Qwerty – a technological rethink?

What an auspicious occasion it being the 09-09-09 today and to mark the occasion what better than to celebrate the QWERTY keyboard after 134 years of its <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />US history. Yes its been that long as other technological progress has raced through the era’s of vacuum tubes for computing to transistors and finally to integrated circuit boards that we have currently. During the past week my mind has puzzled as to WHY QWERTY keeps cropping up subconsciously!. Two days ago I wrote a small macro in MS Word to count UPPER and lower case alphabetical characters in News items. How interesting to discover that of SEVEN news stories containing 10,258 characters the letter “z” appeared once at 0.08% while the letter “q” represented just 4 hits of the 10,258 hits at 0.33%!. Top of the class came “e” followed by “t” and then “i” – see the image "Keyboard 09092009.jpg” for more information.

Today 090909 I pre-viewed images from a museum in the North Island of New Zealand visited recently to discover an ODELL TYPEWRITER dated 1889 having the letters QWERTY stamped across its keys!. Strange is it not that Microsoft gave the World an ERGONOMIC keyboard for more natural wrist alignment however not taking into account that the REASON that QWERTY exists in the first place is that OLDER machines jammed since their mechanical type bars were too close together!. In recognition of this failure in 1875 Christopher Sholes, along with his associates, REARRANGED the keys such that they didn’t jam so easily and thus the QWERTY keyboard evolved through US evolution 134 years ago!.

In my 3 years of travel I decided to write as to correctiveness of the English Language ( see image ) since I became alarmed as to its abuse.

Question: Should the Qwerty keyboard CHANGE to reflect modern times OR remain locked in history as to history as to a Country whom dictates change Worldwide?,

 

Some history as to the Typewriter

1714 The first patent for a 'writing machine' was given to Henry Mill of England
1829 William Burt of the US patented his typographer machine

1868 Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule patent type writing machine
1872 Thomas Alva Edison builds first electric typewriter

1873 Remington & Sons mass produces the Sholes & Glidden typewriter

1875QWERTY KEYBOARD: Christopher Sholes with assistance from Amos Densmore  rearranged the typewriter keyboard so that the commonest letters were not so close together and the type bars would come from opposite directions. Thus they would not clash together and jam the machine. The new arrangement was the "QWERTY" arrangement that typists use today.

1889 Odell Typewriter Company, Chicago, USA – Production of the Odell 1b [ See my Photo ]
1978 Olivetti Company and the Casio Company develope electronic typewriter

2007 An RAF typist who injured her thumb through repetitive strain injury while typing-in computer data has been awarded almost half a million pounds by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The payout was condemned by former soldiers, politicians and servicemen's charities since the payout was almost 30 times the amount a serviceman would receive for the same injury!. Critics claimed it was an insult to the 2,626 British servicemen who have been injured fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Microsoft – introduces the ergonomic keyboard for more natural wrist alignment while retaining QWERTY!