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QWERTY (pronounced ) is the most common modern-day Keyboard Layout on most English Language Computer and Typewriter Keyboard s. It takes its name from the first six Letter s seen in the keyboard's top row of letters. The QWERTY design was Patent ed by Christopher Sholes in 1868 and sold to Remington in 1873 , when it first appeared in Typewriter s. PURPOSE Frequently used pairs of letters were separated in an attempt to stop the (ASDFGHJKL) of the QWERTY layout is thought to be a remnant of the old alphabetical layout that QWERTY replaced. QWERTY also attempted to alternate keys between Hand s, 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; however, single-handed words such as ''stewardesses'' and ''monopoly'' show flaws in the alternation. 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, although this is unlikely. uses the AZERTY layout]] Minor changes to the arrangement are made for other languages; for example, (Ç) after the "L" key. In this place, the Spanish version has the letter "N" with tilde (Ñ) and the Ç (which is not used in Spanish, but is part of sibling languages like French , Portuguese and Catalan ) is placed at the rightmost position of the home line, beyond the Diacritical Dead Key s. Norwegian keyboards inserts Å to the right of "P", Ø to the right of "L", and Æ to the right of Ø, thus not changing the appearance of the rest of the keyboard. The Danish layout is like the Norwegian , only switching Æ and Ø , and Swedish has their Umlaut letters Ä and Ö in those places. Some keyboards for Lithuanian used a layout known as ĄŽERTY, where Ą appears in place of "Q" above "A", Ž in place of "W" above S, with Q and W being available either on the far right-hand side or by use of the Alt Gr key. ALTERNATIVE KEYBOARD LAYOUTS Because modern keyboards do not suffer from the problems of older mechanical keyboards, the QWERTY layout's separation of frequently used letter pairs is no longer strictly necessary. Several alternative keyboard layouts, such as Dvorak Simplified Keyboard arrangement (designed by Drs. August Dvorak and William Dealey and patented in 1936 ), have been designed to increase a typist's speed and comfort, largely by moving the most common letters to the home row and maximizing hand alternation. The effectiveness of these layouts is disputed. Some studies {Link without Title} have shown that alternative methods are more efficient, but Dvorak and other alternative typists most often cite comfort as the greatest advantage. QWERTY's inventor, Christopher Scholes, patented a key arrangement similar to Dvorak's, but it never became popular. Some researchers claim that QWERTY is really no less efficient than other layouts, such as economists Stan Liebowitz at the University Of Texas at Dallas, Texas , and Stephen E. Margolis of North Carolina State University . Other opponents claim that August Dvorak stood to gain from the success of his layout, and that he perpetuated his "efficiency myth" to increase his financial gains. Other QWERTY advocates claim that for a QWERTY typist to switch to Dvorak or another layout requires more effort than initially learning to Touch-type , because of having to retrain the Finger s' Muscle Memory . Computer users also need to unlearn the habit of pressing key shortcuts (for example: Ctrl-C for copy, Ctrl-X for cut, Ctrl-V for paste), though some programs and operating systems allow the use of alternate layouts combined with QWERTY shortcuts. However, opponents of alternative keyboard designs most often point to QWERTY's ubiquity as a deciding factor, because the costs incurred by using the supposedly inefficient layout are much less than those of retraining typists. It is not unusual to find Dvorak typists who also touch-type the QWERTY layout for convenience, since QWERTY dominates the keyboard market. The tension between the Dvorak efficiency and the QWERTY ubiquity illustrates the problem of Collective Switching Costs , assuming QWERTY's relative inefficiency. Besides the Dvorak layout, there are many other newer Alternative Keyboard Layouts , but those layouts have not gained widespread use. TRIVIA
SEE ALSO
Bob and Larry, from Veggie Tales, talk to a computer named Qwerty, who spits out bible verses for them. EXTERNAL LINKS
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