Talk:QWERTY

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Is it true?

The following para is stated in the article:

It has often been noted that the word typewriter can be typed entirely using the top row of the QWERTY keyboard: it has been speculated that this may have been a factor in the choice of keys for ease of demonstration. However, it was not planned that way.

How can we confirm that it was not planned that way? What I have heard and read so far, it clearly shows that QWERTY keyboard was designed to enable early salesmen to type 'typewriter' quickly to impress the potiental clients...

I'm getting rid of that last sentence as it is unproven and probably incorrect. I have seen a large number of sources that make the same claim; it could just be myth, but we definitely do not know for sure that "it was not planned that way." Mussavcom Nov 05 2005

that's silly. I'm not doubting it's a myth, or hell it might even be true, but why would all in the top row make it faster? If you know how to type it doesn't make much difference what row it's in... Oreo man 20:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As far as "typewriter" being hidden in the first row, while I don't know about historical proof, strictly speaking mathematically, it is highly improbable that it was not put in the first row purposely. Given that there are 3 rows on the QWERTY layout, that means the probability of any one letter being on the first row is 10/26 (since there are 10 letters on the first row). Given that the word "Typewriter" has 7 unique letters "typewri", this would mean that the probability of having all of those on the first row is (10/26)^7, or approximately 0.1%. Given this low probability of it happening randomly, I am guessing it was purposeful. --Pordaria (talk) 17:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)+[reply]

It's worse than that, because it's clearly grouped left to right. TY..P, (end) E, (back) WR..I, (end) T, (back) ER. Klalkity (talk) 23:43, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

was:

QWERTY is by no means the fastest key layout system -- a side effect of its design actually hindered typing speed -- but it remains in use on computers today simply because typists converting from typewriter to computer keyboard did not want to learn a new typing style to take advantage of keys that could not get stuck.

Very impressive table. :-) --Larry Sanger, but it crashes the Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition; I would suggest a gif file instead. -- Hannes Hirzel

It was actually easier to make the table than it would have been for me to make an image. Perhaps a screenshot of the table from a browser that works could be substituted? :) -Bryan Derksen

those claims, and quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

That's not true. See http://www.mwbrooks.com/dvorak/

I was taught many years ago that the keyboard was arranged the way it was in order to reduce the collisions of keys during typing. This, and the fact that most of the commonly used keys are not in the "home row" or necessate the extended use of the left hand, are designs to reduce the speed to that of the machine. -- mike dill

Please keep this text factually accurate. Any claim that Sholes intended to slow down typists is false. The second paragraph's claim that the arrangement helped him avoid stuck hammers is true. --LDC

I think the fable of the keys may be a bad link to have. The article was written by economists, with the aim of proving that capitalism does not leave good alternatives behind, and its data is massaged to that end. If anything we could link to a wiki page explaining with NeutralPointOfView that the study is controversial. As it stands, it's kind of like an article about biology linking to articles by Popper and Kuhn.

The claim that other layouts produce faster typing speeds is vague. Today most references give that the QWERTY layout was developed to stop collisions, not to slow the typing speed artificially. There is a good discussion about typewriter design in Donald Norman's "The Psychology of Everyday Things" usability design book. The previous assumption that the layout was constructed to avoid collisions is also not really backed up, and generally there is no consensus. For example, note that the word "typewriter" is made up of letters in the first row only, and the first devices were sold - first of their kind - as "typewriter"s. -sc.

Younger people may not have seen a mechanical typewriter with the hammers that swing towards the paper. IBM's interchangable ball shaped type heads for electrical typewriters and Computer printers are the reasons why some people don't even know what you meant by key collisions. Perhaps older folks can add some explanation in the article. Do people still remember those days when a carriage return was a lever?

Request for more information: "Dvorak" and "Sholes" are both referred to by their last names only, as people. The article should at least mention their full name and who they are before it starts referring to them this way. I think Dvorak is Charles Dvorak, but I've never heard of Sholes? Wesley

The Sholes in the article is Christopher Sholes, mentioned in the top paragraph, and the Dvorak is Dr. August Dvorak. It might be a good idea to slip August Dvorak's name into the paragraph on the topic, so people don't think it's talking about the composer. --AaronW 01:37, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I learned typing in a few years. But in a Few months i typed as fast on Dvorak than on my other keyboard!

