Why are the QWERTY keyboard keys not in alphabetical order? Keyboard layout.

The goal of all existing keyboard layouts is to increase the speed and convenience of typing machine text. It is in this vein that the Dvorak layout was created, which we will discuss further.

Colemak layout, Dvorak keyboard and QWERTY

Let us briefly describe the three most popular keyboard layouts today:

• QWERTY. This is a layout known to most users, the name of which comes from its first six letters (similarly, some Russian users They nicknamed her "YTSUKEN"). It was developed back in 1870 by Christopher Scholes and used on his first commercial typewriter. The goal was to place the letters of frequently repeated syllables as far apart as possible to prevent the buttons from sticking. It is widely believed that this principle significantly slows down typing today, since “sticking” buttons on modern keyboards is no longer relevant. However, it was for QWERTY that it was invented back in 1888, which is still relevant today, like the layout itself, which is preferred by most users.

• The Dvorak keyboard is a layout that was patented in 1936 by Austrian scientists August Dvorak and William Dilley. It was created as an alternative to the usual "YTSUKEN". Its main advantage was its ease of typing. Despite the fact that it is included in the standard layouts of Mac, Windows, and Linux devices, it is used by a very small percentage of device owners.
• Colemak layout. This is the “youngest” invention, which was patented in 2006 by S. Coleman. Its name is COLEMAN + Dvorak. It is not difficult to guess that some of the ergonomic solutions were borrowed from Dvorak. Its creator draws attention to the main advantages of his brainchild: due to the fact that alternating hands are often used, and little fingers are almost not involved, this layout is considered the fastest of all existing ones; Unlike the Dvorak keyboard, there are some similarities with QWERTY, which allows you to quickly master Colemak; to important combinations The command keys are easy to reach with one hand.

Principles of Dvorak layout

The invention of the Austrian professor was aimed at eliminating hand fatigue from long typing. The scientist creating it for a long time studied the physiology of the hands and the frequency of printing certain letters. Therefore, the Dorak keyboard is based on the following important principles:

• frequent alternation of hands for typing, which significantly speeds up writing speed;
• the most frequently used letters (70%) should be the easiest to type, so the professor assigned them to the main row of the layout;
• rarely used symbols (30%) were moved to the top (15%) and bottom (15%) rows;
• the load was shifted to the right, because most users are right-handed;
• For typing digraphs (a composite written sign of two characters), it is more convenient to use keys located far apart from each other.

By the way, the world record was set in 1985 using the simplified Dvorak layout. Barbara Blackburn typed text on it for 50 minutes at an average speed of 150 characters per minute (at certain moments the woman “accelerated” to 212 characters).

Special versions of the Dvorak keyboard

In addition to the standard version, Dvorak also invented versions of the layout for typing with one hand - left or right. This is very convenient for those who type text with one hand and use the mouse with the other, for example, for graphic editors. A less popular Dvorak keyboard is the “Palette”.

Option for programmers

There is also a separate version for programmers who write code in Java, Pascal, HTML, etc. It was invented by R. Kaufman. Here the letters are located in the same places as in the regular Dvorak layout, but the special characters have been moved:

• a large number of service signs “went” to the top row;
• the numbers are not arranged in ascending order;
• On number/symbol buttons, the first value appears when you press Shift, and not vice versa.

Dvorak layout for other languages

When adapting the layout for other languages, some problems are identified. For example, the Russian Dvorak keyboard (you will see the photo below), like options for other alphabets, contains the same placement Latin letters, as in the standard English version. But this is not entirely convenient.

Today there are the following popular versions of the Austrian scientist’s keyboard:

• Svorak, Svdvorak (Swedish);
• Norsk Dvorak (Norwegian);
• Finnish;
• BRDK (Brazilian);
• German Type II (German);
• Spanish;
• French;
• Russian Dvorak keyboard is a variant of DICTOR, which is not widely used (the developers' website is closed).

Since the Dvorak layout is among the standard ones for most operating systems, then Russian users can always change QWERTY to it.

How to switch from QWERY to Dvorak

You can switch to this more ergonomic layout in system settings of your device by going to “Language and text”, “Language, language settings”. In Input Method or Input Source, select ANSI Dvorak. The next step is to buy special stickers of this layout that can be glued over the QWERTY buttons. Another option is the Dvorak keyboard in Russian, which can be ordered from many online stores.

