How old is split layout?

[v6ak]

Interesting typewriter from 1865: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter#/media/File:Pterotype.jpg

I understand this was a notable time before QWERTY and so on. But it suggests that the split layout was there since the very beginning of typewriters. I am not aware of any construction limitation that forced this design.

Why newer typewriters and computer keyboards don't have such split layout? (Well, I am aware that there are options to have split layout, but they are far from being mainstream.)

I don't think that having a proper split layout would be costly with typerwiters. They had already staggering because of construction limitations:

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|Q||W||E||R||T||Y||U||I||O||P|
 |A||S||D||F||G||H||J||K||L||;|
  |Z||X||C||V||B||N||M||,||.||/|

They could have similar symmetric staggering, which would be more natural:

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  |Q||W||E||R||T||Y||U||I||O||P|
 |A||S||D||F||G|  |H||J||K||L||;|
|Z||X||C||V||B|    |N||M||,||.||/|

Do you have any idea why history did not go this way?

[iLLucionist]

The symmetrical staggered layout would also make it seem more "natural" to flip tab / caps / shift, so shift on top, than caps, than tab.

[davkol]

It's important to note, that a split keyboard doesn't make all that much sense without touch typing, and touch typing didn't exist until 1880s and wasn't widely recognized until WWI or so. Furthermore, there were many competing designs at the time, ranging from completely different "index typewriters", to huge-keyboard typewriters (such as Caligraph), to Sholes/Remington, to keyboard typewriters designed for touch typing (e.g., Blickenderfer or Typo)—those even had curved keyboards in some cases (see, for instance, the Typo).

The oldest truly split keyboard, that I'm aware of, was patented by Heidner in 1915 (see US Patent 1,138,474), and the first published experimental research was by Klockenberg in 1926:
KLOCKENBERG,  ERICH  A. (1926): Rationalisierung der Schreibmaschine und ihrer Bedienung. Psychotechnische Arbeitsstudien. Berlin: Springer.

[iLLucionist]

It's important to note, that a split keyboard doesn't make all that much sense without touch typing, and touch typing didn't exist until 1880s and wasn't widely recognized until WWI or so. Furthermore, there were many competing designs at the time, ranging from completely different "index typewriters", to huge-keyboard typewriters (such as Caligraph), to Sholes/Remington, to keyboard typewriters designed for touch typing (e.g., Blickenderfer or Typo)—those even had curved keyboards in some cases (see, for instance, the Typo).

The oldest truly split keyboard, that I'm aware of, was patented by Heidner in 1915 (see US Patent 1,138,474), and the first published experimental research was by Klockenberg in 1926:
KLOCKENBERG,  ERICH  A. (1926): Rationalisierung der Schreibmaschine und ihrer Bedienung. Psychotechnische Arbeitsstudien. Berlin: Springer.

Come on.. there must've been people who could touch type on a typewriter yes? Or am I missing something?

[davkol]

The Sholes/Remington design was basically finalized in 1878.
The first 6+ finger typing guides/textbooks were published in 1878-1882 (Wyckoff, Vater-Longley).
Touch typing (as in typing by touch, as in blindfolded) was first demonstrated by Frank McGurrin in 1888.

QWERTY People Archive

[iLLucionist]

The Sholes/Remington design was basically finalized in 1878.
The first 6+ finger typing guides/textbooks were published in 1878-1882 (Wyckoff, Vater-Longley).
Touch typing (as in typing by touch, as in blindfolded) was first demonstrated by Frank McGurrin in 1888.

QWERTY People Archive

Great info, thanks! Learned something today

[DvorakDachshund]

Come on.. there must've been people who could touch type on a typewriter yes? Or am I missing something?

Ever used an old typewriter? You really have to pound the keys (on some, the harder you pound the better looking the letter comes out) so the speed advantage of touch typing was minimal. Not to mention the focus was on accuracy, not speed, so not looking was probably frowned upon.

God bless the modern age.

[xtrafrood]

Come on.. there must've been people who could touch type on a typewriter yes? Or am I missing something?

Ever used an old typewriter? You really have to pound the keys (on some, the harder you pound the better looking the letter comes out) so the speed advantage of touch typing was minimal. Not to mention the focus was on accuracy, not speed, so not looking was probably frowned upon.

God bless the modern age.

My family had and used a typewriter back when I was really little. I remember playing with it and it took the full force of my hand to press a key down so that it registered on the paper. Touch typing on a typewriter? 

[davkol]

Ever used an old typewriter? You really have to pound the keys (on some, the harder you pound the better looking the letter comes out) so the speed advantage of touch typing was minimal. Not to mention the focus was on accuracy, not speed, so not looking was probably frowned upon.

Quite the contrary.

Typewriters were used to copy documents (which doesn't make any sense with computers nowadays, but computers were people back in the day, not machines). In that case, touch typing allowed typists to focus on the source copy.

[iLLucionist]

Come on.. there must've been people who could touch type on a typewriter yes? Or am I missing something?

Ever used an old typewriter? You really have to pound the keys (on some, the harder you pound the better looking the letter comes out) so the speed advantage of touch typing was minimal. Not to mention the focus was on accuracy, not speed, so not looking was probably frowned upon.

God bless the modern age.

Good point. Especially about the accuracy, makes sense.

[algernon]

Ever used an old typewriter? You really have to pound the keys (on some, the harder you pound the better looking the letter comes out) so the speed advantage of touch typing was minimal. Not to mention the focus was on accuracy, not speed, so not looking was probably frowned upon.

Quite the contrary.