As any kid who's played with an old fashioned typewriter knows, the way to clog the hammers is to press two keys that are next each other. Not because one can press them faster, but because they share the same area for a larger part of the distance. I believe this is why putting much used keys far appart helps, not because it makes you type slower. KNaranek 20:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I think that that makes far more sense. I think it's a myth that the QWERTY keyboard was designed to make you type slower. It is designed so that the keys do not get clogged, this is achieved by placing the most common letters as far apart as possible. I'm putting a citation needed stamp next to the statement that the design was to slow you down. Can someone please look into it?? 81.107.221.249 21:47, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But the most common letters are NOT placed far apart! ES, ED and ER are very common combinations, and are right next to each other! Andrew Craig

I have edited the text to correct this misinterpretation, and added a citation. OK? Snalwibma 23:56, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great!LemonLion 23:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

dvorak comparison

"tests showing little significant performance difference between those who first learned to type on QWERTY and those who first learned to type on Dvorak."

cite? what tests? conducted by whom? when? mnemonic 05:28, 2004 Jun 20 (UTC)

"Alternated keys"

This article claims that the QWERTY keyboard "also alternated keys between hands, allowing one hand to move into position while the other hand strikes a key." I have no idea what this means - I can see many words which can't be typed simply by alternating hands, unless the typist is supposed to make an effort to alternate hands? Some clarification of this point would be useful, or else remove it. Also, I feel there needs to be some mention (here and in Typewriter) of the claim that QWERTY was designed to slow down typists so as not to jam the typewriter - even if the claim is false, some mention needs to be made, because the claim is made often. - Brian Kendig 14:06, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge (there is some debate about this), QWERTY wasn't designed so much to make you type slower, as to put letters that are typed rapidly in succession, on opposite sides, effectively slowing you down. -- Rmrfstar 21:08, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

POV

I'm adding a 'neutrality disputed' boilerplate to the top of this page, because the second half of the article is largely an attack on the Dvorak system, which is totally out of place and POV. I'll be editing to try and get it NPOV, but I use Dvorak myself, so I may not be the best candidate. If anyone has any issues or disputes, take it up here or on my talk page. Matthewcieplak 06:02, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think it's better now; let me know if you have disputes I'd want to know about. Matthewcieplak 06:43, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Need reference

I just fixed a spelling error on this page and I was wondering if this line is true.

The word QWERTY was, coincedentially, the first message ever sent by e-mail.

Reference? --Chill Pill Bill 01:37, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find any references, but I've heard it before. -- Rmrfstar 21:06, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sounds possible... Its like the easiest thing to spell on the keyboard. as simple as pushing the first five buttons.-Darkmewham

It goes without saying that if it merely sounds plausible that it should not appear as a statement of fact. -Thomas G. Marshall

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/dot_life/1586229.stm the text of the first message has been lost. Mr Tomlinson sent this historic message to himself from one machine to another sometime in October 1971. He said the text of this first message was "completely forgettable" but suspects it said something like 'qwertyuiop' or 'testing 1-2-3'.

Stewardesses & Lollipop

I'm quoting:

Sweaterdresses is the Longest word in English that can be typed with only the left hand using the conventional method of typing.(Thanks to Matt Freedman)
Conversely using the right hand alone, the longest word that can be typed is Lollipop.

Why is the "longest sentence with one hand" claim unverifiable? Take a good wordlist, have a program filters all the words that can be typed with one hand, and have another program generate all the possible combinations. The longest one that makes sense in English is it. Using a (spell-checker's, possibly) wordlist that also lists grammatical classes for every word, the program could even possibly filter out those phrases that definitely make no grammatical sense at all. LjL 14:59, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I just mean it's fully possible to type any word with your right hand only if you go hunt and pecking instead of using touch. It didn't say anything about that. :\ Yes, most people find this obvious, but i think it deserves a notion. Again, sorry for my bad explaining skills. --BodyTag 20:28, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I mentioned the statistics were for conventional hand placement only. If you read the article on the Longest word in English, you will realize much debate there is over what constitutes a word. See the link, "Typewriter Words" at the bottom for a more thorough discussion of the topic. -- Rmrfstar 21:03, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What side of the keyboard does B lie on? If you type it left-handed (like I do) you can get the lovely word "devertebrated". Shen 13:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

protereotype?

