What is the reason behind the QWERTY keyboards?

type_qwertyWith old typewriters, if two adjacent letters were pressed in quick succession, there was a very good chance that the lever arms which stamp the ink on the page would jam. As such, they developed a keyboard (the QWERTY) that spread out the most used letters to prevent such jamming.

When computer keyboards were first becoming a thing, they kept the layout because it was what all the typists were familiar with.

AZERTY was pretty much the same thing, but just for other countries (and was in fact modeled off the QWERTY layout).

This was originally published at Reddit (source). Stock image credit to Pixabay.



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