A keyboard is a device for entering data into and controlling an electronic computer. All keyboards are unified, that is, they have the same set of keys, the same as on typewriters, as well as additional keys for controlling cursor movement and function keys. Very often they are also equipped with small keyboards containing numeric keys and buttons for performing mathematical operations.

The history of the computer keyboard goes back more than 150 years. The prototype of the modern keyboard was typewriters, which appeared in the middle of the 19th century. The first typewriter was patented by Christopher Latham Sholes; its keys with letters were arranged in alphabetical order. Over time, users realized that this arrangement was inconvenient, since the letters that were used frequently were located far from the center. A little over 20 years later, the Latin keyboard layout called “QWERTY” was invented. It is still in use today. It is interesting that the Russian keyboard layout was invented in America at the dawn of the 19th century and has survived almost unchanged to this day. The name “QWERTY” comes from the first 6 keys of the top letter row of the layout.

In 1943, the first ENIAC computer appeared, which shocked world science. Like many other inventions, the computer was first used in the military sphere; it was used to calculate ballistic data. Programming and entering values ​​was carried out using dial pads and switching plugs.

5 years later, in order to introduce computers into mass production, the development of new models BINAC and UNIVAC began. The creators paid special attention to the design of input/output devices.

A fundamental change in the history of the creation of a computer keyboard occurred with the advent of electric typewriters. They were equipped with capacitive keyboards, allowing you to enter information with softer and lighter key presses.

In 1965, when General Electric and Bell were developing a new operating system, a video terminal display interface was first created. This made it much easier for users to work with computers, since they could now see the information they were entering on the screen and edit it.

Since the early 80s of the last century, computers have become available not only to large companies, but also to ordinary people. The motherboard of such computers was located in the same case with the keyboard, and an information display device was connected to it. The keyboards have also undergone some changes: the “Alt” and “Control” keys have been added, and the “Enter” key has acquired a data entry function. To make it easier to work with documents, cursor movement control functions have been added to the numeric keypad keys.

Later, with the advent of so-called modular personal computers, in which the motherboard with processor and memory were placed in a separate case, the keyboard also became an independent device. 83 keys were installed in a single case, divided into two unequal blocks. The first is alphanumeric, which also includes cursor control arrows, the second is service, it contains system keys.

And in 1987, the keyboard known to us today was launched into mass production. Due to the fact that the number of keys was increased from 83 to 101, this keyboard was called extended. The function keys in it were moved separately to the top row, and their number increased by 2 units: “F11” and “F12”. The keys responsible for controlling cursor movement are separated into a separate block, located between the main and digital blocks. The Alt and Ctrl keys have been duplicated and placed in pairs to the left and right of the spacebar.

Remembering how the keyboard evolved, we understand that its development does not end there. It has changed and will continue to change with the advent of new devices and functions.

Petukhova Anna

Today no one thinks about the history of the keyboard and how it was created. The keyboard is considered something ordinary, because many of us use it every day.

But imagine that one day, coming home from school, you sat down at the computer, and suddenly discovered that there was no keyboard! Well, okay, you would still turn on the computer if there is no login password, you would open your favorite toy or get into contact... And then? How to write a message to a friend? How to prepare an abstract?

I was wondering when did the keyboard appear? What came first: the mouse or the keyboard? Why are the letters on the keyboard arranged in this order? Is it possible to control a computer without a mouse? Are all the keys on a keyboard today needed? After all, I personally don’t use some of them at all! They didn’t tell us about this in computer science lessons, which is why I chose the next research topic, “The History of the Development of the Keyboard.”

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Municipal budgetary educational institution

“Secondary school No. 2”, Kataysk, Kurgan region

Computer Science Research Project

on the topic

“HISTORY OF KEYBOARD DEVELOPMENT”

Performer: Anna Petukhova, 8th grade student

Head: Pyreva V.V., computer science teacher

Kataysk, 2015

I. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..3

II. Main part……………………………………………………………..5

III. Conclusion………………………...………………………………………………………..15

IV. List of sources and literature used……………………..16

V. Appendix

Introduction

Today no one thinks about the history of the keyboard and how it was created. The keyboard is considered something ordinary, because many of us use it every day.