The page states that protereotype has eleven letters, but it actually has twelve. I've seen 'proterotype' listed elsewhere, but I can't find any use of these words other than in reference to longest word typeable on one row of the keyboard. The OED doesn't contain either word. Perhaps we should remove this from the list.

US/UK differences

I'm sure this is far too minor a point to go in the article, but the most obvious thing I notice when using a US keyboard is that UK and US keyboards have the " and @ symbols reversed; on every British keyboard I've ever used, the double quote is [Shift]-2 while the at symbol is [Shift]-single quote. We also have three, not two, keys between L and [Return]; the third has the hash sign (#) and the tilde. In Windows at least, that odd key at top left where US keyboards have the tilde has three symbols: unshifted it produces `, with [Shift] it gives ¬ and with AltGr you get ¦. [Shift]-3 on a UK keyboard is the pound sign (£); note that the hash and pound signs are totally different things to we Brits! Finally, [AltGr]-4 gives €, the euro symbol. Loganberry (Talk) 01:20, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

what the heck!

why when i write qwerty in the search engine i get pictures of naked young girls???

Because

1. It is the easiest thing to type... RIght? 2. Qwerty is a name... SOrta. *Refers to poem I made up whenn I was 8* 3. People know you will search qwerty

24.251.232.216 02:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)Darkmewham[reply]

You must tell me what search engine! So that I do not also make the same mistake...--24.210.178.8 02:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Needs major revision

I'm considering reworking this article.

It contains very little factual information about QWERTY itself, other than the first paragraph and the first two sentences of "Purpose."

"QWERTY also attempted to alternate keys between hands, allowing one hand to move into position while the other hand strikes home a key. This sped up both the original double-handed hunt-and-peck technique and the later touch typing technique...."

Entirely false.

Isblueacolor 01:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Isblueacolor is putting it mildly. This article needs to be gutted. Trivia? Pornographic References? Hummm..would you see that sort of stuff in Encyclopedia Britannica? Just the facts please.

Look the the Dvorak Keyboard article. It has more actual information about QWERTY than this article.

66.74.234.167 04:54, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New facts

In his book Guns, Germs and Steel (p. 418 of the paperback edition), Jared Diamond adds some interesting details to the QWERTY story that I haven't heard elsewhere. He mentions "a widely publicized typing contest in 1888" in which a QWERTY user "thrashed" a non-QWERTY user. Diamond says the contest involved two students of "a certain Ms. Longley who founded the Shorthand and Typewriter Institute in Cincinnati." I'd like to know more about this. Diamond doesn't give any references.

67.100.109.22 14:29, 20 May 2006 (UTC) Cullen Schaffer[reply]

Chinese

I've always been curious about Chinese keyboards and how they might work. Are there any articles here on Wikipedia? Maybe they should be mentioned?

Picture

Why is there a picture of a AZERTY keyboard? Shouldn't an QWERTY keyboard be more appropriate?

More troublesome is the picture at the top, which is captioned 'The QWERTY keyboard layout used for Windows in the US'. While quite probably the most common layout, overall, there is a minor QWERTY variant which is reasonably common also. The differences are, overall, few and minor. The return key is only a single row tall, with the \| key moved into the spot formerly occupied by the top section of the return, and the backspace expanded into a much wider key, occupying the space where \| was. I'll freely admit, I'm fairly picky about only getting keyboards following that design, and the one pictured seems from my own experience to be slightly more widely used, though both are common. My first computer I really used had a keyboard with that layout, and as I turned into a gamer, I got used to it. To this day its still important to me, as I'm one of the probably very few gamers that still prefers the arrow keys over WSAD, and this layout gives me more usable keys near the arrows. However, I also find the backspace and return keys easier to use with this layout as well(Return is easier to press down when it covers less real estate, and backspace is easier to hit, being wider). In addition, I've seen many other, much rarer alternate layouts, mostly proprietary versions(including one featuring a second backspace occupying about half the spacebar's normal space. That one was just OBNOXIOUS.) -Graptor 66.161.206.252 10:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Purpose Section and Alternative Layout section

What does purpose mean?!?! What does alternative layout mean?!?!

therefore, why does this article appear to have alternative layouts in the purpose section?

