When we mention the word "computer", we usually have a certain conceptual impression in our minds: a monitor, a case, a keyboard, and a mouse with a long cord. . As one of the standard devices for computer text input, the keyboard has been accompanying the development of computers for decades. However, the keyboard whose keys are sorted into "QWERTY" that is widely used today dates back decades.
As early as the early 18th century, people began to develop typewriters in order to obtain clearer text and faster writing speed. The earliest typewriter patent that can be verified was applied by Englishman Henry Mill in 1714. At that time, his typewriter could only produce uppercase letters. It was not until the mid-to-late 19th century that typewriters slowly became popular. It was during that period that various types of typewriters began to flood the market.
There is a huge difference between the keyboard input method and our traditional manual input method. When people learn to use a typewriter, they need to put in a certain amount of effort and time to memorize the key layout, thereby improving their typing speed. , which is the so-called "learning cost". For typewriters, the more familiar a certain key layout is, the higher the switching cost to a different key layout. It may not be obvious for a simple keyboard. For example, the order of numbers on a mobile phone keyboard and a computer numeric keypad is reversed, but few people feel uncomfortable because of this difference in arrangement. But for a complex typewriter keyboard with twenty-six letters and nearly ten symbols, this switching cost becomes considerable.
From this point of view, in order to reduce the cost of switching between different key layouts for typewriter users as much as possible, there are only two ways: standardizing the key layout of typewriters; or production can change the keyboard arbitrarily Sequential typewriter. Relatively speaking, the latter may be easier. In 1868, American typesetter Christopher Latham Sholes patented a typewriter model and obtained the rights to operate it. A few years later, he designed the keyboard layout that is still used today, the "QWERTY" keyboard. The basic principle of this keyboard is to drive a long rod through the keys. The long rod carries a hammer. The hammer hits the paper through the colored tape, leaving dark letter marks, like stamping on the paper. The same chapter.
At the beginning, Shores installed the keyboard alphabetical keys in alphabetical order, that is, the alphabetical order in the upper left corner of the keyboard was "ABCDEF". But he soon discovered that when the typist typed a little faster, the long rods and hammers of two adjacent letters might get stuck together, causing a "key jam" failure. It is said that in order to solve this problem, Shores asked his brother-in-law, a mathematician and school teacher, for help. The mathematician suggested that he avoid glitches by separating the most commonly used letters of the English alphabet from the keyboard. Shores happily adopted his brother-in-law's solution, haphazardly arranging the letters into a "QWERTY" layout. Sholes told the public that this arrangement of letters on the typewriter keyboard was the most scientific and could speed up typing.
However, an authority on the history of the British typewriter now considers it "one of the greatest frauds of all time." Wilfred A. Beecher, director of the British Typewriter Museum and author of "The Typewriter Century," claimed that "this so-called 'scientific arrangement' to reduce the distance the fingers move is a complete lie." Any random arrangement of letters will be more reasonable than the current arrangement." In 1873, Remington purchased the patent and began commercial production of typewriters. Due to the economic downturn of the 1870s, the $125 office equipment came to market at a bad time. In 1878, when Remington introduced the improved Type II of this typewriter, the company was already on the verge of bankruptcy. Therefore, although sales began to rise slowly, with annual output of typewriters rising to 1,200 units in 1881, the "QWERTY" typewriters were far from gaining a solid market position in their early development.
In the 10 years of the 1880s, the total number of "QWERTY" layout typewriters in the United States did not exceed 5,000, including some that were transformed into "QWERTY" layout typewriters by replacing the hammers. The typewriter invented by Lucien Stephen Crandall in 1879 placed the hammer on a cylindrical sleeve, thus completely avoiding the key jam problem. The Blickensderfer typewriter that appeared later was more careful in the arrangement of the keyboard. The "Ideal" keyboard they launched placed the letters that make up 70% of English words in the order of "D0HIATENSOR" on the reference line of the typewriter (that is, the middle row of three rows of letter keys). ).
In the 1880s, the typewriter market began to boom, and many keyboards appeared to compete with QWERTY keyboards. However, just when the technical principle advantages of the "QWERTY" layout were about to be replaced by advances in typewriter engineering, the American typewriter industry quickly shifted to the "QWERTY" layout, making it the "universal keyboard" for typewriters. In this process, the event considered to play a key role was a typing competition held in Cincinnati, USA, on July 25, 1888. During the competition, Frank McGurrin, a court stenographer from Salt Lake City, used a "QWERTY" layout typewriter and a touch typing method to win the championship and a $500 bonus with an absolute advantage. Mercurie was apparently the first person to memorize this keyboard and type blindly. This event established the perception that Remington typewriters were technologically more advanced. Mercurie's choice of a Remington typewriter may have been arbitrary, but it contributed to the establishment of this standard.
