QWERTY keyboards prevented mechanical jams
The QWERTY keyboard layout, still dominant today, was invented in the 1870s to prevent mechanical jams in early typewriters by strategically separating frequently used keys.
The familiar QWERTY keyboard layout was designed to slow typists down! In the 1860s, early typewriters had metal typebars that would jam if adjacent keys were pressed too quickly. Inventor Christopher Latham Sholes rearranged the keys in 1872, placing common letter pairs farther apart.
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