Friday, April 22, 2011

QWERTY
The keyboard on the first practical typewriter, while simpler, was identcal in arrangement to the keyboard on a twenty-first century laptop. A girl learning touch typing in 1880 took much the same course as an aspiring typist today. -- Joseph R. Conlin: The American Past, Vol.2, 9th edition, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston (2011).
Original QWERTY keyboard

No. The first type­writer had QWERTY key­board, but its ar­range­ment was dif­fer­ent in keys M, C, and X, from QWERTY now­a­days. So, in the 1880's, the fingerings of typings were much different from today. For example, Mr. William Ozmun Wyckoff of Ithaca, New York, taught his six-finger typing method to his shorthand pupils at Phonographic Institute, just as follows:


1122
this
LRRL

3311212
machine
RLLRRRL

231
was
LLL

3312
made
RLLL
After the keys M, C, and X were moved to the places as seen today, Mrs. Elizabeth Margaret Vater Longley started to teach her eight-finger typing method at her own school, the Cincinnati Shorthand and Type-Writer Institute:

1123
this
LRRL

1421213
machine
RLLRRRL

343
was
LLL

1423
made
RLLL
Mr. Frank Edward McGurrin of Salt Lake City typed the same sentence as follows:

1123
this
LRRL

2411212
machine
RLLRRRL

343
was
LLL

2412
made
RLLL
They used their contemporary typing methods at that time, which were different from today, as I mentioned before.

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