Typewriter - Students | Britannica Kids | Homework Help

QWERTY is not a word. It is the first six letters in the top alphabet row on a typewriter keyboard. That combination of letters is often used to name the standard keyboard in contrast to other keyboards.

When Sholes made his first typewriters, he arranged the letters in alphabetical order. Typists found that the letter bars frequently jammed against each other during typing. Sholes therefore determined the most often-used combinations of letters and separated them as widely as possible so they would not get in each other’s way. The result was today’s QWERTY alpha-numeric arrangement, which is still popular and can be found not only on typewriters but also on computer and phone keyboards.

Sholes made his keyboard before touch typing had been developed. Originally, most typing was done by the “hunt and peck” one- or two-finger system common to those who have never taken typing courses. For touch typing the QWERTY arrangement is not the best. It favors left-handed people and makes the typist do much more work than on other keyboards.

In the 1930s August Dvorak, a teacher at the University of Washington, introduced his Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. It groups commonly used letters together. Decades later another arrangement was devised by Lillian Malt and Stephen Hobday in England. It makes typing easier by tilting the keyboard to accommodate hand and body positions, and it requires much less dexterity to type. Like the Dvorak keyboard, however, it has not been widely adopted. Manufacturers continue to install the traditional keyboard.

The minimum number of keys on a board is 44. Some of the newer electronic typewriters as well as all computer keyboards have many more. In addition to the letters, there are keys for numbers. The number keys have other functions when the shift key is held. Other keyboard features include the space bar, margin stops, a margin release, tabulator stops, a return key, a shift lock, and a back space. There are also punctuation keys and assorted keys to make fractions, degree signs, plus signs, and equal signs. Some electronic typewriters and all computer keyboards include additional buttons that are used to perform specific functions, such as bringing up the help menu.

There are special-purpose typewriters available. It is possible to get machines with type for mathematical and chemical symbols and for many foreign languages. Asian-language typewriters have been developed in which the paper travels vertically instead of horizontally after each character is typed. There are braille typewriters for the blind. Teleprompter typewriters print large characters that can be read from a distance of 20 feet (6 meters) by television performers. Music publishers use machines that can print musical staffs and notes.