Original QWERTY layout

[jacobolus]

Somehow I never actually knew what the original QWERTY keyboard’s layout looked like. All the pictures in a google image search were kind of crappy, so here’s keyboard-layout-editor.

I present the original Sholes and Glidden typewriter (Remington No. 1) layout. The 4-row physical layout was actually apparently designed by Mathias Schwalbach, and a QWERTY-like letter arrangement designed by some group effort among Sholes/Glidden/Schwalbach/Densmore (and some friends?), with some slight modifications made by the Remington & Sons company.


(click for editable version)



I also just realized that the capital letters on all our keycap legends are an artifact of this: originally there was no shift key or lower case, so of course the legends showed the capital letters.

It’s pretty clear that the layout was never designed for touch typing, and has little relation to human hands. It’s pretty sad that we’ve been stuck for 140 years with something designed by a few people who didn’t really know what they were doing yet, and had design constraints totally unlike the ones we face today. Sad that IBM, who dominated typewriter/computer design up through the 80s, and their customers, were so risk averse and unwilling to experiment more with better designs. And sad that every other computer company, also super risk averse, just went along with it. I still hold out the hope that we can get past the Sholes/Schwalbach-layout keyboard someday.

[rowdy]

Whoa ... M?!?

[Zeal]

Where's 1??

[jacobolus]

Where's 1??

That’s what I is for.

Also, you don’t need 0 when you have O.

[RED-404]

Where's 1??

Just a little right of U and left of O

[Zeal]

Is there a name for the 3 dotted colon? "⋮" key.
What is it used for?

[jacobolus]

Is there a name for the 3 dotted colon? "⋮" key.
What is it used for?

Unicode calls it a “vertical ellipsis”. I tend to mainly use those when typesetting mathematics, for instance to describe very large matrices.

I imagine it could be used to draw vertical dotted lines. 1870s ASCII art.

[jacobolus]

One more thing: who can beat an 11.75 unit spacebar?!

[fohat.digs]

That’s what I is for.

Once there was upper and lower case, "1" was lower case L.

What amazes me is no + or /

[spiceBar]

That’s what I is for.

Once there was upper and lower case, "1" was lower case L.

What amazes me is no + or /

I guess that if you need a "+" you do an "I", then a backspace, then a "-".

[dorkvader]

That’s what I is for.

Once there was upper and lower case, "1" was lower case L.

What amazes me is no + or /

I guess that if you need a "+" you do an "I", then a backspace, then a "-".

note: there is no backspace key; I think all spacing would have to have been done manually.

[Oobly]

...

It’s pretty clear that the layout was never designed for touch typing, and has little relation to human hands. It’s pretty sad that we’ve been stuck for 140 years with something designed by a few people who didn’t really know what they were doing yet, and had design constraints totally unlike the ones we face today. Sad that IBM, who dominated typewriter/computer design up through the 80s, and their customers, were so risk averse and unwilling to experiment more with better designs. And sad that every other computer company, also super risk averse, just went along with it. I still hold out the hope that we can get past the Sholes/Schwalbach-layout keyboard someday.

Yup, it was all designed for the machinery and the constraints of making it work. The staggered rows, the character layout, everything. You can actually blame Remington for the continued use of the design, since Sholes proposed an updated layout for his next model that didn't need the QWERTY layout, but Remington refused to change it, stating that too many people were already used to the original.

The points you raised are what caused me to design, build and use my own keyboard design. "Normal" ones are horrendously unergonomic.

The only way I see it changing is if someone releases a commercial board that's properly designed (but it has to be a LOT better even than the current "ergonomic" designs) and it starts to get used by enough influential people. In the current age of blogs and viral videos it's certainly possible.

[fohat.digs]

One of these days (like maybe when and if I ever retire and do not have to work for a living and maintain numerous computers (w/keyboards) for other people), I plan to switch to Colemak. Until then, the disorientation of randomly jumping from layout to layout is just too painful for an old man like me. I get uncomfortable even having to use my laptop's keyboard for more than a few minutes.

What I don't understand is the hate for staggered keys.

I appreciate the advantages of staggering a lot of things in daily life, for a lot of reasons.

