Why isn't the keyboard alphabetized?

Question

who decided to make it random and not alphabetized?

why does it have to be Alphanumeric keyboard

Answer 1

Yep, BBrother and Flare are correct, they call the keyboards Qwerty keyboards, after the Q, W, well, you get the idea.  

Answer 2

cause on a typewriter back in the day, keys would stick if pressed close together so they randomly spread them apart

Answer 3

Here's a little more about this oddity:

As stated, way back when, there was a lot of thought that went into the arrangement of letters.  Although some models of keyboards were alphabetic, there were a lot of jams with typewriters back in the late 1800's.  Hence, the QWERTY layout was designed for a few reasons:

1) Slow people down while typing

2) Try and encourage keystrokes with alternating hands (left hand, right hand, left hand, right hand, etc)

3) As a sales-pitch, the word "TYPEWRITER" could be written on a single row of keys, without moving fingers off the row.

As typewriters technology improved, and with the advent of electric typewriters, the keyboard layout was expected to change-- many people suffered from finger fatigue, as they had to press quite hard on the keys, and often were forced to use their weaker fingers.  The Dvorak keyboard was designed with this in mind to replace the QWERTY keyboard, but unfortunately never quite caught on.

Dvorak's keyboard again focused on alternating hands, but also attempted to put commonly used letters on the home row (the lower row is the most difficult to access, generally), and underneath the strongest fingers.  If we all learned Dvorak, chances are people who touch-type would be considerably faster, and suffer from less fatigue.

DaveE

Answer 4

Typewriters originally had a circular array bars that all struck the same center point, but when typists went faster and struck two keys next to each other the bars would jam together. The randomized design is such that any two keys are almost never pressed next to each other to minimize jamming

Answer 5

The reason that they randomized the keyboard is because when it was in order, typists would type so fast that the old typewriters would have problems keeping up and they would break the hammers on them.

Therefore they randomized the letters to slow them down and stop breaking the typewriters.

There is no particular pattern, it's just random. Now it's a standard format, but there is no pattern to it.  

Answer 6

My computer teacher told me this story.

QWERTY(random) keyboards have been around since the day of manual typewriters. Originally, keyboards on typewriters were alphabetical. Since some of the most used letters were right next to each other, the typewriters jammed a lot so a new system had to be invented to slow people down. the whole reason for today's keyboard was to slow people down so that the typewriters didn't jam. That keyboard became standard pattern, so it has been left that way since then. There is a pattern on it. you'll notice that E and D are next to each other so that you can still type somewhat fast. It is all a complicated pattern to make everything work better together.

Hope I helped,

Hoot ;)

Answer 7

Chuck Norris decided how to arrange the letters on the keyboard. No one dared to argue.