How was the order of the letters on the keyboard decided?

Question

How was the order of the letters on the keyboard decided?

Answer 1

There was almost no consideration on where the keys should be located on the keyboard. As you notice, the top row of keys can spell "typewriter", which is where the QWERTY style keyboard originated.

the Dvorak keyboard style is a style that actually had consideration to where the keys should be located. Read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simp...

Answer 2

I think it was determined for ease of typing based on their occurrence in words in the English language.  

Answer 3

It was set up originally on a typewriter, and the order of the letters was decided based on what was most likely to avoid 2 of the stamps jamming together.

Answer 4

The ordering of the letters was devised by Christopher Sholes, who developed the first commercially successful typewriter back in the 1870s.

His intention was to find a layout that wasn't prone to typebar jams; i.e. when the bars of the typewriter jam together if certain letters are typed in quick succession. This required a lot of trial and error.

The keyboard ordering was finally patented in 1878. This was the QWERTY layout we're familiar with today.

Later designs of typewriter were not susceptible to typebar jamming (and of course, computer keyboards and electric typewriters don't have typebars at all), but the ordering was kept, as by that time it had become standard.