I don't know who did it, but i don't understand why that was placed there.

Please can someone sort it out, or tell me why it was put there

Thanks Stwalkerster 12:47, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

sloppy + meaningless

The average person is expected to type 30-40 words per minute using the touch typing technique on a QWERTY keyboard. 40-50 words per minute is considered good, today's average has been clocked at over 90 words per minute.

What? 87.113.27.246 22:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I HIGHLY doubt such a claim. If you include users who average about 5wpm 90wpm is a pipe dream.--24.210.178.8 02:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Absurd statement

The article reads "single-handed words such as stewardesses, lollipop and monopoly show flaws in the alternation." Um, no. Single-handed words don't show "flaws in the alternation". They show flaws in the unreasonable expectation that alternation will speed up the typing of all words. This is quite different from the current wording, which shows flaws in the thinking.Daqu 16:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hand alternation speeding things up slightly does seem slightly logical, though I suspect the overall increase at average typing speeds is extremely marginal at best. From what I've read, touch typing hadn't been developed when QWERTY was developed anyway, and being able to alternate hands doesn't help speed any when you don't already know where the keys are. As some have stated, its probably likely that the only attempts at 'alternation' were to get commonly used combinations away from each other, to keep the typewriter from jamming. I've played with an old one as a kid, and pressing too many keys too fast too close together would jam it every time, and require you to stop and unstick the bars before continuing. However, my personal thought would be that the 'absurd thinking' would be that it is POSSIBLE to create a layout where there wouldn't be at least a few single-handed words. The diversity of the language is great, and compared to the number of words and possible letter combinations available, and with the other design necessities factored in, the number of *effective* layouts is fairly limited(IE: Layouts that put uncommon letters on the home row are most likely fairly ineffective). There being a few one-handed words is to be expected of any realistic layout. -Graptor 66.161.206.252 10:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This statement has always bothered me. I'm glad to see a discussion regarding it has already been started. Graptor is bang on, but the statement has yet to be deleted. Since there were no objections to this issue in half a year, I will remove the statement - the article will be better for it. -dmswart 16:57, 28 August 2007

Is this true?

"QWERTY is the most common password on the internet." I think we need some citation for this claim... Saosinnn 21:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think 'chocolate' or '1234' might be contenders for that title. Would an entry on common passwords be relevant to WikiWorld? After all, the reflect a culture, if not a demographic - espcially with regard to 'chocolate'! --TresRoque 21:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That QWERTY is the computer from the veggie tales series haha yes it is Acdcfanactic727 16:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Czech keyboard

I've attempted to clarify the differences between the English and Czech keyboards. See this:

The Czech keyboard exchanges the "Z" and "Y" like the German one, yet uses a 'kroužek' u (ů) to the right of "L", and (ú) next to "P". The English numerals (from 2-0) produce the diacritics ě, š, č, ř, ž, ý, á, í, é. The SHIFT key is used to create numerals in this system. Upper case diacritics are found, using a word processor, by holding shift, keying the equals sign and the related letter. Thus SHIFT+=, SHIFT+Z gives a Ž. Please note that other punctuation marks and symbols also vary from the English version.

The same system is probably used for Slovak, though I expect it to be simpler, as they have a couple of variations.

Czech does NOT use an umlaut, and you might upset a lot of people by saying it does! --TresRoque 21:53, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

80.169.58.26 (talk) 10:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC) Robajz[reply]

Hi, can we get some more information here about the "Czech (QWERTY)" layout as seen in Microsoft Windows products? I only found a good information about it in a commercial catalogue: http://www.trantor.fi/AC_Czech_keyboard_overlay_sticker.htm There is also some interactive page about it on MS's website: https://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/keyboards/kbdcz1.htm It should be the very same layout you can setup in alternative operating systems like Linux... It is very handy for IT professionals as it offers all characters needed without switching the layouts. I'd be happy to re-draw the picture...

