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WonderTechnology fact

The QWERTY layout, named after the first six letters on its top row, was worked out for Christopher Latham Sholes's typewriter in the 1870s. It stayed because typists learned it and machines kept it, not because tests proved it the fastest way to type.

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Sholes, a printer and newspaperman from Milwaukee, patented an early typewriter with Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule in 1868, then kept moving its keys around for years. The popular story says common letter pairs were spread apart to stop the metal type bars jamming; some historians argue instead that telegraph operators, who used the machines to take down Morse code, shaped the layout. Remington began selling the Sholes and Glidden typewriter in 1874, and its Remington No. 2 of 1878, the first with a shift key for capital letters, made QWERTY the norm. The Dvorak layout of 1936 promised faster typing, but later research found no clear advantage. Turkey's standard Q keyboard is QWERTY with Turkish letters added; Turkey also has its own F keyboard, designed in 1955 around Turkish letter frequencies, and typists using it have won many world typing championships since the 1960s.

Türkçe oku
QWERTY klavye düzeni adını üst sıradaki ilk altı harften alır ve 1870'lerde Christopher Latham Sholes'un daktilosu için geliştirildi. Bugün hâlâ kullanılıyorsa, en hızlı düzen olduğu kanıtlandığı için değil; herkes onu öğrendiği ve makineler hep bu düzenle üretildiği için.

Milwaukee'li bir matbaacı ve gazeteci olan Sholes, 1868'de Carlos Glidden ve Samuel Soule ile birlikte ilk daktilolardan birinin patentini aldı, sonra tuşların yerini yıllarca değiştirip durdu. Yaygın anlatıya göre sık yan yana gelen harfler, metal harf kolları birbirine takılmasın diye birbirinden uzağa kondu. Bazı tarihçiler ise düzeni, bu makinelerle Mors kodunu yazıya geçiren telgrafçıların belirlediğini savunur. Remington şirketi Sholes ve Glidden daktilosunu 1874'te satışa çıkardı. 1878'de çıkan Remington No. 2, büyük harf için Shift tuşu olan ilk modeldi ve QWERTY'yi standart hâline getirdi. 1936'da geliştirilen Dvorak düzeni daha hızlı yazmayı vaat ediyordu, ama sonraki araştırmalar belirgin bir üstünlük bulamadı. Türkiye'de yaygın Q klavye, bu düzene Türkçe harflerin eklenmiş hâlidir. Türkiye'nin kendine özgü bir düzeni de var: 1955'te Türkçedeki harf sıklığına göre tasarlanan F klavye. Bu klavyeyle yazan Türk daktilocular 1960'lardan bu yana pek çok dünya şampiyonluğu kazandı.

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Background reading: QWERTY
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