Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!howland.erols.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.enteract.com!news.enteract.com!not-for-mail From: Eric Fischer Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: The logic behind the QWERTY keyboard Date: 26 Sep 2000 06:18:34 GMT Organization: EnterAct Corp Turbo-Elite News Server Lines: 82 Message-ID: <8qpf3q$2s5u$1@news.enteract.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: shell-1.enteract.com X-Trace: news.enteract.com 969949114 94398 207.229.143.40 (26 Sep 2000 06:18:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@enteract.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 26 Sep 2000 06:18:34 GMT X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) Originator: enf@enteract.com (Eric Fischer) Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu alt.folklore.computers:221393 Several days ago in this newsgroup I speculated that the QWERTY keyboard might have been better suited to the circular type basket of the original Sholes typewriter than to the half-circle of type used on most later typewriters. Today in the mail I received copies of ETCetera: the Newsletter of the Early Typewriter Collectors Assocation, and in issue 6, dated February, 1989, Richard E. Dickerson puts forth a similar theory, but with much better data to support it. The article is "Did Sholes and Densmore Know What They Were Doing When They Designed Their Keyboard?", pp. 6-9. To begin with, I had the order of characters in the type basket upside down. He gives the correct arrangement: FVGBHNJ CDX -K- ZS L- A M - - - - - - Q P -W O- -E- -I- R-T-Y-U He goes on to plot the frequency with which various digraphs appear in English text against the number of typebars by which each the two letters of each pair are separated from each other in the type circle. I can only approximate the graph here, but it looks something like this: 10,000 | TH | | 9,000 | | | 8,000 | HE | IN | 7,000 | | | 6,000 | | RE,ER | 5,000 | AN ON | AT | 4,000 | TE ND OR | TI ES ST | AR AL OF IS 3,000 | IT SE ED LE NT | IO NG TO RO | AS OU RA DE VE ME 2,000 LL | | 1,000 | | | 0 +------------------------------------------------ 0 5 10 15 20 He considers this evidence that, with the exception of RE and ER, the designers of the QWERTY keyboard succeeded in placing the most commonly used digraphs as far apart as possible. Teletype fans will also be interested in Issue 8, August, 1989. The cover story, "An 'Electric' Blicksenderfer?" has a photo of what must have been an early Morkrum prototype, from the days when they were still experimenting with rebuilding standard typewriters into teleprinters. Information about ordering back issues of ETCetera can be found at http://www.typewriter.org/ eric