Alternative keyboard layouts

I'm not sure whether the "Alternative keyboard layouts" section is a good idea at all (there is the keyboard layout article after all), but the section about the Dvorak layout should definitely go away (there is a full article Dvorak Simplified Keyboard already). Comments? -- Felix Wiemann 15:25, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it should be removed entirely but it could be reduced to a single short paragraph. The subject is adequately covered in other articles such as the Dvorak article and Keyboard layout -- in the context of this article it's straying from the topic a bit. Vquex (talk) 21:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

20070222 Typing Speed ;; serious NPOV problems

Regarding the issue of QWERTY and maximum typing speed, the article stated as fact that the re-arrangement of letters did not negatively influence typing speed, and supported that assertion with a cite to the "PathDepend" reference included in the article. Nevertheless, the cited reference clearly indicates that the issue of typing speed is subject to dispute, and it goes on to state that the alternate view is actually a more widely-promoted viewpoint. Moreover, the "PathDepend" reference contains no substantiation regarding the statistical frequency of letter-pairs in the English language, and yet the article presented that statistical claim as undisputed fact.

Since it is not appropriate to represent legitimately disputed issues as resolved facts, nor is it appropriate to entirely omit major alternative verifiable viewpoints relevant to this article, the article has been modified to address these problems. Please comment here if you have additional thoughts or concerns regarding this change. Thanks! dr.ef.tymac 16:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I Would ass that the statistical evidence points exactly to opposite direction: that QWERT was invented to slow the typing speed down.

This view is taken by Evans and Wurster, from the Boston Consulting Group, in their Harvard Business School book "Blown to Bits", when and where they address the standards issue.

Either way, what really matters is that there would have been not many more complicated dispositions available. Notwithstanding, people quickly adjusted to this layout, and thus QWERT became a standard. The definition of a standard is "good enough", not good, and much less the optimal. QWERT is a case in point.

Trivia

I removed the trivia section since most of it was OR ("QWERTY can be used as internet slang for pornography web searching") and notability-free "pop culture" references (the naming of characters in a "popular" web comic that doesn't even have its own Wikipedia entry) I moved the one salvageable thing, the urban legend about "typewriter", into the History section although it still needs a citation. Krimpet 18:36, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up: Added links, one is a university web page, but the other is from a potentially "partisan" resource on dvorak, better cites may be called for. The underlying claim itself, however, is a widespread and disputed view, so inclusion does seem appropriate. dr.ef.tymac 22:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Officially declared Krimpet a big meanie. 200.104.66.45 16:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Objection: Wikipedia is the gauge for all that matters in the universe. If something is not already mentioned in it, then something may not be mentioned in it. Additionally, 200.104.66.45, please respect the "no personal attacks" rule. You skank. Volcabbage 17:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Objection to the objection: No personal attack here. Krimpet being a big meanie is an indisputable fact, since it appears in Wikipedia. 200.104.66.45 22:55, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Objection to the objection to the objection: You're supposed to say "overruled." dr.ef.tymac 02:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dvorak content

Given that this is an article on QWERTY and not keyboard layouts in general, the section on Dvorak and other alternative layouts seems out of place. I wouldn't expect more than a sentence and a link to other pages... Miken32 19:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

porn?

Maybe the claim that "qwerty" is a code word for looking for porn in the Internet could be included? Couldn't find reputable sources, only the definition in the Urban Dictionary: 4. "QWERTY is a secret code word used by pedofiles and porn junkies. It is added to the end of file names as a method to return more porn results when using file sharing programs such as WINMX. Also used to disguise illegal child porn files."

These stats seem to support that:

Table 6. Top 15 queries in the Gnutella network (2004).

Rank Query
1 divx 2 qwerty jpg 3 porn 4 eminem 5 techno mp3

Sai Ho Kwok 1, Christopher C. Yang. "Searching the peer-to-peer networks: The community and their queries," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Volume 55, Issue 9, Pages 783-793, 2004.

