Letters on keyboards... why are they not in alphabetical order! abcdef instead of qwerty?

Question

so we got q next to w and w next to e and so on... qwertyuiop then

asdfghjkl and then zxcvbnm

why???? they didnt jumble up the numbers so why the alphabet????

who decided this should be the way!!!

Answer 1

nobody decided it, its just based on the letters you'll use more often

Answer 2

letters are grouped so that the most commonly typed words can be typed thus without moving the fingers to far.

imagine typing "THE" on a keyboard with an A-Z keyboard?

it wasn't always like this and keyboards have had different incarnations over the years.  

Answer 3

If you care to read this it will explain it fully plus all the key layouts for the world because different languages have different letters and accents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_la...

Answer 4

The QWERTY keyboard was developed because it maximizes typing efficiency in the early mechanical typewriters. It was found that this layout prevented the keys from jamming, which was a common problem on typewriters that used to use other layouts. There is also a Dvorak keyboard layout, which is designed with the same premise in mind; it was just never implemented fully on computers.  

Answer 5

Hmm, that's a good question.  I guess it has to do with the usage of the letters.  Example, Q is barely used, and therefore on the top left hand corner, pretty hard to reach (if you type "professionaly" with your index fingers on the letters "F" and "H").  Maybe that's why, but I'm sure the world wide web has a better explenation than I have :D.

Answer 6

use a little less  question and  exclamation marks will you  ?

i can read  

alright then history lesson  

before there were computers  (  yes there was such athing  )

aroudn the early 1900's 1910  or so  typewriters were new  mechnical type writers even  

each letter the typewriter hit corosponded to a  mechnical hammer  being lifted up  and  slamming against the ink ribbon  producing a  print of the  letter  

however  the first typewriters  did  use a normal alphabetical  layout  the typewriters  were  clanging their keyboards so fast they regularly jammed  the  typewriters up   so eventually  it was decided to jumble the keys up to slow the typewriters down  

this  qwerty layout has since then become standerdised and its not actually slowing anybody down any more   now is it  ?

now if this is the truth or just a good story i am not sure

all the other  awnsers are just as  valid though im not so sure about the  most used letters  claim  

if thats the  case  the  A should be next to the E  along with the S

but qwuartsy  doesnt sound right

wikipedia is  your friend eh  ?

Answer 7

A guy named Qwerty took all the letters you used most,and put them in home row. Then the less used ones are on the top and bottom rows.

Answer 8

was the research right though? I find that i use certain areas of the keyboard more and am sure that i could get to pretty much any formulation.

Answer 9

Its based on the research on the fastest way to input while using both hands.

Answer 10

Because the letters on the keyboard have the most common letters spaced out so you aren't always using one side of the keyboard. Try typing yourself right now... you use both halves evenly don't you?

Answer 11

Because that was the most efficient way and by the time they figured out a better one, everyone was used to the qwerty keyboards. If you would like to read a bit more go to http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWER...

Hope I could help.  

Answer 12

It's called the QWERTY keyboard,it's carried over from the type writer

Answer 13

On old typewriters the printing arms or typebars would hit each other when arranged in alphabetical order , a guy called Richard Scholes invened the QWERTY process th eliminate typebars clashing,

Wow, where did that come from..?