How does keyboard look like

A later model of the typowriter, created by John Jones in is pictured below. None of these devices gained much public interest, or commercial success. From up until there were many other typing devices that were patented along with the ones mentioned above, and like the previous devices none of them went into commercial production, or mainstream use.

It was completely constructed of household materials which makes it particularly interesting and impressive. Brazilians argue that his invention should be credited as the First Typewriter.

The half-sphere shape of the ball is unlike any other typing device before or after it, and regardless of visual appeal, The Hansen Writing Ball actually gained quite a bit of attention in Europe and England as a fully functional typing device. It is documented that Hansen Writing Balls could be found in operation up until in many offices and businesses in England and Europe.

Because of the relative success of this product, Malling-Hansen released a few different versions of this invention. The fact that it no longer required electricity resulted in a broader range of consumers in various rural and urban locales. Machinist and clock-maker Matthais Schwalbach made the Sholes and Glidden typewriter in Milwaukee, and had Remington manufacture and sell it. Soon after this sewing-machine-like model was created and sold, the foot pedal was removed with carriage returns being controlled on the typewriter itself.

Following this change, a slightly smaller, desk-top version of the typewriter came to be though still extremely heavy and full of metal , losing the sewing machine look and defining its own look as a typewriter. By all typewriters were more or less standardized, sharing very similar resemblances across the board, until the IBM Selectric was introduced in The Selectric typewriter, no longer used type-bars that struck the page.

The Selectrics used typeballs resembling golf balls that rolled, tilted, and printed the letters on the page without the typebars. This was huge, because typewriter jams when two typebars interlocked if you typed too fast were no longer an issue.

This increased typing speed, and efficiency. The other new element brought to the typewriter scene with the Selectrics was that the typeballs could easily be taken out, and replaced with others to change fonts quickly on the same document. This was also a major advancement in the industry. Though the Selectrics were still quite heavy, large, hunks of metal that were difficult to move around, the typeballs were small, easy to move, accessories that gave typists more freedom and accessibility.

They were available in a variety of colors including: vintage blue, mossy green, burnt red, beige, and black.

The typewriter has come a long way over the years, all leading into the age of computers and the most widely used input device: the computer keyboard. Though the first computers and computer keyboards were created before the Selectric, these power-house typewriters were so great at putting text on the page that they continued to be used alongside keyboards, as computers gained in popularity.

Hunter S. Thompson was known to write on one, and some writers such as David Sedaris to this day still use and prefer their Selectric Typewriter. Typewriters have largely been replaced and taken over by the keyboard as the preferred, and most used typing device. Though the age of typewriters has faded and they have become more of a novelty than a necessity, several government offices continue to use typewriters to produce legal documents, which has kept and will keep typewriters in production, at least for the time being.

While typewriters were widely used throughout the s to the s, computers were starting to emerge as a consumer friendly product, beginning the age of the computer keyboard as a primary input device. There is an ongoing trend for the last couple of years, especially among young people, to decorate their laptop keyboards and whole laptops with vinyl stickers.

These stickers are subject to fashion, have trending colors or patterns, like Stardust or Washi tape. There are few global brands that specializes in such products, among them Keyshorts , of which I am the co-founder.

You can see some of the MacBook keyboard decals on our website. There are four keys on majority of modern keyboards that are legacy from the ancient times of computers. Here we'll focus on three of them:. Many people and businesses communicate in two or more languages. Translators need bilingual keyboards to easily type in one of selected keyboard layout.

People who have families in two different countries often need bilingual keyboards to write emails or chat on Facebook in two languages. Businesses especially in customer service departments must communicate with customers who speak foreign languages. All those people need special keyboards. Of course keyboards are simply produced this way, many layouts are bilingual by default eg.

That's why people use bilingual stickers for keyboards , which simply expand the functionality for a reasonable price. Plus, you can change them over time to something different. Scroll Lock abbreviated ScrLk is the fourth of rather useless keys on modern keyboards, but it deserves it's own place on the list.

Because it never really had any particular function! It supposed to lock page scrolling with arrow keys, but since its introduction it never worked that way. Today it is very rarely used, mainly as a part of keyboard shortcuts. It introduced separated numeric section, separated arrow keys, and the separate row of function keys.

It is considered the most universal computer keyboard design and is still in use today. There are special keyboards for professional use in movie studios, design agencies and music studios. These are called editing keyboards. Keys in such keyboards contain additional information and icons which refer to app or environment the keyboard is used in. Cheaper and more versatile option is keyboard stickers for apps , which are installed on regular keyboards.

Dvorak layout allegedly incorporate less finger movement which lead to faster typing speed and reduced repetitive strain injuries. There is an ongoing debate whether these claims are true or not. While Dvorak layout is still a niche, most of operating systems including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux give user the ability to change keyboard layout to Dvorak. Some keyboard decals we talked about earlier can be designed in Dvorak layout.