However, many practices fast printing They advise not to modify the usual “YTSUKEN”, but to learn to type on it blindly, despite your fingers. This method will help you when working on other PCs, where it is possible to switch layouts only in the system, and not also change the keyboard buttons.

To quickly switch from QWERTY to new option, take into account the following recommendations:

• Are you using special programs, online simulators - you can find many free versions on the Internet. Be sure to hold personal typing speed competitions for yourself every day and record each of your results.
• As practice shows, many Dvorak followers have difficulty typing passwords at the first stage. Therefore, it is better to change the ciphers to digital ones, and also introduce the Latin “A” and “M” into them - in the new layout these symbols are located in the same places as in the old one.
• Some keyboards do not need to be replaced with special ones for the Dvorak version or to buy sticker overlays for them. If your input device allows it, you can simply rearrange the keys from QWERTY order to the new format.
• Those who love hotkey combinations will have an additional difficulty - getting used to the new arrangement of the favorite buttons.
• If you write codes or your activities require frequent use special characters, then you first need to teach yourself to get used to their new location.
• Not recommended for use on different devices different layouts - it will be difficult for you to adjust, and the typing speed will decrease in both cases: both on the Dorak keyboard and on the "YTSUKEN".
• To make the new key layout easier to remember, print out a picture with the layout of the Austrian inventor and attach it in a visible place. You can also make it your desktop background - the main thing is that it “gets familiar.”
• Don't quit what you started. You may be disappointed with the initial printing speed, and you will want to return to QWERTY again. Such a difficult stage of rebuilding a habit is simply inevitable. Only daily practice will help you overcome it, but within reasonable limits.

Pay attention!

When switching to a new layout, keep these important points in mind:

• When you log in to your account Windows entry When you turn on the computer, the password is entered only using the QWERTY layout. And after you log in, the Dvorak keyboard comes into its own. Therefore, in order to wake up the PC from sleep mode, the PIN code must be entered using the new layout, and not “YTSUKEN”.
• Many practitioners advise not to exceed the 30-minute limit for classes adapting to the Dvorak layout, otherwise you can achieve the exact opposite effect - a noticeable decrease in typing speed.
• If you constantly work on several PCs or share your computer with other users, then using the new option will be extremely problematic - it is better to stay on the old QWERTY.
• The Dvorak keyboard helps reduce typing fatigue, but does not eliminate the problems that may arise for those whose work involves typing. large volumes text - for example, from carpal tunnel syndrome.
• For many, the transition to a new layout is accompanied by pain in the arm muscles, since at first they place a new unusual load on the muscles. But over time, this phenomenon goes away on its own when the user has already adapted.
• As practice shows, switching to a new layout can negatively affect the operation of some office equipment. For example, the barcode scanner may begin to act up.

Dvorak keyboard on Android: MultiLing Keyboard

This keyboard add-on supports many languages, including Russian. In addition to the Dvorak layout, you can also activate T9, phonetic Cyrillic, Neo, Azerty, Qwertz. You can also enable auto-correction and hints of the correct words.

The Dvorak keyboard of the Android version also allows you to:

• change the button design theme;
• height and width of touch keys;
• use split mode.

Google keyboard for Android

Except standard layouts for a smartphone, here you can activate the Dvorak mode, Colemak, as well as the PC layout. Both the regular character input method and the “swipe” method are available.

Among the interesting additional options can be distinguished:

• intuitive auto-correction;
• free installation;
• ability to choose a topic;
• rich choice of text input languages.

Minuum version for Android

The keyboard quickly switches between standard and mini format, which occupies a narrow strip at the bottom of the screen. The “swipe” set is very convenient here, available in both formats. Numbers and symbols are typed using the “thumbs up” gesture. The space is inserted here automatically, and emojis are certainly present.

With Russian input language, in addition to the Dvorak layout, 5 more options are available. The keyboard, according to user reviews, is also distinguished by surprisingly accurate auto-correction, the ability to select one of several themes for design and activation additional panel for copy-paste and text search. One minus - free version only available for one month.

The Dvorak keyboard "Android" additions are also included:

• Multiling;
• NextApp;
• SwiftKey.

Dvorak's invention, therefore, has both an impressive number of pros and cons. The latter are usually associated with its low popularity among users. If you can switch to a new keyboard on Android devices only by downloading special addition, then on PCs and laptops adapting to the new layout is much more difficult.

