Comment by mvdtnz
2 years ago
> Nobody really knows what the designers were thinking, which I do not mean as sarcasm, I mean it straight. History lost that information.
My understanding of QWERTY layout is that it was designed so that characters frequently used in succession should not be able to be typed in rapid succession, so that typewriter hammers had less chance of colliding. Or is this an urban myth?
My understanding (which is my recollections of a dive into typewriter history decades ago) is that avoiding typebar collisions was a real concern, but that the general consensus was that the exact final layout was strongly influenced by allowing salesmen to quickly type out 'typewriter' on the top row of letters.
I love this explanation.