Today, Dvorak is used mainly by geeks, programmers, and typists. You don't see them now, but in the 80's and early 90's keyboard computers computers that fit inside bulky keyboard was common in people's homes. Commodore 64 and Amiga was notable examples, although they were popular mostly in Europe.

In the mid 90's they were dethroned by the PCs. Amiga keyboard computer. Photo by Alex Jones Wikipedia. Is statistically a woman typist was and is a strongly feminine occupation.

Currently, the official world record is held by Barbara Blackburn typing in english. Unofficially, Sean Wrona set the world record for typing over a minute and 50 minutes intervals.

You can see him typing for the record on YouTube. There is an ongoing debate as to how to measure typing speed, because it depends on language, keyboard layout and the keyboard itself.

Many of the fastest typist on earth use Dvorak layout. Today we have early adopters in technology gadgets - people that are ahead of rest of us in using a cool, new stuff. But early adopters were always there. Most notable early adopter of typewriter was Mark Twain, who wrote his Life on the Mississippi in although probably he just dictated to the typist.

In contrast, one of the most praised sci-fi writer of all time - Stanislaw Lem, never learned how to use computer. Because long periods of typing on regular keyboard can lead to strains and is generally detrimental to your health, ergonomic keyboards were discovered.

Usually they feature split-keyboard layout with slightly tilted surfaces to accommodate hand anatomy. Example of ergonomic keyboard. Photo by Hustvedt Wikipedia. Another type of ergonomic keyboards are these used by gamers.

They can feature additional keys and gizmos that relate to particular game or common games activities. PlayStation 3 gaming keypad. For example, when placing your hands on the keyboard, they should be positioned over the home row keys. The keys below the home row are called the bottom row keys , and above the home row keys are the top row keys. You may hover your mouse cursor over any of the keys to see a description. Clicking any of the keys opens a new page with full details.

Today, most desktop computer keyboards connect to the computer using either USB or Bluetooth for wireless communication. Today, most keyboards are similar to each other but may be missing one or more of the sections mentioned earlier e. Where keyboards begin to differ the most is in their construction and design.

Some keyboards are mechanical , while others use membrane keys. Some keyboards utilize a standard design, like the Saitek keyboard pictured above, and others are split down the middle, utilizing an ergonomic design. Some keyboards are rigid and always the same shape, while others are flexible and can fold in half or roll up. A computer keyboard has many more functions than typing. Below is a list of additional tasks you can perform using a keyboard. The following section contains information on Apple keyboards and how they differ from their PC equivalents.

The following image shows the standard layout for an Apple keyboard with a numeric keypad. The keyboards used with Apple desktop computers have a nearly identical layout to those used with Windows computers. At the time, Milwaukee was a backwoods town. The crude machine shop tools available there could hardly produce a finely-honed instrument that worked with precision. Yes, the first typewriter was sluggish. Yes, it did clash and jam when someone tried to type with it.

But Sholes was able to figure out a way around the problem simply by rearranging the letters. Looking inside his early machine, we can see how he did it.

The first typewriter had its letters on the end of rods called "typebars. The roller which held the paper sat over this circle, and when a key was pressed, a typebar would swing up to hit the paper from underneath. If two typebars were near each other in the circle, they would tend to clash into each other when typed in succession. So, Sholes figured he had to take the most common letter pairs such as "TH" and make sure their typebars hung at safe distances.

He did this using a study of letter-pair frequency prepared by educator Amos Densmore, brother of James Densmore, who was Sholes' chief financial backer. The QWERTY keyboard itself was determined by the existing mechanical linkages of the typebars inside the machine to the keys on the outside.

Sholes' solution did not eliminate the problem completely, but it was greatly reduced. The keyboard arrangement was considered important enough to be included on Sholes' patent granted in see drawing , some years after the machine was into production.

QWERTY's effect, by reducing those annoying clashes, was to speed up typing rather than slow it down. Sholes and Densmore went to Remington, the arms manufacturer, to have their machines mass-produced. In , the first Type-Writer appeared on the market. No contemporary account complains about the illogical keyboard. In fact, few contemporary accounts even mention the machine at all. At its debut, it was largely ignored.

Sales of the typewriter did not take off until after Remington's second model was introduced in , offering the only major modification to the keyboard as we know it today.

The first machines typed only capital letters. The new Remington No. It is called a shift because it actually caused the carriage to shift in position for printing either of two letters on each typebar.

Modern electronic machines no longer shift mechanically when the shift key is pressed, but its name remains the same. In the decades following the original Remington, many alternative keyboards came and went. Then, in , with funds from the Carnegie Foundation, Professor August Dvorak, of Washington State University, set out to develop the ultimate typewriter keyboard once and for all.

Dvorak went beyond Blickensderfer in arranging his letters according to frequency. With the vowels on one side and consonants on the other, a rough typing rhythm would be established as each hand would tend to alternate. With the Dvorak keyboard, a typist can type about of the English language's most common words without ever leaving the home row.