Every second person who can read Russian guesses that “qwerty” translated from English means “ytsuken”. For the layout of Latin characters that has conquered almost the whole world, we should thank the American Christopher Latham Scholes, the inventor of the typewriter, who figured out how to make sure that the letters did not stick when typed.

Mass production of Remingtons began in 1873, so we can say that there is no reason not to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Qwerty. Which, however, is for long life its own did not become an unconditional monopolist in the “layout market”. There are at least five alternative Latin keyboard scripts. They are used and accustomed to from a young age. An American who types quickly and touch-type will be surprised how many mistakes he makes while working on someone else's computer in Vienna or N'Djamena. Non-standard layouts have every right exist and deserve a little attention - after all, it is through keyboards that the connection between the worlds of the ordinary and the unusual is realized.

The AZERTY layout is the property of Francophones in Europe and Africa. At the end of the 19th century, the French, having become acquainted with Remingtons from the USA, began to think about national pride and their own keyboard for overseas ratchet typewriters. While patriot Albert Navard was struggling with his concept of "ZHJAY", less original, but more enterprising designers swapped the two pairs of letters and - voila:

In addition, in the French layout, in the second row of letters, instead of a colon and semicolon, there is the letter “M”. And the numbers, as if on a Soviet typewriter, are placed in uppercase.

The name of the keyboard layout QWERTZ sounds German and corresponds to the German spirit. A MacBook purchased in Berlin, Vienna or Prague will definitely have this order of letters in the top row. We simply call this layout “German”. It could also be called “Albanian”, given that it is also in its own way there.

The reason for the rearrangement of “Y” and “Z” is that the letter “Z” in the language of the Germans and Austrians is much more common than “Y”, and when working with the American “clave”, one would have to type it with the little finger, which is impractical and harmful. It was more pleasant to see it next to “T” - since the diphthong “tz” is pride German language. In addition, the layout contains additional letters of the German alphabet.

You might think that “dvorak” is just another standard-non-standard key sequence, but it’s just the name of the inventor August Dvorak, a psychologist and teacher from Seattle (USA), who is a relative of the great composer Antonin Dvorak.

The Dvorak keyboard layout (PYFGCRL) is the embodiment of the dilemma of the pleasant and the useful, the battle between habit and innovation. Having patented it in 1936, the bearded inventor explained that he considered “QWERTY” uneconomical and inconvenient. A series of scientific experiments involving 3 thousand schoolchildren and students confirmed that new keyboard With the advent of electric typewriters, it really looks more efficient - typists’ fingers get tired much less, and it’s convenient to type different brackets.

People using the QWERTY layout type only 32% of characters in the main row, the second, but Dvorak made it so that there were seventy. This will make your hands less tired. In addition, the American took into account that most people on Earth are right-handed. Therefore, when working with the Dvorak layout, more than half of the characters are typed with the right hand, and at the same time the typing speed increases to record values. However, such an ergonomic layout, it would seem, was not destined to defeat what tired typists and telegraph workers had become accustomed to.

The Kolemak keyboard is a continuation of the Dvorak concept in relation to the realities of the computer age. And this is a compromise between DVORAK and QWERTY-shaped layouts, with uniform load for all fingers. For the “sympathetic” and eccentric.

COLEMAK was invented in 2006 by Shai Coleman, and the name of the layout is based on a mixture of the Coleman and Dvorak surnames. Its first feature is the absence of the hated “CAPS LOCK”. Instead - additional key“Backspace”, for those who not only want to type quickly (and Kolemak allows you to do this), but also quickly correct mistakes with your left foot, excuse me, your little finger. This ergonomic layout differs from the standard one in only 17 places, despite the fact that almost all the special characters remain the same and therefore “Kolemak” is also called “Dvorak for programmers”.

At first glance, the Maltron keyboard may seem confusing and complicated. Blocks with alphabetic characters are spaced different sides, and the Numpad is perched in the center. Everything is somehow cosmic, like in an old lamp science fiction story.

At the same time, MALTRON serves completely earthly good needs - this keyboard and the layout for it were invented in the 1970s to prevent repetitive strain (“ tunnel syndrome"), due to which people who type a lot and regularly develop problems with the work of their fingers, hands and wrists in general, which develop into chronic occupational ailments.