Typewriters were used to copy documents (which doesn't make any sense with computers nowadays, but computers were people back in the day, not machines). In that case, touch typing allowed typists to focus on the source copy.

My Grandma was a typist, and I watched her work a lot (on an old typewriter, which one had to pound the keys on, hard). She hardly ever copied, though: she transcribed my Grandfather's words. She never looked at the keys, as she was watching the typed text to see when to start a new line. The advantage of touch typing in this case was that she could pay attention to the formatting. Often, the texts she typed were letters, with set formatting, style and whatnot.

Being able to look at the results, instead of the keys made her much faster - or so she told me. And speed was important, there were lots of text to type a day, and my Grandfather never slowed down, he was ruthless in this regard.

[iLLucionist]

Ever used an old typewriter? You really have to pound the keys (on some, the harder you pound the better looking the letter comes out) so the speed advantage of touch typing was minimal. Not to mention the focus was on accuracy, not speed, so not looking was probably frowned upon.

Quite the contrary.

Typewriters were used to copy documents (which doesn't make any sense with computers nowadays, but computers were people back in the day, not machines). In that case, touch typing allowed typists to focus on the source copy.

My Grandma was a typist, and I watched her work a lot (on an old typewriter, which one had to pound the keys on, hard). She hardly ever copied, though: she transcribed my Grandfather's words. She never looked at the keys, as she was watching the typed text to see when to start a new line. The advantage of touch typing in this case was that she could pay attention to the formatting. Often, the texts she typed were letters, with set formatting, style and whatnot.

Being able to look at the results, instead of the keys made her much faster - or so she told me. And speed was important, there were lots of text to type a day, and my Grandfather never slowed down, he was ruthless in this regard.

That's really interesting! How was his accuracy?

[algernon]

My Grandma was a typist, and I watched her work a lot (on an old typewriter, which one had to pound the keys on, hard). She hardly ever copied, though: she transcribed my Grandfather's words. She never looked at the keys, as she was watching the typed text to see when to start a new line. The advantage of touch typing in this case was that she could pay attention to the formatting. Often, the texts she typed were letters, with set formatting, style and whatnot.

Being able to look at the results, instead of the keys made her much faster - or so she told me. And speed was important, there were lots of text to type a day, and my Grandfather never slowed down, he was ruthless in this regard.

That's really interesting! How was his accuracy?

She had over 30 years of experience when I was born, about 10 more by the time I became interested in typing. I saw her correct a mistake of her own maybe once a day on a bad day. So pretty much 100%. But with 40+ years of experience, that's not all that surprising, in my opinion.

[iLLucionist]

My Grandma was a typist, and I watched her work a lot (on an old typewriter, which one had to pound the keys on, hard). She hardly ever copied, though: she transcribed my Grandfather's words. She never looked at the keys, as she was watching the typed text to see when to start a new line. The advantage of touch typing in this case was that she could pay attention to the formatting. Often, the texts she typed were letters, with set formatting, style and whatnot.

Being able to look at the results, instead of the keys made her much faster - or so she told me. And speed was important, there were lots of text to type a day, and my Grandfather never slowed down, he was ruthless in this regard.

That's really interesting! How was his accuracy?

She had over 30 years of experience when I was born, about 10 more by the time I became interested in typing. I saw her correct a mistake of her own maybe once a day on a bad day. So pretty much 100%. But with 40+ years of experience, that's not all that surprising, in my opinion.

That's pretty impressive! Because they're still humans after all, so you would expect them to make more mistakes. But I guess the training was all about avoiding mistakes.

[xtrafrood]

My Grandma was a typist, and I watched her work a lot (on an old typewriter, which one had to pound the keys on, hard). She hardly ever copied, though: she transcribed my Grandfather's words. She never looked at the keys, as she was watching the typed text to see when to start a new line. The advantage of touch typing in this case was that she could pay attention to the formatting. Often, the texts she typed were letters, with set formatting, style and whatnot.

Being able to look at the results, instead of the keys made her much faster - or so she told me. And speed was important, there were lots of text to type a day, and my Grandfather never slowed down, he was ruthless in this regard.

That's really interesting! How was his accuracy?

She had over 30 years of experience when I was born, about 10 more by the time I became interested in typing. I saw her correct a mistake of her own maybe once a day on a bad day. So pretty much 100%. But with 40+ years of experience, that's not all that surprising, in my opinion.

That's pretty impressive! Because they're still humans after all, so you would expect them to make more mistakes. But I guess the training was all about avoiding mistakes.

Good lord, it can be done! This might border on none of my business but, why did your Grandmother transcribe your Grandfather's words?

[algernon]

Good lord, it can be done! This might border on none of my business but, why did your Grandmother transcribe your Grandfather's words?

Transcribe may not have been the most appropriate word... My Grandfather dictated, Grandma typed it. Books, letters, lecture notes, reviews, and so on and so forth. Grandfather used to teach at a university (among other things), and there were tons of stuff he needed on paper.

[xtrafrood]

Good lord, it can be done! This might border on none of my business but, why did your Grandmother transcribe your Grandfather's words?

Transcribe may not have been the most appropriate word... My Grandfather dictated, Grandma typed it. Books, letters, lecture notes, reviews, and so on and so forth. Grandfather used to teach at a university (among other things), and there were tons of stuff he needed on paper.

Ah, well it was awesome of her to type all that out. I guess it was a different period of time. I couldn't do it, especially not on a typewriter!

[NewbieOneKenobi]

My grannie typed too. She told me about the training once. They basically showed them the typewriters, gave them some time, then blindfolded them, and that was it. But I can't recall anything specific about her speed or accuracy or if she had to look or not.