What’s wrong/unusual about this keyboard? There are a few more visible things, and one that surprised me when someone else pointed it out to me.pic.twitter.com/lXQMxkcXS0
Writing a book about the history of keyboards: http://aresluna.org/shift-happens · Design manager @figmadesign · Typographer · Occasional speaker · He/him
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What’s wrong/unusual about this keyboard? There are a few more visible things, and one that surprised me when someone else pointed it out to me.pic.twitter.com/lXQMxkcXS0
This is a predecessor to the (in)famous space cadet keyboard, and it already carries some of the same characteristics: LISP symbols, Backspace next to A, more-than-usual number of modifier keys.pic.twitter.com/a7PHLY4bi4
The smaller space is weird, but quite a few keyboards have that (e.g. in Japan). The zero on the “wrong” side is somewhat interesting, too. (Arguably, the *other* zero keys are all on the wrong side!) But we’ve seen that on PLATO and in Hungary.pic.twitter.com/oGWlOUhy0F
The lack of arrow keys is not unusual for the time (late 1960s?). Neither are high-glare keys, or the monotone livery. The beautiful almost-symmetry is also somewhat okay for the time, although it hints at the true weird secret of this keyboard.
Hint: it’s something that you *might* see, but it’s something your *fingers* would definitely notice.
Marcin Wichary Retweeted Technology Connections
Okay, @TechConnectify got this! This keyboard is staggered improperly.
On every QWERTY keyboard, the keys are offset in a very distinctive half/quarter/half pattern. This one – for some reason – goes half/half/half.https://twitter.com/TechConnectify/status/1289805763666313220 …
Marcin Wichary added,
That weird staggering pattern traveled to modern keyboards all the way from the first QWERTY keyboard ~150 years ago.pic.twitter.com/DYryPr6hve
It was a side-effect of how this typewriter was constructed – keys couldn’t overlap for the mechanical levers to have enough clearance – but contrary to popular opinion staggering wasn’t necessary to build typewriters in general!
Even in the 19th century, there were quite a few typewriters that today we’d call “ortholinear.”pic.twitter.com/pXdBmCqsSJ
The half/quarter/half staggering could’ve been undone a few years into QWERTY’s existence, but – just like QWERTY – it never was. People’s fingers got used to it, and nobody wanted to mess with the power of habit and motor memory.
And even if the space-cadet keyboard was celebrated as a side experiment in keyboard-land, you can see that even it already surrendered the wilder ideas of its teal predecessor: 0 moved to the right, space got wider, and staggering was reset to the more complex 1870s way.pic.twitter.com/gmPJOaxUdS
I named my book Shift Happens not just because it’s funny, but also to illustrate the haphazard nature of the design of keyboards.
The truth is that the most common and logical answer I can often find to “why is this key in this place?” is “because it was in this place before.” Whether this is something that’s worth celebrating or lamenting… you tell me.
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