You can get used to the strange order of the characters on the main line (ANISF and DHTOR) almost as quickly as the Maltron design. In general, the manufacturing company makes ergonomic keyboards with unusual layouts to order. For example, for . Or with a trackball.

Mass production of Remingtons began in 1873, so we can say that there is no reason not to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Qwerty. Which, however, over its long life has not become an unconditional monopolist in the “layout market”. There are at least five alternative Latin keyboard scripts. They are used and accustomed to from a young age. An American who types quickly and touch-type will be surprised how many mistakes he makes while working on someone else's computer in Vienna or N'Djamena. Non-standard layouts have every right to exist and deserve a little attention - after all, it is through keyboards that the connection between the worlds of the ordinary and the unusual is realized.

AZERTY

The AZERTY layout is the property of Francophones in Europe and Africa. At the end of the 19th century, the French, having become acquainted with Remingtons from the USA, began to think about national pride and their own keyboard for overseas ratchet typewriters. While patriot Albert Navard was struggling with his concept of "ZHJAY", less original, but more enterprising designers swapped the two pairs of letters and - voila:

QWERTZ

The name of the keyboard layout QWERTZ sounds German and corresponds to the German spirit. A MacBook purchased in Berlin, Vienna or Prague will definitely have this order of letters in the top row. We simply call this layout “German”. It could also be called “Albanian”, given that it is also in its own way there.

DVORAK

You might think that “dvorak” is just another standard-non-standard key sequence, but it’s just the name of the inventor August Dvorak, a psychologist and teacher from Seattle (USA), who is a relative of the great composer Antonin Dvorak.

People using the QWERTY layout type only 32% of characters in the main row, the second, but Dvorak made it so that there were seventy. This will make your hands less tired. In addition, the American took into account that most people on Earth are right-handed. Therefore, when working with the Dvorak layout, more than half of the characters are typed with the right hand, and at the same time the typing speed increases to record values. However, such an ergonomic layout, it would seem, was not destined to defeat what tired typists and telegraph workers had become accustomed to.

COLEMAK was invented in 2006 by Shai Coleman, and the name of the layout is based on a mixture of the Coleman and Dvorak surnames. Its first feature is the absence of the hated “CAPS LOCK”. Instead, there is an additional “Backspace” key, for those who not only want to type quickly (and Kolemak allows you to do this), but also quickly correct mistakes with your left foot, excuse me, with your little finger. This ergonomic layout differs from the standard one in only 17 places, despite the fact that almost all the special characters remain the same and therefore “Kolemak” is also called “Dvorak for programmers”.

MALTRON

At first glance, the Maltron keyboard may seem confusing and complicated. Blocks with letter symbols are spaced out in different directions, and a Numpad is perched in the center. Everything is somehow cosmic, as if in an old tube science fiction film.

You can get used to the strange order of the characters on the main line (ANISF and DHTOR) almost as quickly as the Maltron design. In general, the manufacturing company makes ergonomic keyboards with unusual layouts to order. For example, for one-armed people. Or with a trackball.

From left to right: Scholes's first typewriter, a PC circa 1998, an Apple iMac and ASUS laptop S200N on Intel platform Centrino

The industry is inert. New processors are invented with difficulty because there is huge base Software compatible with classical architecture x86. Internal combustion engines, which burn seas of gasoline and exhale hundreds of tons of toxic substances, are still in fashion because there is an established business of extracting and processing oil that generates huge fortunes, and there is little reason to abandon them. Are we wrong? Okay, let's not argue. Today we are not quite regular review, and even, moreover, not a review at all in the classical sense of the word, but small excursion into the history of the keyboard. Did you know that traditional QWERTY layout, used on the vast majority of modern keyboards, is it designed to make it impossible to type quickly? No, today is not the first of April and we are not joking about QWERTY.

You probably know that the ancestor of the modern keyboard is the typewriter, which evolved several hundred years before becoming electric, and then completely getting rid of paper and splitting into two parts - the keyboard itself and the printer, and at the same time acquiring an intermediate unit that can " fly" to erase and replace letters, replace letters with completely different ones in shape, change colors and even act as a teacher of the Russian language. This miracle is called a computer, and today we will not talk much about it.

