🚀 go-pugleaf

>From Guy.Steele@CMU-10A Mon Mar  8 16:23:31 1982
Q: "Why aren't the keys on a typewriter in alphabetical order?"

   (Sunnie Lawrence, of Chino, California, wins a prize for this question.)

A:  While Christopher L.  Sholes was developing the first successful
typewriter in 1868, he originally tried arranging the keys in
alphabetical order.  The long typebars in this early model fell back
into place through the pull of gravity.  If a typist tried typing too
fast, the bars became tangled with each other.  As a solution to this
key-jamming problem, Sholes rearranged the keys so that the letters
most often typed were as far apart from one another as possible.  The
pattern that resulted from this arrangement is still that of the
standard typewriter keyboard.

   (You can win an official JOHNNY WONDER Fun Flyer if your question is
   selected.  Send your name and age to JOHNNY WONDER, c/o this newspaper,
   P.O.Box 1258, Santa Cruz, CA 95061.)
----------------------------------------------------------------
What better authority could you ask for than JOHNNY WONDER?
--Guy


[editor's note:  This seems like a good place to end the discussion
	of the history of the Sholes keyboard.  I will continue to
	publish (reasonable) messages relating to editing with the
	Sholes keyboard, but further messages about its history per
	se will probably be filtered.		/jq ]