Historical accidents thus determined the layout of the keyboard. The typewriter keyboard layout was inherited into computer keyboards, becoming the standard keyboard layout we still use today. In 1936, August Dvorak invented a new keyboard layout, the "Dvorak Simplified Keyboard", and applied for a patent in order to enable his left and right hands to type more words alternately. He claims this key layout shortens the training period and significantly increases typing speed. There are three principles for DSK layout: try to hit alternately with left and right hands to avoid single-handed combos; the average movement distance of keystrokes across rows is the smallest; and the most commonly used letters should be placed at the leading keys (that is, the keys where the index fingers of both hands are placed). A subsequent experiment conducted by the U.S. Navy during World War II confirmed that "the cost of retraining a group of typists would be more than offset by the increased efficiency of using the DSK during the subsequent ten days of full-time work." Despite these advantages, Until Dvorak's death in 1975, the DSK keyboard was not accepted by the market. Although soon after, the Apple II computer switched from the "QWERTY" layout to the DSK, and commercial advertisements were used to persuade people to abandon the QWERTY keyboard, this approach obviously had no effect.
There are also some doubts about DSK. Economists S. J. Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis believe that the evidence supporting the argument that DSK is better is not only scant, but mainly speculation. At present, there are two key arguments supporting the superiority of DSK. One is Dvorak's own opinion, and the other is an experiment conducted by the Navy Department. Dvorak's idea comes from an experiment he conducted with several collaborators: he and his collaborators compared typing speeds obtained in four different and completely independent experiments. One of the experiments tested the typing speed of DSK, and the other three tested the typing speed of the "QWERTY" layout keyboard. The experimenters claimed that these studies demonstrated that students learned DSK faster than "QWERTY" keyboard layout. But Liebowitz and Margolis believed that the samples used in these experiments were too diverse (the participants in four experiments were students of different ages and abilities) and did not explain how the samples were selected (random sample or all students). Moreover, since one of the conductors of the experiment was the inventor of the Dvorak keyboard, the credibility of the experimental results is very low.
In this way, the Admiralty experiment mentioned by David is very critical to the argument of whether DSK is superior. The Navy study concluded that training typists on a DSK was much more effective than using a "QWERTY" layout keyboard. However, Liebowitz and Margolis pointed out that there were many problems with the design of this experiment.
For example, do these results apply to typists with normal skills, or do they hold true for typists with below-normal skills? To what extent does the Navy study underestimate the value of added QWERTY retraining due to inconsistent measurement? Did the two experimental groups receive the same training? etc. They believed that the Admiralty's experimental research may have been biased because nearly every aspect of the experiment favored Dvorak. Dvorak served as the Navy's chief expert in analyzing time and motion during World War II. Naval experiments in 1944 and some Treasury experiments in 1946 were conducted under his direction. Dvorak, meanwhile, held a patent on DSK and received $130,000 from the Carnegie Board of Education for conducting these studies.
Some domestic supporters of DSK claim that DSK not only has advantages in inputting English, but also has advantages over "QWERTY" layout keyboards in inputting Chinese. If readers want to try DSK, support for it is already built into the Windows operating system. For Windows XP users, you can open "Control Panel → Keyboard", enter the "Input Method Regional Settings" tab, then click the "Add" button and set the "Input Method Regional Settings" to "English (United States)". And find "US English-DVORAK" in the "Keyboard Layout/Input Method" column. After confirmation, you can switch between two different key layouts.
In addition, Lillian Malt invented the MALT keyboard named after herself, allowing the thumb to be used more than just hitting "space" ( Space) key. This keyboard makes the Backspace key and other keys that are normally far away from the center of the keyboard easier to reach. But this keyboard, like DSK, is not widely used.
Whether it is a "QWERTY" layout keyboard or DSK, the key sequence has been modified, but other aspects have not been involved. For example, no matter which keyboard mentioned above, the force used when hitting any letter or numeric key is basically the same, and most of the keyboards maintain a flat shape, with no significant three-dimensional structure. improvements.
However, with the widespread popularity of computers, people's use of keyboards began to increase rapidly. At this stage, the number of keystrokes, reliability and comfort of the keyboard have gradually become the focus of research and development by manufacturers.