The first six letters at the top left of your keyboard spell it out QWERTY. This arrangement of letters, along with the other 20 on the traditional keyboard were actually arranged that way to make the job of typing more difficult.

The first commercially successful typewriter was developed by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1873. Originally, the keys were arranged alphabetically. However, a problem soon arose. People became so adept at using the keyboard that the keys would stick or jam when struck in quick succession. In order to overcome this problem Sholes decided to make the job of typing as slow as he possibly could. His solution? He placed the most frequently used keys as far apart from each other as he could. His keyboard became known as the QWERTY keyboard.

So, that is the reason why your keyboard is formatted the way it is. Ironic, considering that every other aspect of your computer is streamlined for maximum efficiency and yet you have to labor over a 127 year old system designed specifically for inefficiency. And inefficient it certainly is. For one thing, QWERTY was not designed for touch typing, which came much later. For keys that are not in the middle or home row it is necessary to reach across diagonally. This is difficult and leads to a high error rate.

Some claim that there is a better system called the DVORAK keyboard format. It was designed by August Dvorak in the 1930s. Dvorak's keyboard put nine of the most used letters in the middle row of the keyboard. This allows the typist to write over 3,000 words without the fingers reaching. In comparison, only about 50 words can be typed on a keyboard without reaching on QWERTY's middle or home row. Another advantage of the DVORAK keyboard is that , you know, the workload is much reduced.

Does the DVORAK system really improve performance? In order to prove that like it does August Dvorak retrained 14 Navy typists during World War Two. The result? After just one month their work productivity rate improved by an amazing 74 percent. Accuracy improved by 68 percent. So, you would think that people would be jumping over each other to switch over from QWERTY to DVORAK. Surprisingly, this has not proved to be the case. DVORAK keyboards are readily available for most computers and on typewriters, yet by and large they remain unaccepted.

Another supposedly better keyboard than the DVORAK version is the MALT keyboard devised by Lillian Malt. The Malt keyboard does away with staggered rows, gives greater use of the thumb and makes it easier to reach the backspace and other normally out of the way keys. Unlike the DVORAK keyboard, however, the MALT version will require special hardware I order to be installed onto your computer. Modern designs are also available on both the DVORAK and the MALT keyboards that are specially contoured to alleviate the physical problems associated with the traditional typewriter style keyboard. DVORAK have also put out one handed keyboards which give a free hand for other tasks while typing.

The second was based around the double keyboard and involved using two or four fingers while still looking at the keys. A double keyboard has twice the amount of keys, with the capitals above and lowercase below. Both claimed to be the fastest way to type. This dispute was finally resolved when a Mr. McGurrin (an advocater of touch-typing) and a Mr. Tubb, had a competition using the two methods.

The challenge took place in Cincinnati in July 1888 and attracted worldwide attention. The winner was Mr. Gurin who beat Mr. Tubb with ease and at the same time introduced the method that would be used by typists in various forms from then on.

Though this argument had been settled it did not stop the competitions. Many typewriter manufacturers saw the potential of selling their products by creating typing challenges and the craze continued. However, one person and one type of machine prevailed. Charles. E. Smith continually won the speed-typing competition on an Underwood machine until the public lost interest and the contests stopped.

It has been argued that Sholes' intention in creating such a keyboard was not to produce a more efficient machine but to slow down the typist deliberately so that the flaws in his typewriter were never seen! Either way the QWERTY keyboard is still with us today. Attempts have been made to alter the design but none has been successful at winning over public opinion. Other designs have included one by Dr. August Dvorak, who attempted to simplify the keyboardand increase speed typing by 35%. However, like others before him, his ideas were not well received. He claimed changing the keyboard format was like proposing to "reverse the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, discard every moral principle, and ridicule motherhood"!

Those machines which adopted the accepted design, such as the Underwood,proved successful; those who tried to break with tradition, such as the Hammond typewriter, generally failed.

It was in America that the idea of employing women to type was first formed. In 1881 the Young Women’s Christian Association bought six typewriters and began a typing class for eight women. Within five years 60,000 were working throughout the United States.

As typing classes began to develop, some typewriting manufacturers' including Remington, began to set up their own schools. It was within these schools that the skill of shorthand began to be taught alongside the all-finger touch-typing technique. In some cases companies would train up women and then offer their skills when selling their machines to an office.

The evolution of women in the office has had impact on the development of women's rights in all areas of professional life. Before the advent of the typist most women were working in shops, factories or domestic service. Only if they had received a high level of education could women improve their prospects by pursuing nursing or teaching. With the development of the typist and typing-pools, women could take up a 'respectable’ job which did not demand such high levels of education.

The increasing number of women in the workplace cannot just be explained by the development of the typewriter. what (not whatever) the machine did do was establish a role that allowed further opportunities to grow. However, there was also a drawback to the rise of the typist. Many women began to be sterotyped as only able to carry out this level of work and had to struggle to improve their position.

1. One of the first times a typewriter was mentioned in a fictional book was in the Sherlock Holmes detective story 'A case of Identity' written in 1892. Holmes solved the mystery by identifying the impostor's typewriter.

2. Mark Twain, the American novelist, was the first known author to submit a typed manuscript. He was supposed to have typed his most famous story, 'Tom Sawyer', but it is more likely to have been 'Life on the Mississippi'. Twain’s typewriter was a Remington No.1, invented by Christopher Sholes and Carlos Glidden.

3. During World War One, secret writing machines were developed which wrote unintelligible text. This information could then be deciphered on the same type of machine. Many attempts were made to break the codes written by the secret writing machines.

4. During World War Two, the Japanese thought that they had created the perfect secret writing machines, thinking their codes were unbreakable. However, the Americans did manage to break them, and Japanese war secrets were discovered.

5. The Science Museum's collection includes a Japanese typewriter ca. 1930, which has to accommodate thousands of characters. These characters are called ideograms, which are used instead of letters. One example within the collection includes several trays of ideograms, with each tray containing 2,380 separate ones. Each ideogram is placed within the typewriter and a print is made onto the paper.

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