The computer keyboard is a channel for inputting control information of text information into the computer. It evolved from the English typewriter keyboard. When it first appeared on computers, it was a component called a "teletypewriter."
The history of the keyboard
The inventor of the QWERTY keyboard--Shores
The keyboard is very long. As early as 1714, there were successively invented keyboards in the United Kingdom, the United States, and the United States. People from France, Italy, Switzerland and other countries invented various forms of typewriters. The earliest keyboards were used on typewriters whose technology was not yet mature at that time. It was not until 1868 that the American Christopher Latham Sholes, the "father of the typewriter", obtained a patent for the typewriter model and obtained the operating rights. A few years later, he designed a practical version of the modern typewriter. Form and standardized the keyboard for the first time, now known as the "QWERTY" keyboard.
Why should the keyboard be standardized into the current "QWERTY" keyboard key layout? This is because originally, the keyboard of the typewriter was arranged in alphabetical order, and the typewriter was a fully mechanical typing tool. Therefore, if the typing speed was too fast, certain key combinations were prone to jamming problems, so Christopher Christopher Latham Sholes invented the QWERTY keyboard layout. He placed the most commonly used letters in opposite directions to slow down typing as much as possible to avoid key jams. Shores applied for a patent in 1868, and the first commercial typewriter using this layout was successfully put on the market in 1873. That's why keyboards are arranged the way they are today.
QWERTY keyboard key layout is very inefficient. For example: Most typists are right-handed, but when using a QWERTY keyboard, the left hand does 57% of the work. The two little fingers and the left ring finger are the weakest fingers, but they are used frequently. The usage rate of the letters in the middle column only accounts for about 30% of the entire typing work. Therefore, in order to type a word, you often have to move your fingers up and down.
In 1888, a public typing competition was held across the United States. Court stenographer Magalin demonstrated his touch typing skills according to a clear division of fingering, with only three out of 10,000 errors, which surprised everyone present. According to records, Magalin Galin's bonus was 0 yuan. Since then, many people have imitated this kind of touch typing, and schools specializing in training typists have begun to appear in the United States.
Due to the emergence of touch typing technology, the keystroke speed was enough to meet the needs of daily work. However, 60 years later (1934), a man named Dvorak in Washington artificially made it possible to alternate between left and right hands. By typing more words and inventing a new arrangement method, this keyboard can shorten the training cycle by 1/2 and increase the average speed by 35%. The principles of DVORAK keyboard layout are: 1. Try to hit alternately with left and right hands to avoid single-handed combos; 2. The average moving distance of keystrokes across rows is the smallest; 3. The most commonly used letters should be placed in the leading key position.
More reasonable and efficient than the DUORAK keyboard is the MALT keyboard invented by Lillian Malt. It changes the original staggered rows of keys and allows more thumb use, making the "Backspace" key and other keys that are originally far away from the center of the keyboard easier to reach. However, MALT keyboards require special hardware to be installed on computers, so they are not widely used.
By the mid-20th century, the keyboard had another use - as the basic input device for computers. On the other hand, to this day, the "QWERTY" keyboard is still the most commonly used keyboard layout. This is a very typical example of "an inferior product defeats an advantageous product".
IT Personality Biography: QWERTY Keyboard Inventor--Shores
Today, the most commonly used input devices for personal computers are keyboard and mouse.
The universal 101-key or 102-key keyboard is named according to the arrangement of English letters and is called a QWERTY keyboard.
There is no doubt that it was "born out" of the English typewriter. Bill Gates once used this keyboard to illustrate what a "de facto" standard is: "The order of letters on English typewriters and computer keyboards is QWER?TY. There is no law saying that they must be arranged this way. But they do. Effectively, most users will stick to this standard. Interestingly, this arrangement is not a reasonable layout.
The inventor of the QWERTY keyboard is Christopher Sholes (C. Sholes), who lived during the American Civil War in the 19th century and was the editor of the "Milwaukee News". With the assistance of his friend Saul, Shores developed a page numbering machine and obtained a patent for the invention. Glidden, a colleague at the newspaper office, suggested that he further develop the typewriter on this basis and found him experimental data from the British.
After years of hard work by Shores and two partners, in 1860, they made a prototype of the typewriter. However, Shores discovered to his dismay that his machine would not work properly if he typed even slightly faster. As a rule, Shores arranged the 26 English letters on the keyboard in the order of ABCDEF. In order to make the typed words one by one, the keys should not be too far apart. In this case, as long as the finger movement is slightly faster, the metal rods connecting the keys will interfere with each other. In order to overcome the interference phenomenon, Shores rearranged the positions of the letter keys, placing commonly used letters as far apart as possible to extend the finger movement process.
The abnormal thinking method turned out to be successful. Sholes excitedly typed a line of letters: "The first blessing, dedicated to all men, and especially to all ladies." Sholes "especially" dedicated his invention to women. He wanted to They created an unprecedented new profession - "typist". On June 23, 1868, the U.S. Patent Office officially accepted the typewriter invention patent jointly registered by Shores, Glidden, and Saul.
From today's perspective, the keyboard letter arrangement invented by Shores has too many shortcomings. For example, 8 of the 10 most commonly used letters in English are too far away from the prescribed finger position, which is not conducive to improving typing speed; in addition, there are too many letters on the keyboard that need to be typed with the left hand, because most people are "right-handed" "zi", so it is very awkward to use. Someone once made statistics that using a QWERTY keyboard, a skilled typist's fingers can move up to 25.7 kilometers in 8 hours. However, QWERTY remains the "de facto" standard for computer keyboards today. Although A. Dvorak, a professor at the University of Washington, designed the DVORAK keyboard with a more scientific key arrangement in 1932, it never became popular. The mouse was invented by American scientist Douglas Engelbart in 1964. Professor Negroponte wrote in "Digital Survival": "He originally designed the mouse to point to files, not to draw. But this invention has been passed down and can be seen everywhere today."
Well Gerbart was an outstanding thinker, inventor and computer pioneer. He wrote 25 books in his life and held more than 20 invention patents. He has made genius predictions and proposed theoretical frameworks in many fields such as hypertext and hypermedia systems, human-computer interaction and network technology. He spent his whole life trying to develop a computer that would increase intelligence for mankind, and the mouse was just a small invention that came with it.
Engelbart served as a ship radar technician during World War II and received a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, after the war. He often imagined that computers could display graphics like radar and control operations through joysticks. In 1964, with funding from the Defense Department's Advanced Planning and Research Agency (ARPA), Engelbart established an "Amplification Research Center" to realize his dream. In 1968, at the American Autumn Computer Conference, Engelbart demonstrated his new invention to the attendees: using a keyboard, a monitor, and a crude mouse to remotely operate a crude large computer 25 kilometers away. It caused a great sensation among those who still used punched cards for output.
The casing of Engelbart's prototype mouse was delicately carved from wood and had only one button instead of three like modern mice. A metal roller is installed at the bottom to control the movement of the cursor. When the patent was issued in 1970, the name of this little device was "Display System X-Y Position Indicator." Some people in the United States joke that only men would think of calling it a "mouse" because in American slang, "mouse" also means "girlfriend."
In 1972, Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) developed the "Alto" microcomputer with a graphical interface. Among the developers, there were those who "jumped" from Engelbart's laboratory. Man, they configured the mouse on this computer as a convenient graphics control device. In 1983, Apple followed suit by equipping their first mouse on the "Lisa" microcomputer. Since then, the mouse has gradually become an essential input device for personal computers.