Since it was supposed to be "secret code", it may have died down since 2004, though. 67.68.247.39 13:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that I can add an entry for Wikipedia stating that it is a code word for "nuclear warheads" should quite disprove the reliability of Urban Dictionary for anything. Zchris87v 05:12, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish Variations

There are several Spanish layouts for the Qwerty keybord, specially afecting the position of the tilde " ´ " and other spanish caracters.

Would be great if someone can add more variations.

Reverted to revision 142485806

I've just reverted this article to the revision of 16:47, 4 July 2007 (UTC); there has been an enormous amount of vandalism (in consecutive edits) and concordant vandal-fighting over the past week, resulting in most of the article detail being removed (it ended up being a stub with the Alternative Keyboard Layouts section; the article had more information on Dvorak than on QWERTY!). All should now be fixed with this revert. If further vandalism occurs, please revert back to this revision in cases of consecutive vandal edits. — digitaleon • talk @ 17:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Caption under keyboard layout image

It doesn't really need to say "used by Windows" Nylex 07:12, 2 September 2007 (UTC).[reply]

DVORAK claims

The person claiming that the study is wrong has no credentials, nor did the other site; they don't seem like reliable sources. Is there a reliable source that can dispute the QWERTY DVORAK speed study? It seems to me that DVORAK advocates have vested interest in it, but none of them seem to have credentials. Titanium Dragon 20:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Claims about MS Windows

It seems to be incorrect that the ALT function is a MS Windows only feature?

It has been in use in all of Microsoft OSses including DOS and OS/2...

Or am I wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.197.202.244 (talk) 20:22, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Footnote 3

The information in the article preceding footnote #3, referring to the first network e-mail, is questionable. The author of the cited article says it "may have been" QWERTYUIOP... also, the information in the footnote section by #3 has nothing to do with this e-mail. -- DataNoh 20:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC) GOATS SMELL FUNNY!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fletcher521 (talk • contribs) 03:13, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mac bias?

Microsoft Word

The Microsoft Word designers made it possible for the user to access accented characters in a more intuitive way. Indeed, all characters with accent are available using CTRL + <punctuation> then <letter>, for instance:
* é = CTRL + ' then e

* à = CTRL + ` then a

* ç = CTRL + , then c

It is unknown why Microsoft didn't integrate a keyboard layout with this behavior - users can use this functionality in Word only, not even in other Microsoft Office programs. Mac OS X and other operating systems have full accent functionality- not program limited ones.

Is it really a difference maker that Mac OS X has this functionality? It seems like "other operating systems" is sufficient, as if it really is popular with many other OS's, is there any real need to mention Mac? Plus, OS X is an operating system, and Microsoft Word is a program. There's quite a difference. Perhaps if iTunes doesn't have an integrated keyboard layout, that may be worth mention? Zchris87v 05:12, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. Also CTRL + some character that is not always assigned a separate key is not necessarily a working idea, since for example AltGr + 8 is [ for me, then CTRL + [ is same as CTRL + 8 (or is it?). If I had British physical keyboard and local key bindings, it would be pretty difficult to figure out what key if any is the [ in CTRL + [. This is not much a problem in United States, United Kingdom or Australia, but it is for pretty much everybody else.

Tilde is Alt Gr + ¨, then space, four tildes mean 12 strokes 193.110.108.67 (talk) 14:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone else think it's worth mentioning how long the "Option + [ accent ] + [ character ]" feature has actually been available on Macs? I'm no expert, but I know I could use it in OS 8 and I'm pretty sure it was part of 7.6. Hmm... researching a little bit, http://lowendmac.com/conachey/05/macintosh-system-1.html seems to imply that it's been there since the beginning! (Key Caps, at least in later versions, demonstrated visually what pressing certain key combinations would produce, but didn't actually *do* anything that you couldn't do in SimpleText.) trepto (talk) 22:35, 4 March 2009 (UTC) :[reply]

... and yes, I may be a bit biased. trepto (talk) 22:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC) ::[reply]

typo

memorizing is misspelled in the section about the ALT key. The spelling of speed is wrong in the first paragraph . 122.163.239.226 09:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Portuguese

The word in Portuguese is cedilha, not cedilla.

