The thralls of qwerty

I was going to call this post 'The tyranny of qwerty', but it's the other way round. Qwerty does not demand our obeisance, we abase ourselves voluntarily. It's called the network effect.

A bit of history here. The mechanical typewriter was invented many decades ago in early 1873. The early typewriter's main problem was that experienced typists would type too fast, and the keys would get jammed, resulting in delay and, often, damage, the keys being relatively delicate. So, the design of the keys was changed, and instead of an intuitive alphabetical order, the keys were now placed so that adjacent keys were less likely to be hit one after the other, and so reduce the chance of expensive jamming and warranty repairs.

While wikipedia says on the qwerty page that the idea was not to slow typists down, but to prevent key jamming, it becomes clear enough that the way to prevent key jamming was to, er, slow them down. Witness:

There are three rows on which letters occur. The finger with the second least force, the left middle finger (yes, I know there are lefties in the world, but bear with me for a bit), gets the most popular letter in English: E. That, too, not on the home row, but you have to move your hand to the upper row. At the time the typewriter was invented, Y and N didn't have the extra boost that computer input devices demand of us today, and the letters most common were E T A O I N S H R D L U. So, where are these placed? T is on the left hand, too, not only on the upper row, but one step sideways. A gets the left little finger, next only in puniness to the middle one. O is the reluctant ring finger on the right, and I the middle one, both, again, not on the base row. N is below and offset, and probably the most difficult one to locate for a beginner. S is on the left side, too, with the middle finger. H is offset. R is left and upper row. D gets the left middle finger, and L the right ring finger.

What does the powerful index finger on the right hand get? J. Y (not so popular in those days).

Seriously, I know the intent was to prevent keys from jamming. The method, whatever wikipedia says, was to slow people down. Again from wikipedia:

Alternating hands while typing is a desirable trait in a keyboard design, since while one hand is typing a letter, the other hand can get in position to type the next letter. Thus, a typist may fall into a steady rhythm and type quickly. However, when a string of letters is done with the same hand, the chances of stuttering are increased and a rhythm can be broken, thus decreasing speed and increasing errors and fatigue. In the QWERTY layout many more words can be spelled using only the left hand than the right hand. In fact, thousands of English words can be spelled using only the left hand, while only a couple of hundred words can be typed using only the right hand. In addition, most typing strokes are done with the left hand in the QWERTY layout. This is helpful for left-handed people but to the disadvantage of right-handed people.

OK, lefties?

So why do we still use qwerty, when people can touch-type on keyboards that don't even have moving mechanical parts any more? Why not go for a faster layout? Many have been suggested, with supporters of the Dvorak keyboard being the most vociferous since it was invented, and several others, like the Awerty or Colemak.

As wikipedia says,

There was no particular technological requirement for the QWERTY layout, since at the time there were ways to make a typewriter without the "up-stroke" typebar mechanism that had required it to be devised. Not only were there rival machines with "down-stroke" and "frontstroke" positions that gave a visible printing point, the problem of typebar clashes could be circumvented completely: examples include Thomas Edison's 1872 electric print-wheel device which later became the basis for Teletype machines; Lucien Stephen Crandall's typewriter (the second to come onto the American market) whose type was arranged on a cylindrical sleeve; the Hammond typewriter of 1887 which used a semi-circular "type-shuttle" of hardened rubber (later light metal); and the Blickensderfer typewriter of 1893 which used a type wheel. The early Blickensderfer's "Ideal" keyboard was also non-QWERTY, instead having the sequence "DHIATENSOR" in the home row, these 10 letters being capable of composing 70% of the words in the English language.

The reason we're still thralls of qwerty is network effects. Once a particular layout got popular, people trained to use it. To train to use another layout is more expensive, since (a) fewer training courses are available for it, (b) therefore they are more expensive and difficult to access, (c) there are fewer jobs for these rarer versions. Since there are then fewer people trained on these alternative layouts, purchasers of equipment reason that they should use the popular layout as their pool of potential operators will be larger--and less expensive. And before you know it, the tyranny of qwerty covers the entire Roman language world. Yup, not just the English speaking world. You have lots of company.

If I had only had one of the faster keyboards, my hands would ache less, particularly my poor non-dominant left one. I would type faster than 50 awpm. Pigs would have flown, and horses whistled. I may even have been an astronaut. (OK, not the last one, too unlikely).

In closing, I may also mention that the advent of the typewriter meant a major change in the USA, which percolated out to the rest of the world, and a passing observation.

The first was that women went from 4% of office workers to 75% in just 26 years, as the typewriter was marketed as something 'simple enough even for a woman'. (Gaah, but hey, that's the way they thought then). Offices and businesses hired women for this work, not because they thought that women should work outside the house, or be economically participatory, but because they could be paid half what a man would be paid. The inventor of the qwerty machine, CL Sholes, died happy that he had helped women be better off:

"I do feel that I have done something for the women who have always had to work so hard. This will enable them more easily to earn a living."

But then, this was not only easy for women, but it was easier for them than for men because all women are left-handed, as you know from a previous post.

And the second thing? Well, the typewriter was marketed by Remington, the same company that made rifles and guns. This was a most successful diversification for them. They could now help someone get neatly fired in two alternative ways...

OK, go and practice typing asdfgf ;lkjhj, and don't look at the keyboard. On your mobile phone--which really should have a better input method than this relic of supersistence. In the meantime, I'll go off to sob quietly in a corner.