Text File

Aucb.645 fa.editor-p utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!C70:editor-people Mon Mar 8 22:38:45 1982 Sholes keyboard -- the last word >From Guy.Steele@CMU-10A Mon Mar 8 16:50:10 1982 Q: "Why aren't the keys on a typewriter in alphabetical order?"

(Sunnie Lawrence, of Chino, California, wins a prize for this question.)

A: While Christopher L. Sholes was developing the first successful typewriter in 1868, he originally tried arranging the keys in alphabetical order. The long typebars in this early model fell back into place through the pull of gravity. If a typist tried typing too fast, the bars became tangled with each other. As a solution to this key-jamming problem, Sholes rearranged the keys so that the letters most often typed were as far apart from one another as possible. The pattern that resulted from this arrangement is still that of the standard typewriter keyboard.

(You can win an official JOHNNY WONDER Fun Flyer if your question is selected. Send your name and age to JOHNNY WONDER, c/o this newspaper, P.O.Box 1258, Santa Cruz, CA 95061.) ---------------------------------------------------------------- What better authority could you ask for than JOHNNY WONDER? --Guy

[editor's note: This seems like a good place to end the discussion of the history of the Sholes keyboard. I will continue to publish (reasonable) messages relating to editing with the Sholes keyboard, but further messages about its history per se will probably be filtered. /jq ]

----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/

This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided:

1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles.

2. The following notice remains appended to each copy:

The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.