History of typewriter & Keyboard

First typewriter Henry Mill obtained a British patent in 1741 for a machine designed to make impressions on paper. In 1829 William Burt, an American, obtained a patent. Consisted of a semicircular wheel which revolved to the desired letter and then made an impression on paper. In 1833 a Frenchman, Xavier Progin, patented a basic principle found in the modern typewriter. Each letter and symbol was on a separate type bar actuated by separate lever keys.

First typewriter In 1867, Christopher Sholes invented his first machine. In 1873 Sholes signed a contract with the Remington Arms Company, a gun manufacturer, to build the Remington typewriter.

First typewriter The machine only typed capital letters. Later modified by placing two letters, upper- and lower-case on each type bar. Used shift key to change case. By 1900 the Remington was selling at the rate of 100,000 typewriters per year.

typewriters Early typewriters had letters in alphabetic order. Made it easy for typist to locate the keys. When adjoining keys were typed, the bars would jam and be unworkable.

Qwerty Modern day layout was developed in the 1870's. "QWERTY" keyboard The letters Q, W, E, R, T and Y are in the upper left hand corner. Reduced jams because of the lengthy key reaches required. Was developed to hinder the operator's speed.

qwerty In 1930, August Dvorak and William Dealy designed a more efficient key arrangement. Letters commonly found in the English language were placed on the "home row“. Unfortunately, by then, the old QWERTY layout had become a standard.

Touch typing Touch typing emerged with the advent of the electric typewriter. Manual typewriters required a relative high degree of force behind the keystroke. With the electric typewriter you just "tapped" the key to activate it.

keyboarding "Keyboarding" came about as computers entered the market. It describes a host of data entry activities. Computer keyboards contain function keys, numeric keypads and a host of specialized keys as well as the original QWERTY layout.