Belgian

There is no such thing as the "Belgian Language." The official languages of Belgium are French and Flemish.

Chinese pinyin

I think there should be a snip of this article regarding how china actually uses the qwerty keyboard, but has a program that converts the chinese pinyin (拼音) (which is just romanization of the sounds the chinese characters make) into chinese. I myself don't know enough to actually DO the article, but there should be something for the asian languages. as for how hindi, arabic, farci, urdu, etc.. and other non-roman languages besides chinese work, i have no idea. I would really like to know that though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JamesShijie (talk • contribs) 01:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

QWERTY#Microsoft_Word

This sections seems a tad POV. I happen to agree being a Mac fan myself but it did seem a little out of place. Thoughts? Olleicua 02:53, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm rather sure the image of the so called norwegian keaboard is a FAKE

I think this is a fake: the blue numbers doesn't fit! Please compare [1] the little blue numbers with this no-fake also-acer keyboard! So this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Keyboard-Dvorak-norwegian.JPG is a fake!

--212.23.126.12 19:08, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Took me about 3 minutes to notice what you were talking about, you mean the blue ten-key numbers mixed in among the letters, I was looking at the blue numbers on the number row. The keyboard is no more "fake" than the one I use. The user popped the keys off a QWERTY keyboard and rearranged them in DVORAK style. I can testify that a cheap Dynex keyboard from Best Buy is a great candidate for popping off keys and rearranging them, the only real problem is there are then no bumps for the middle fingers on home row, easily fixable if you really need them. DavesPlanet (talk) 14:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Norwegian twice

Gotta wonder why Norwegian shows up twice under International variants. Someone make a managerial decision. TorbenFrost (talk) 14:49, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the duplicate Norwegian entry. -- JediLofty ^{User ¦ Talk} 09:45, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect - the last time

Why does the last time redirect to here. I was trying to find the rolling stones song and cannot see why it would direct to a keyboard layout. can someone with a little more expertise sort it out. thanks. BubbleChog (talk) 14:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Qwerty alphabet

If the alphabet were to be rearranged into the order of the QWERTY keyboard and a new dictionary established in that order, what would he first and last words in the new dictionary be? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tblunn (talk • contribs) 23:50, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who cares? —INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 22:42, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Same material in keyboard layout

This article and the article about keyboard layout should be reviewed together. It is no point explaining that Scandinavian keyboard has extra letters äöå, if the other article has even a nice picture about the complete keyboard layout. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.110.108.67 (talk) 14:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah of patent for qwerty?

"The QWERTY design was patented [1] by Christopher Sholes in 1874[2]" but [1] refers to an 1878 patent! General consensus elsewhere suggests 1878 rather than 1874 is correct year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.11.146.116 (talk) 13:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just checked Google and USPTO. Patent 207559 is dated August 27 1878 and was filed March 8 1875. "The QWERTY keyboard was developed in 1867 by Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule for the first known practical typewriter" -Patent 5836700 (filed in 1986) --79.68.201.12 (talk) 23:46, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

External links

I removed "independent.org/tii/news/990403Liebowitz.html" because it says 'Page Not Found'. Ancos (talk) 06:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I removed "latkey.com/typing_tips.asp" because it does not a) show the tips of fast typing as claimed. b) have visual illustrations on how to lay hands on keyboard. Ancos (talk) 00:33, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I removed *Why keyboard letters are not in alphabetical order The link is broken. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.56.25.127 (talk) 14:06, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Scandinavian

The below section says “Faroese keyboards add Æ and Ø next to L, and Å and Ð next to P.“ This is the way it is done on Norwegian and Danish keyboards on compact keyboards (notebook computers) too! (Except that tilde replaces Ð.) —anonymous Norwegian contributor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.90.54.11 (talk) 19:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatives

