1.QWERTY keyboard is to slow down typing.
At first, the keyboards of typewriters were arranged alphabetically, but if the typing speed is too fast, some key combinations are prone to key sticking problems, so Christopher? Larson? Christopher latham Shoals invented the QWERTY keyboard layout. He put the most commonly used letters in the opposite direction, so as to slow down the typing speed to the maximum extent and avoid getting stuck. Grant applied for a patent in 1868, and the first commercial typewriter with this layout was successfully put on the market in 1873. This is why there is today's keyboard arrangement.
Ironically, this keyboard arrangement, which was formed 29 years ago to slow down typing, has continued to this day. 1986 Bruce? Sir Buryvein once said in the article "Wonderful Writing Machine": "The arrangement of QWERTY is very inefficient." For example, most typists are right-handed, but on QWERTY, the left hand does 57% of the work. The two little fingers and the ring finger of the left hand are the weakest fingers, but they are used frequently. The utilization rate of letters in the middle column only accounts for about 30% of the whole typing workload, so in order to type a word, you often have to move your fingers up and down.
2.DUORAK keyboard is much faster than QWERTY keyboard.
Augst in 1930？ August dvorak invented an advanced Dolak keyboard system, in which nine most commonly used letters are listed on the keyboard. This design enables typists to type at least 3000 words without leaving the keyboard. QWERTY can only do 50 words. DUORAK reduces work intensity and improves work efficiency by reducing finger movement. With DUORAK, the typist's fingers move an average of 65,438+0 miles a day, while QWERTY moves 65,438+02 to 20 miles.
During World War II, Augst? Dolak once assembled 14 naval typists to practice Dolak. 1 month later, their speed increased by an astonishing 68%. Dolak keyboard allows the right hand to undertake 56% of the work; The most powerful finger has the largest workload; 70% typing is done in the middle column, without finger. But at that time, it coincided with the Second World War, and the war materials were scarce. This new keyboard was discontinued without asking the market.
Try the DUORAK keyboard yourself!
Windows built-in support for it. Open the control panel → keyboard, enter the input method regional setting tab, click the Add button, set the input method regional to English (USA), and find "American English -DUORAK" in the keyboard layout/input method column. Upon confirmation, all key positions have been changed. Now you have capital to improve your English typing speed. Of course, it will take time to re-adapt to the new system and train patiently to succeed.
3. A more advanced malt keyboard
Further than Dolak is Li Lian? The malt keyboard invented by Lillian Malt. It changes the original staggered rows of character keys, makes the thumb easier to use, and makes the keys such as backspace, which were far away from the center of the keyboard, easier to reach. But the malt keyboard needs special hardware to be installed on the computer, so it has not been widely used.
There is also the following statement
The computer keyboard evolved from the English typewriter keyboard. When it first appeared on the computer, it appeared as a component called "teletypewriter".
Tape typewriters and card typewriters
In fact, keyboards appeared on computer accessories earlier than teletypewriters. In the era when computers can still occupy a hall, the main computer input devices are punched paper tape and punched cards. Of course, these paper tapes and cards can't be worn out bit by bit by hand. They are worn by special "paper tape punch" and "card punch", and both machines also have an electric typewriter as an input device. Relatively speaking, these two devices are not part of the computer, which is different from teletypewriter, so we don't regard them as part of the history of computer keyboard development.
Before the keyboard+display input and output device appeared, "teletypewriter" was the main interactive input and output device of computer. You can think of it as a printer with a keyboard, and the text input by the user and the result output by the computer will be printed on the printout port in front of the keyboard.
Teletypewriter is the most important computer interactive input and output equipment in the era of main computer and small computer. After the mid-1970s, with the maturity of display design, teletypewriter gradually withdrew from the computer world, and the keyboard became an independent device.
The keyboard of "teletypewriter" is not as multi-key and full-featured as today's computer keyboard. In fact, it is similar to a full-size typewriter keyboard, and there is a mechanical key structure under bakelite plastic. This design was also inherited by early computer keyboards.
