My letter is in response to Drew Harris’ column in Monday’s paper. He begins his article by questioning why the letters on the keyboard are arranged in the way they are.

I realize that he was trying to make a point about things that are odd. At risk of sounding like someone with even more time on his hands than the author, there is a reason for the modern day key arrangement.

Back in 1867 when the typewriter was invented, the keys were in alphabetical order. This arrangement was easy to use, but it was not so easy for the machines.

Due to the nature of these early machines, rapid typing often caused the type bars to become jammed because they couldn’t return fast enough.

To counteract these occurrences, the makers of typewriters formulated a layout in the 1870’s which spaced the most commonly used letters of the English language apart.

This system was known as the “qwerty” layout, the same layout we use today. People became used to this setup, and it just stuck. It’s kind of annoying to think that the keyboards we use today are still set up in a way that was designed with the original purpose of making people type slower!

Another odd facet of the “qwerty” method is all of the letters which spell “typewriter” fall in the top row. Some believe that this was to aid typewriter salespeople in looking impressive to potential buyers when demonstrating their machines.

I realize that this is not a vital piece of information, but I just thought it was kind of interesting. Who knows, maybe my letter will help Drew sleep better at night, now that he knows the reasons why. Oh well, just a thought.

Dan Bullard

Freshman

Pre-Engineering