History of keyboard design and evolution

Keyboard History

The origins of today's PC and laptop keyboards in the last two centuries can be traced back to the first typewriters and their various key formats. The first commercially available typewrite was produced by the E. Remington & Sons Arms Company as a side business to their well-known firearms and ammunitions business. The Remington Company marketed the first typewriter in 1874 after having purchased the patent of the typewriter, which was originally invented in 1867. Remington called the typewriter "The Sholes & Glidden Type Writer:" and it sold for $125. Originally developed for primarily supporting two-finger typing, the keyboard layout over time was seen as a limitation of the speed that touch-typists, who memorized key locations, could type. As a result of this limitation the QWERTY keyboard layout, in use today as the dominant standard, was developed (Peter Lewin, pp. 65-72)..

During the early 20th century the QWERTY keyboard continued to gain momentum with the mass production of typewriters. Dr. August Dvorak, an ergonomics professor from the University of Washington (Cassingham, R.C., pp. 12-16) completed an analysis of the English language to see which letters were most commonly used, and then designed an entirely different keyboard layout. He evangelized for a change from the QWERTY format, yet was unsuccessful in gaining widespread adoption due to the market dominance of QWERTY-based keyboards on all typewriters sold globally to the point of his invention.

With the pervasiveness of PCs and laptops there have been many variations on both the QWERTY and Dvorak standards, with Microsoft being the most successful with their ergonomically-designed series of keyboards that attempt to replicate the position of hands on the keyboard. The latest product introduction from Microsoft in this area was on September 15, 2005, when the company introduced their Model 4000 keyboard that has ergonomically designed palm rests, slanting sides to make the typing process more efficient, and a series of wireless controls for mice and remote keyboard placement.

Ergonomics vs. Efficiency