The first typewriter was invented almost three hundred years ago, in 1714, by Henry Mill, but, unfortunately, it has not reached the present day in any form. Later, in 1808, the Italian Pellegrino Turri made a typewriter own design for Countess Caroline Fantoni de Fivizzono. Madame Caroline could not write letters by hand because she suffered from blindness, and the device was needed so that she could correspond with friends. However, this example of the engineering thought of the brilliant and caring Italian was not preserved. Evidence of the existence of the Turri typewriter still exists today - letters from the Countess have been preserved, which means that the device was actually manufactured and performed its functions.

Twenty years later, back in 1828, Detroit resident William Burt created his own “alternative” typewriter. It was stated that with the help of this new product a person can write text as quickly as with a regular pen. Why the device did not become popular, the Internet carefully keeps silent. In Denmark, Pastor Malling Hansen from Malling invented a very complex typewriter with fifty-two buttons. The device looked more like a needle case than a typewriter. modern understanding. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche received one of these machines for Christmas from his mother and sister, which may have helped him see the world in such an extraordinary way.

Christopher Latham Scholes from Milwaukee in Wisconsin (USA), who on some sites is also called Christoph Scholes, is rightfully considered the inventor of the first commercially successful typewriter. And it is to him that we all owe the intricate QWERTY layout that inspired today's story. So, in order. Christopher Scholes was once a famous publisher, politician and philosopher. First, he invented, together with Carlos Gliden, a machine for automatic numbering pages, and only after that Carlos proposed to invent a mechanism designed for writing letters. The first conceptual prototype of a typewriter appeared in 1863, that is, almost 150 years after Henry Mill's machine. It was made from an old telegraph key, used for typing Morse code, and a lever. Sholes attached a metal letter to the lever and, pressing the resulting “button,” forced the letter through a carbon copy to hit a sheet of paper, under which there was a glass surface.

At the end of the process of "alpha testing" of the mechanism, Scholes designed his first typewriter. Like modern computer hardware, this device had many shortcomings. So, despite the fact that the mechanism contained all the key elements of a modern typewriter - drum, keys, letters, carbon paper - you could not see the text you were typing. Just imagine how hard it was to work with this device - no graphical interface, no Undo function, not even a basic spell checker. Intel in those years, and a hundred years later, did not even exist inside.

If you think that Scholes’s first device did not reach descendants, then you are mistaken - there is a well-preserved sample in Washington, but, of course, you will not be allowed to print even one letter on it. So, the first commercially successful typewriter was invented in September 1867, and after delays traditional for all existing political systems, at the beginning of 1868 Scholes received a patent for the technology. It would seem that production needs to begin, but then the war intervened.

Patented Sholes systemSchematic representation of the operating principle of the Scholes typewriter

The manufacturing process was entrusted to Remington and Sons, which is still known as the oldest shotgun manufacturer in the United States. The main product produced by Remington and Sons is typewriters steel after the end of the American Civil War, when the sharply decreased demand for guns led to a turning point and the need arose to expand and restructure production. In 1873, a contract was signed, and from 1874 to 1878, the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer typewriter was produced at the Remington and Sons plant.

The device was expensive and very beautiful - there were gilded inscriptions and color drawings on the body. In those years, only a very wealthy person or a successful company could afford a typewriter. There were both floor-standing and desktop typewriters:

The latter did not have a foot drive, and the carriage in it was moved according to the same principle as that of relatively recently produced mechanical typewriters. The first person to receive a Sholes typewriter was the well-known Mark Twain, and he also became the first person in the world to take his publication ("The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn") to a publisher in printed form. However, he did not type anything himself - this hard work was done by a typist who simply retyped the handwritten story using a newfangled device.

From the very first days of production a problem arose. The first Scholes typewriters were designed to operate with two fingers, and the arrangement of the buttons on them, although effective for high-speed typing, by the standards of the nineteenth century, was purely technical problem forced the invention of the QWERTY layout. The fact is that the keys of the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer were placed in two rows, and the letters on them were in alphabetical order. You could only print in capital letters, and instead of the numbers 1 and 0 were used english letters"I" and "O". Placing the keys in alphabetical order led to the fact that when the typing speed increased, the typewriter hammers did not have time to return to their place and clung to each other, threatening to damage the machine. Since the hammers, as well as the buttons, were located in a circle, the letters located close to each other most often jammed during printing.

