys so quickly that the letters will get stuck. They will have to work hard typing ordinary 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 a need to “imprison” the most common letters.

Of course, QWERTY did not conquer the English-speaking world right away. But, having conquered the world once, she is not going to leave it, although today you won’t even find a mechanical typewriter during the day.

A significant help in promoting the new layout was the invention of the blind ten-finger method in 1876 by Frank McGarin, a court stenographer, specifically for QWERTY. At that time, the ability to quickly and efficiently master the layout was a decisive factor for success. There was a catastrophic shortage of typists capable of working on any layout.

A competition organized in 1888, which ended in 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 touch 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 installed on the remaining two percent?

The fact is that in 1936, Washington University professor 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 dialer. However, the issue of layout has long become a question not of ergonomics, but of economics. August Dvorak's research was discredited, the layout was ridiculed, the results were forgotten.

And although the Dvorak layout was developed according to all the rules and takes into account most ergonomic considerations, although it is included in the list of layouts of any Windows versions, only two percent of computer users use it...

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

Sergey Aldashov:

The letters are arranged for ease of typing. In the middle there are letters that are used more often, the further to the edge there are letters that are less frequently used.

Valery Kolosov:

because it's a car!!!

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

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 a letter is in demand, the farther it is from the middle

Alexey Udalov:

It seems to me that it’s not a matter of frequency of use, because the letters of the most frequently used Russian words - x*y and b*ya are located on the edges of the keyboard))))) probably the layout was designed to reduce the use of these words, and this can be considered part Global Western Attack with the aim of destroying Russian culture, including swearing)))))))))))))

The ancestors of today's computer keyboard are typewriters, which you probably saw in old movies. The first of them appeared in the 19th century. There were many models, but they all worked on the same principle. There were keys on the surface of the machine. Keys with a certain letter set the hammer in motion. The hammer on the top had a three-dimensional matrix of the same letter as on the key. He hit the tape. The tape was soaked in paint and placed between the hammer and the paper, on which each letter was imprinted. The hammers took turns drumming on the paper, typing entire texts.

The first successful typewriters were the invention of K. Scholes. The letters on such copies were arranged alphabetically on two rows. They were all the same size, appearing only in capital letters. There were no numbers on this keyboard. They were successfully replaced by some letters of the English alphabet. People typing on such machines over time, gaining skill, began to type faster than before. And suddenly it turned out that the machine could not work at such a printing speed. And the whole point is that the hammers, when imprinting letters, must have time to return to their original position. But they didn’t succeed. Moreover, they often began to get confused and interlock, and it took precious time to separate the hammers, and often, due to the interlacing, the machine simply became unusable.
It turns out that the English alphabet is rich in neighboring letters; they are used more often than others. When successively pressing neighboring keys, the hammers could interlock and jam.
Manufacturers thought about this problem and decided that it was necessary to create a new keyboard on which the letters would be arranged differently. Special tables were studied that showed the frequency of use of various combinations of letters in words. Those letters whose combinations occurred most frequently were placed far from each other on the keyboard. Now the hammers of these letters worked without intersecting.

Working on such a keyboard allows you to type at high speed, and this layout, which is still used throughout the world, allows you to work with all fingers. You are probably already familiar with her too. It's called QWERTY. Look at the top row of keys. The first five keys from left to right are indicated by these letters.
There are no complex hammer mechanisms on a computer keyboard, and it would seem that such an arrangement of letters is not necessary at all, but everyone is so accustomed to this layout that they simply use it without thinking about why the letters are arranged this way.

Many scientists are still developing new layouts that will help type text even faster, while putting less strain on your hands.
A. Dvorak, a professor at the University of Washington, came up with his own version of the layout. The most common letters occupy the middle and top rows. On the left hand are frequent vowels, and on the right hand are frequent consonants.
The professor claims that the load when using his keyboard is gentle. Just imagine that in a whole working day, fingers, using the professor’s layout, cover a distance of 2 km on the keys. On a classic QWERTY layout, such work will take a longer distance of 7 km.
Please note, except English letters Russians are also placed in a special order on the keyboard. They are arranged according to the following scheme: the index fingers work with the most used letters of the alphabet, and the ring and little fingers get all the rest.

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

The operating principle of this machine is simple. When you strike a key with a letter with your finger, a lever (hammer) with a cast matrix of this letter on top is activated. He hits a ribbon soaked in ink and located between the paper and the hammer, thus leaving an imprint on the paper. When typing, the hammers alternately hit the drum with paper.

