rcj (04/29/83)
Would like to clarify the previous article in which the author stated that the current keyboard layout was set up that way because the most frequently used keys tended to jam. It WAS correct, and the reason that the keys jammed WAS because they were mechanical, but a better explanation is that the typists on the original Linotype machines could type faster than the machine could react!!! Therefore the wierd layout -- an interesting example of workers being too productive for their own good!-- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3814 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ floyd sb1 mhuxv ]!burl!rcj
hansen (05/05/83)
Relay-Version:version B 3/9/83; site harpo.UUCP
Message-ID:<1412@hplabs.UUCP>
Date:Thu, 5-May-83 10:53:39 EDT
Linotype machines do not have the awful QWERTY keyboard, and never did.
Good old Ottmar Mergenthaler designed the keyboard to have the most
heavily used letters on the upper left of the keyboard arra, with
lower case letters on the left, upper case in the center, and
special characters on the right. It takes quite a while for the
matrices (little pieces of brass exactly the width of the character,
with the character embossed in it) to travel from the top of the machine
in little hoppers, down a long chute, and get registered into a line,
but the whole process is pipelined. Having a consistent typing rhythm
probably helped though.
For the more pictorially-minded, the keyboard was arranged something like:
e s x x x E S X X X
t h x x x T H X X X
a r x x x A R X X X (and special
i d x x x I D X X X characters over here...)
o l x x x O L X X X
n u x x x N U X X X
Has anyone ever seen a few lines of "etaionshrdlu etaionshrdlu" in the
middle of newspaper articles? It's produced by running one's fingers
down the first two rows of the Linotype machine.
That QWERTY layout sure does keep those electrons from jamming up
in my keyboard....
Craig Hansen
HP Labs