Warranty service for frequently breaking typewriters could undermine the reputation and business, and then Sholes decided to arrange the letters on the keys so that the letters that form stable pairs in the English language are located as far from each other as possible. This is how the QWERTY keyboard was born. In order to select the “correct” arrangement of keys, Sholes used special tables that reflected the frequency of occurrence of certain stable combinations of letters in writing. The relevant materials were prepared by teacher Amos Densmore, brother of James Densmore, who financed the work of Christopher Sholes to create a typewriter.

The first generation of Sholes cars was produced in a very small batch - no more than 5,000 pieces. Just imagine that the QWERTY layout is already about 130 years old! It is believed that placing letters on the keyboard far apart from each other that are included in frequently occurring stable combinations not only reduces the likelihood of “mixing up” the levers of the typewriter when typing these combinations, but also generally reduces the speed of typing, and thereby reduces the likelihood of “ mixing up the levers and in other cases. But, key point— a significant reduction in the typist’s typing speed.

Attempts have been made to change and improve the layout. In 1936, Professor August Dvorak, who decided that the QWERTY layout was completely inconvenient, invented his own version. You can still use it - just add the appropriate language and layout in Windows XP through the language settings panel:

Using the layout created by Dvorak allowed typing speed to increase by more than 70%. But, thanks to the absence of disruptive Microsoft in general and Windows with easily customizable layouts in the market, in particular, the well-known inertia of the industry intervened - the QWERTY keyboard had already become a standard by that time and was used on most devices. And, of course, many people, primarily printing professionals, were not ready to retrain. But here, too, everything is not so simple - the fact is that the mentioned 70% increase in printing productivity relates to working specifically on typewriters of that time. These devices had a very stiff keyboard, and the operator had to press the buttons with considerable effort. In 1911, Russia held comparative analysis energy consumption when writing various models typewriters. It turned out that writing 8000 characters on Remington No. 9 is equivalent to moving 85 poods (1360 kg) with your fingers, on Smiths Premier - 100 poods (1600 kg), on Postal -188 poods (3 tons)! Even the governor of California could not compete on equal terms with the typists of that time. For reference, the world touch typing record set by Mikhail Shestov is 12 characters per second or 720 characters per minute without errors. A text of 8000 bytes is thus typed in a little more than 11 minutes. Is it difficult for you to move 3 tons of cargo with your fingers in 11 minutes?

The second Remington machine, produced under the Sholes patent, could type not only capital letters, but also lowercase letters. It was with her that the march around the world began Shift keys. Such undoubtedly no less popular keys as Ctrl, Alt and Del appeared only a century later. Remington No. 2 was produced until 1908, and in general, until 1907, Remington and Sons consistently produced nine models of printing machines, the design of which was gradually improved. The production of typewriters grew like an avalanche. In the first ten years, more than one hundred thousand copies of Remington were manufactured.

Scholes's example inspired other inventors, and already in 1895 Franz Wagner received a patent for a machine with horizontal letter levers striking the paper roller from the front. The main advantage of this design was that the newly printed text was visible during operation. Wagner sold the rights to its production to manufacturer John Underwood. This machine turned out to be so convenient that it soon became very popular, and Underwood made a huge fortune from it.

In addition to the two giants of the printing and machine business, machines were produced by hundreds of small factories and dozens large companies, specializing in precision engineering. Dozens of new designs and hundreds of models have appeared. Of these developments, only about twenty retained their significance by the mid-twentieth century.

In the period 1890-1920, there was an intensive search for design solutions in order to obtain clear, visible text when printing and expand the capabilities of the printing machine. Among the machines of this time, two main groups can be distinguished: with a single writing medium and with a lever printing mechanism. For machines of the first group, the letters are printed on a single lettering medium various shapes, either an indicator device or a keyboard was used to select a printed character. By changing the typeface, it was possible to print in several languages. These machines produced text that was visible when printed, but their low printing speed and poor punching ability limited their use.

We have already noted that Scholes's first typewriter was designed for typing with two fingers. The emergence of the ten-finger printing method is attributed by historians to a certain Mrs. L.V. Longley, who demonstrated for the first time new approach in 1878. A little later, Frank McGurrin, a clerk at the federal court in Salt Lake City, proposed the concept of “touch typing,” in which the typist worked without looking at the keyboard at all. At the same time, typewriter manufacturers, trying to prove to the public the promise of new technology, held numerous competitions for typing speed on the first "Remington" and "Underwood", which, of course, spurred typists to type faster and faster. Very soon, the pace of typists’ work exceeded the average 20 words per minute typical for handwritten text, and typewriters themselves became an integral working tool for secretaries and a completely familiar element of offices.