On the first typewriters, invented by Christopher Scholes, the letters on the keys were located in alphabetical order, in two rows. In addition, printing could only be done 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 increasingly faster, and then a serious problem emerged with such machines: individual hammers did not have time to return to their place and were constantly interfering with each other. Very often, attempts to separate them led to the machines breaking down.

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

Manufacturers of typewriters drew conclusions 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, people typed mainly with the index fingers). This is how the famous QWERTY keyboard layout appeared (according to the first letters of the top row from left to right), which is still used today. It migrated to computer keyboards, although on them the problem of clutching levers (hammers) does not exist at all.

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

This makes the load on your hands 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 a Dvorak keyboard is 2 times higher compared to a QWERTY keyboard.

How are things going with the Russian keyboard? Why are the letters on it arranged in this 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 had already been eliminated. And the Russian keyboard was initially designed as ergonomic, that is, with a convenient and rational arrangement of keys. The most commonly used letters were placed under the strongest and fastest index fingers, and the less frequently used letters were placed under the weaker ring and little fingers.

Unfortunately, the Russian computer keyboard also has disadvantages. For example, for the 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 period is located - in uppercase! Therefore, in order to type a comma, you need to press two keys. Maybe that’s why modern schoolchildren who love to surf the Internet so often miss commas?..

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

Look at your computer keyboard. Isn't it 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 this be the ideal solution? Or the letter "W" being on the first line instead of the last. This arrangement of letters is called the “QWERTY” layout - based on the first 6 letters on the keyboard. So why complicate everything and not make the keyboard clear and convenient?

To understand the logic of the arrangement of letters according to the “QWERTY” standard, we must go back in time, to the end of the 19th century, when K. Scholes introduced the first typewriter with this arrangement of letters. At that time, the arrangement of letters on typewriters was in alphabetical order. But a technical problem awaited the manufacturers. The typewriter had metal arcs with letters at the ends. And when quickly printing text, if the printed letters were nearby, these arcs interlocked with each other. This took some time, and the typists' overall productivity dropped.

To solve this problem, K. Scholes compiled a list of the most common combinations of letters in English words and, after studying it, came up with a new layout. Now, although typing speed has slowed down slightly, adjacent letters in words have been spaced out across the keyboard, reducing the likelihood of arcs interfering.

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 a layout with keys in alphabetical order to keyboards (already computers). However, there was a problem: the people who typed on computers were the same people who typed on typewriters. They needed to relearn the new layout. However, companies did not want to spend money on retraining employees, and it was decided to leave 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" arranged 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 that you should place your fingers on in order to type faster;
• the QWERTY keyboard is more suitable for left-handed people, since there are letters on the left side that can be used to type more words than using the right side of the keyboard;
• you can find all the letters of the word “typewriter” on the top line of your keyboard.

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

The letters on the keyboard, at first glance to the uninitiated, are arranged in a chaotic order, not in alphabetical order. If you delve into history and remember the distant 19th century, when printed letters existed, the developers were not worried about the placement of letters on the keyboard, they only thought about the process of transferring letter signs to paper. But soon they saw that they began to sink, clinging to each other from the frequency of use. And in 1868, mathematician Christopher Scholes decided to come up with a new letter layout. He simply placed frequently used letters farther apart.

By scattering the letters into different ones, he solved the problem of the keys sticking, and an ingenious layout was born - the so-called QWERTY. It is named after the first letters of the first row on the keyboard. It is the arrangement of letter characters that is commonly used on 98% of keyboards in the world.

McGurrin method

The blind method made it possible not to look at the keyboard, but to type with all fingers (index fingers were used more often).

The ten-finger method on an ergonomic keyboard raised typing speed to a new level and increased the productivity of typists and secretaries.

Over many years of research, mathematicians, scientists, and stenographers tried to improve the keyboard layout; it is clear that the arrangement of letters in the alphabet was extremely inconvenient for work. Carrying out their measurements, they all, in fact, came to a brilliant discovery that simplified the life of mankind for many centuries to come.

QWERTY keyboards are so popular and ergonomic that today they are actively used by manufacturers mobile phones. In addition, getting used to the letter row of the keyboard allows you to save time when typing SMS.

Two percent balance

What keyboard layout do the other 2% of users use? American psychologist and professor at the University of Washington August Dvorak, based on the original layout, invented his own convenient arrangement of letters. But his teachings were ridiculed and soon completely forgotten. Nevertheless, his work on ergonomics, a science that is based on adapting the workplace, objects and objects of labor to a person, was not forgotten and was taken into account in the Windows OS version.

This layout is called the “Dvorak layout” in honor of its creator. Based on scientifically proven facts, it follows that the non-alphabetical layout is the most convenient for users.