In this period, due to the small size of personal computers, the popular design is to make the keyboard directly on the mainframe, and the famous APPLEII series computers are such a structure. However, as IBM PC began to introduce the huge hard disk into personal computers at that time, in the mid-1980s, the independent keyboard became the mainstream design.
The early keyboards were almost all mechanical keyboards, to be exact, mechanical contact keyboards, with electrical contacts as the symbol and mechanical metal springs as the elastic mechanism. This kind of keyboard felt hard, the key length and the key resistance changed quickly and brittle, which was very close to the touch of typewriter keyboard and was very popular at that time. Up to now, quite a few people still miss the touch of this keyboard.
However, the two biggest disadvantages of mechanical contact keyboard are that the mechanical spring is easy to be damaged, and the electrical contact will be oxidized after long-term use, resulting in the failure of keys. Therefore, after 1990s, the mechanical touch keyboard gradually withdrew from the historical stage.
At first, it was replaced by electromagnetic mechanical keyboard. Electromagnetic mechanical keyboard is still a mechanical keyboard, but different from mechanical contact keyboard, it does not rely on mechanical force to connect two electrical contacts, but closes the electrical contacts in a micro potentiometer, places a magnet under the keys, and connects the current through magnetic force.
Compared with the mechanical contact keyboard, the electromagnetic mechanical keyboard has a much longer service life, but it still failed to solve the problem that the mechanical moving part of the mechanical keyboard is easy to be damaged, so the electromagnetic mechanical keyboard did not survive in the market for long, and was quickly replaced by the non-contact keyboard that appeared in the late 1980s.
Therefore, the non-contact keyboard is different from the previous "contact keyboard". Different from the "touch keyboard", they don't rely on the mechanical communication of conductive contacts to obtain the key signal, but rely on the change of the electrical parameters of the key itself to obtain the key signal. Because there is no need for mechanical contact of contacts, its service life can be much stronger.
The main non-contact keyboards are resistive keyboards and capacitive keyboards. Among them, capacitive keyboard is more widely used because of its simpler process, lower cost. Compared with the mechanical keyboard, its two biggest features are that it replaces the mechanical metal spring with a spring made of elastic rubber, and at the same time, it changes the electrical communication of the mechanical keyboard to obtain the key signal through the capacitance change caused by the distance change between the key bottom and the two capacitor plates at the bottom of the keyboard.
Compared with the mechanical keyboard, the touch of the capacitive keyboard changes greatly and becomes soft and flexible. This feel has continued to this day and has become the mainstream design feel of keyboards at present, which is why many articles say that the current keyboards are all capacitive keyboards, but in fact, this feel does not come from the capacitive structure but from the replacement of mechanical metal springs by rubber springs, which is not the reason why capacitive keyboards are capacitive keyboards.
Due to the principle of capacitive keyboard, each key must be made into an independent closed structure, and such a keyboard is also classified as a "closed keyboard".
For most keyboard articles, capacitive keyboards have come to an end, but in fact, their mistakes are also here. Why? Let's sell a key here first, and then continue when it comes to the structure of the keyboard.
Key position design of keyboard
The key position design of a keyboard includes two concepts, one is the design of main English and numeric keys, and the other is the design of various auxiliary keys.
The most common English and digital design scheme is the commonly known "QWERTY" Cody keyboard. This is a key scheme invented by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1868.
As we all know, the main design purpose of Huang Fengying keyboard is to make the keystroke speed not too fast. However, there is a small mistake in many articles, that is, the key position of Cody's keyboard is not designed to "make the keystroke speed not too fast, so as not to get stuck", but to "try to improve the typing speed without getting stuck".
There is a subtle difference between these two statements, that is to say, reducing typing speed is not the ultimate goal, and QWERTY keyboard is not blindly reducing speed. Although it has a speed-down design, it puts a common combination like ED on one finger, but there are also many acceleration combination keys like er.
In fact, the fundamental reason for this design lies in the structure of mechanical typewriter. The structure of the I-bar determines that when two closely spaced types are pressed at the same time, they will get stuck, while the two far apart types will not have the same problem. I believe that people who have experience in using English typewriters should have some experience.