Already at the very beginning of the twentieth century, typewriters became a standard tool for writers, and, for example, the great writer’s acquaintances could not imagine the office of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) without the old Remington, just as the office of Vladimir Mayakovsky (1895-1930) is impossible It was impossible to imagine without his beloved "Underwood".

But even today the era of development of typewriters, or rather, now keyboards, has not ended. We will not talk about such a classic tool as a laptop: the fact that it is closest to the concept of a typewriter is clear at first glance. In recent years, keyboards have become wireless, taken on all possible and impossible shapes and sizes, changed interfaces more than once, acquired “multimedia” buttons, agreed to coexist with an electronic piano, and more. There are also simply devices designed to significantly speed up the work of a typist or “tractor driver”. For example, this is what a Safe Type device looks like:

The SafeType company has long launched a keyboard on the market that is designed to relieve typists from the inconvenience of traditional text input devices. And although there are now plenty of options for ergonomic keyboards on the market, with which the wrists become strained and tired much less, they are not able to completely solve the problem.

The SafeType developers did not approach the problem in a trivial way, and arranged the keys in a fundamentally different way. The product is U-shaped. The two side panels contain alphanumeric and function keys. Keys that fall on regular keyboard for the left hand are on the left panel, and for the right hand are on the right panel. On the horizontal part of the keyboard there are control buttons, multimedia keys, cursor control and an additional numeric keypad.

The developers claim that with the keys arranged vertically, the typist's forearms are in the so-called neutral position (thumbs pointing upward), in which the wrists are practically not strained. This is especially noticeable when long work. SafeType also has serious disadvantages. So, to work with it, you must initially have some standard touch typing skills, and then master non-standard ones, since looking at the keys is very inconvenient. Moreover, the outer two rows of keys cannot be seen at all without turning your head. Those who will learn to type for the first time on such a conceptual product will be able to use two mirrors that reflect these keys, and that is why the inscriptions on the keys are written in a “mirror” version.

Working with SafeType is inconvenient at first, but then it goes away. The main disadvantage of the keyboard, in addition to incompatibility with the hands of your friends, is the extremely high price - standard model costs $295 in the US. Those who managed to get used to SafeType find that the keyboard is really comfortable, especially when typing for a long time. For development new layout, provided you master the touch typing method, it takes up to two days.

At one time, it exhibited quite a lot at Comdex unusual keyboard FrogPad. The device is intended to be connected to pocket computers and allows you to type with one hand. The developers draw users' attention to the fact that FrogPad is wireless device, which means there is no need to use various cables and connectors. The keyboard has 20 keys, 5 of which are functional. The remaining keys contain text, numbers and special characters, which are activated when the function keys are pressed. So, each key corresponds to 4 different characters, which are typed by pressing one or another function key. It’s difficult for us to judge how convenient and fast it is.

And this is the option from Belkin, introduced last month. The evolved Nostromo N50 keyboard has become the N52 and is undoubtedly not suitable for typing text. As you can see, the device is optimized for the left hand and is designed to work in tandem with another manipulator - for example, a joystick or mouse. Purely a gaming accessory, but also a keyboard.

Or here's an option on Wired - it talks about technology that will allow the production of virtual keyboards. The image of the buttons will simply be projected, and this will allow the technology to be built into pocket PCs, mobile phones and other compact devices that are not designed to work with even the most compact keyboards.

And here is a “budget” option for those who prefer to drive a Porshe for cigars. The Kinesis keyboard costs $355 and, according to the manufacturer, can significantly increase the speed of touch typing. The Professional Contoured Keyboard will be useful for those who often use long key combinations - macros called using special button with the surprisingly common name Macro. All the most popular buttons, namely Enter, Delete and Backspace, are located under the thumbs. We would advise developers to follow the Intel path and combine the Ctrl+Alt+Del functions into one key.

If the "Professionally Contoured Keyboard" is too cheap for you, we recommend Kinesis Evolution. Shiva, if he used a computer at all, probably worked in an office chair like this. The set costs a modest $400-600, depending on the configuration, and each half has touchpad. All keys are customizable. Operator! Release from the Matrix!