Why are keyboards not in alphabetical order?

India
December 20, 2006 1:16pm CST
I tried thinkg over this one but can't figure it out! Do you know the reason?
2 responses
@maryannemax (12156)
• Sweden
20 Dec 06
i've been wondering about it, too. but i am glad i can type without looking at it. my highschool typing lessons helped a lot. it's so useful for me these days.
@gscs1838 (1536)
• Malaysia
20 Dec 06
the keyboard arrangement that we have (QWERTY) was designed based on letter frequency in english so that a typist would be less likely to hit two adjacent keys in quick succession and thus jam the type bars on a mechanical typewriter. the arrangement was actually designed to slow the typist down (or rather to attempt to make the typing speed more even). of course, when typists came to use computers they required the key arrangement which they are used to. different arrangements are used for other languages since the letter frequencies are different