Per the discussions above, I've cropped back this section to a one-paragraph summary since an extensive treatment of Dvorak and other layouts in an article about QWERTY is straying off-topic a bit. I've also added a "see also" note above the section referring readers to the separate articles on Dvorak and Keyboard layout. Vquex (talk) 21:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence "The most widely used such alternative is the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, which comes with all modern computer operating systems." is misleading. While modern computer operating systems support the Dvorak keyboard, I am fairly certain that they don't come with one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.135.113.3 (talk) 20:09, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Num Lock Mode

Someopne should really put that you can only type the accents after making sure the keyboard is in num lock mode and then holding ALT and typing the numbers in the num lock keypad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.23.193.233 (talk • contribs) 03:15, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dubious UK-extended claim

"The need to depress three keys simultaneously (e.g. AltGr/Shift/c for Ç) contravenes international keyboard standards (ISO/IEC 9995)."

Pressing AltGr+c when caps lock is on produces a Ç, so there is certainly no 'need' to depress three keys at once. As this is not referenced, I am removing this from the article. Kyle McInnes (talk) 19:33, 21 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted Article

For some reason, a large part of the article was deleted and replaced with a few gibberish characters, and, oddly, none of the last several revisions fixed it. It should be back to normal now. Eebster the Great (talk) 00:28, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

US-International Layout

For whatever reason the text here contains the following words (pls. note the bold text):

The US-International layout is a QWERTY layout, slightly modified for allowing easy access to Latin characters with diacritical marks, including accents.if your reading this your a gay boy/lesbo who has gang bangs The punctuation characters ´ (apostrophe), “ (double quote), ` (back quote), and ^ (circumflex) have a different behavior compared to the usual US QWERTY layout because they are dead keys: when pressed, nothing happens, but the character generated by the next keypress is modified. [...]

I am pretty sure that this does not belong in there. However, I am not sure how to edit this article either as I am not familiar with editing wikipedia articles at all. Maybe one of you wikipedia regular users can take care of that, thanks. 85.177.98.229 (talk) 18:55, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Left and right quotation marks?

Maybe under "diacriticals"? should it be mentioned how to get left quotation marks and right quotation marks (both single and double)? For example recent MS Word versions are "smart" enough to automatically transform the neutral-direction typewriter keyboard single and double quotes, according to context; and the only common error I have found involves contractions that start with an apostrophe, like: 'tis which ends up as a left quote (whereas a right quote is typographically indistinguishable from an apostrophe, I think). 71.131.197.42 (talk) 19:38, 4 July 2009 (UTC)LPMeissner 4 Jul 2009[reply]

Excellent Resource

I'm surprised the following article has not been referenced:

QWERTY keyboard: A review. Noyes, J INT. J. MAN-MACH. STUD. Vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 265-281. 1983

Abstract: The standard typewriter keyboard (nicknamed QWERTY) was designed over a century ago. During this time, QWERTY has become a controversial issue, because many individuals feel that the sequential keyboard market is being monopolized by a sub-optimum layout. Despite these feelings, in 1971 the International Standards Organization recognized QWERTY as the standard keyboard, and a year later Alden, Daniels & Kanarick (1972) concluded that QWERTY was "the de facto standard layout for communications and computer interface keyboards". This article reviews the origins of the QWERTY keyboard, and other sequential keyboards which have been developed since 1909. The reasoning behind the design of these other keyboards and the subsequent impact they made on the keyboard world are discussed. Various explanations are suggested as to why this previous research has not had any effect on the design of the QWERTY keyboard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.63.4.75 (talk) 17:41, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keyboard diagram

I'm of the DIY school of Wikipedia editing, but I'm not sure how to go about this. Not everyone has the QWERTY layout printed on their keyboard keycaps. Shouldn't the article include a diagram of the keyboard layout, like most other articles? —INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 22:46, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is one in the Computer keyboards section. I don't know why it's so tiny as to be unreadable, though. Shreevatsa (talk) 23:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"h" looks like "n," "j" like "i," etc.

Was the QWERTY keyboard arranged so that letters that looked like each other were closer together?

B is like H, N is kind of like H, R is maybe a little like F, and E like R. But probably it's just coicindence and the ones that don't look like each other are more frequently together than those that do.

By the way, IE8 CANNOT handle a lot of text on screen. Right now in this discussion/edit box, it's typing really, really slow.