If there were only 4 columns and the fingers moved only vertically, maybe. Otherwise, I think that comfort and accuracy are enhanced by staggering. I know that my accuracy would go way down as I snagged the corners of keys adjacent to the ones I was really trying to hit in a tic-tac-toe layout.

I wish that my stupid smart phone had staggered square "keys" with dead space around them. My speed and accuracy on there is in the toilet.

[Gamingnow]

Things have changed quite a bit since then 

[Oobly]

...
I appreciate the advantages of staggering a lot of things in daily life, for a lot of reasons.

...

Switch the staggering to vertical to match the natural resting positions of the fingers. See my avatar. I don't like matrix layout.

I found it's easiest to combine layout switches. I switched to a new character layout, but only on my new physical layout board. So it hasn't affected my speed or accuracy on "normal" boards while I learn the new one. Need to keep my speed up at work.

[Findecanor]

Hmm.. French and Belgian AZERTY layouts still have the M ? and . keys in those old locations. Belgian also has _ in the old location while French doesn't.

I read also that two keys were swapped very late before production so that you could type the word TYPEWRITER  with your fingers on one row.

[spiceBar]

Hmm.. French and Belgian AZERTY layouts still have the M ? and . keys in those old locations. Belgian also has _ in the old location while French doesn't.

I read also that two keys were swapped very late before production so that you could type the word TYPEWRITER  with your fingers on one row.

Wow! Yes, I had not noticed the location of the M key which is still the same today on AZERTY. Very funny.

[jacobolus]

Apparently Sholes continued developing other typewriter layouts after QWERTY.

Here’s from US patent 568630 in 1889:


This one goes even further than QWERTY in making sure the levers for typing letters weren’t next to each-other, to avoid jamming.

[Findecanor]

Hmm.. That staggering is the opposite of QWERTY. Yet again, no dedicated number keys for 1 or 0 ...

Whoa, I just thought that maybe the proximity of I and O on QWERTY and on this keyboard could have been intentional because both are also used as digits.

[dorkvader]

looks like even shoals noticed the utility of grouped vowels that was also used by Dvorak.

1 and 0 are not necessary on a typewriter and are frequently missing to conserve space, especially on small portable student / journalist types.

[jacobolus]

looks like even shoals noticed the utility of grouped vowels that was also used by Dvorak.

I think his goal was purely to avoid collisions, due to the mechanical design of the typewriter (somewhat different from later typewriters; go look at the patents about the original design for the details).

At that point, touch typing still wasn’t a thing, and most typists were using only 2-4 fingers.

[dorkvader]

looks like even shoals noticed the utility of grouped vowels that was also used by Dvorak.

I think his goal was purely to avoid collisions, due to the mechanical design of the typewriter (somewhat different from later typewriters; go look at the patents about the original design for the details).

At that point, touch typing still wasn’t a thing, and most typists were using only 2-4 fingers.

that's a good point. I just noticed the vowels are arranged alphabetically.

[Melvang]

One more thing: who can beat an 11.75 unit spacebar?!

Granted it was a keyboard and not a typewriter, but Ivan has told me that he had one that was 15 unit.

[davkol]

If anyone's *really* interested in the topic, I recommend two resources:

Yasuokas' archive of historical articles
QWERTY and the search for optimality by Neil M. Kay (PDF)

It should be noted that touch typing was already a thing in early 1880's (see the Mrs. Longley's textbook that taught 8-finger technique).

[GL1TCH3D]

If anyone's *really* interested in the topic, I recommend two resources:

Yasuokas' archive of historical articles
QWERTY and the search for optimality by Neil M. Kay (PDF)

It should be noted that touch typing was already a thing in early 1880's (see the Mrs. Longley's textbook that taught 8-finger technique).

Definitely going to have to give that a read
It's a shame. I would definitely try learning other layouts but I'm set to qwerty in many places and the jumps are more trouble than it's worth.

[jacobolus]

It should be noted that touch typing was already a thing in early 1880's (see the Mrs. Longley's textbook that taught 8-finger technique).

I guess what I meant is, there wasn’t yet an established technique used by most typists, or an industrial scale to typing/secretarial schools, like those established a few decades later. And so typewriter designers weren’t yet optimizing for that.

Do you know a good source about the history of touch typing?

[davkol]

Lot of it is contained in the Yasuokas' archive, there's even a comparison of different typing schools back in the day.