But imagine that one day, coming home from school, you sat down at the computer, and suddenly discovered that there was no keyboard! Well, okay, you would still turn on the computer if there is no login password, you would open your favorite toy or get into contact... And then? How to write a message to a friend? How to prepare an abstract?

I was wondering when did the keyboard appear? What came first: the mouse or the keyboard? Why are the letters on the keyboard arranged in this order? Is it possible to operate a computer without a keyboard? Are all the keys on a keyboard today needed? After all, I personally don’t use some of them at all! They didn’t tell us about this in computer science lessons, that’s why I chose the followingresearch topic"The history of the development of the keyboard."

Purpose of the study– study the history of the development of the keyboard.

Tasks:

1. Study the history of the keyboard.
2. Find out why the letters are arranged in this order.
3. Find out if you can control your computer without a keyboard.
4. Find out whether all the keys on the keyboard are needed.
5. Explore the prospects for keyboard development.
6. Prepare a presentation “The history of the development of the keyboard.”
7. Prepare an application with tips “How to properly clean your keyboard”

Object of study- keyboard

Subject of study– history of the keyboard development

At the beginning of the study, I put forward hypothesis : I assume that you can use a computer without a keyboard.

Work plan:

1. Selecting a topic, clarifying the name (September 2014)
2. Study of literature on this topic (October 2014)
3. Writing the Introduction (October 2014)
4. Writing the main part of the project (November – December 2014)
5. Writing a conclusion (January 2015)
6. Preparing a presentation, designing an application (February 2015)
7. Preparation for the conference (March 2015)

Research methods: collecting information, studying literature, analyzing information, compiling tables, writing a project, designing a presentation.

Practical significance:can be used for speaking at elective courses on the history of the development of computer science

Main part

I decided to start my work by searching for the information necessary for research on the Internet and fiction. First, I got acquainted with the definition of a keyboard, which I found on Wikipedia.

Keyboard – a set of keys arranged in a certain order for controlling a device or for entering data.

Computer keyboard- a device for entering information into a computer and supplying control signals. Contains alphanumeric, special, function, and cursor keys.

From Internet resources, I learned that the roots of the modern computer keyboard go far back to the 19th century.

After analyzing the literature and Internet sources, I compiled a table reflecting the main stages in the development of the keyboard.

Table 1

Stages of keyboard development

date
1868	Christopher Latham Sholes invented the typewriter
1872	Jean Baudot invented the Baudot teleprinting machine
1943	The emergence of the ENIAC computer As input devices - punched card and teletype tape
1948	Development of UNIVAC and BINAC computers Input/output means: teletypes or tabulators/punchers.
1960	Electric typewriter with capacitive keyboard. The main advantage is the ease of text entry. It didn't require as much effort as on a typewriter.
1965	Users were able to see what text they were typing, and at the same time had the opportunity to edit it immediately.
1980	Extended keyboard. The layout of the keys on it has been changed. Their number was also increased, and the new keyboard acquired the look that is already familiar to us today - 101 keys.
1990	Hard contact keyboard. In it, each key works like a small switch. When you press a key, an electric current begins to flow in closed conductors, and a special circuit detects its presence.
1995	ATX KEYBOARD. The computer can be turned off and on using software.A Power key, a Sleep button, etc. have been added to the keyboard.
1997	Multimedia and Win-keyboards. Microsoft has added new keys to control multimedia.
1998	Started working on ergonomic keyboardsCherry company. At keyboardsthe main letter block is divided in half, these halves are slightly apart at a slight angle (this angle of fixation could be adjusted), there is a hump in the center.
2000	Flexible keyboard.Not only are they easy to bend, roll and fold, but they are also waterproof, i.e. they can be washed
2011	The new generation touch keyboard is no longer a keyboard at all. There are only two sensors that need to be worn on both hands and printed through the air. If you get used to it, it will be very convenient to use the device for mobile solutions.

Having studied the main stages in the history of the development of the keyboard, I moved on to find out why the letters are arranged in this particular order. It turned out that the arrangement of letters on a computer keyboard is a legacy of typewriters that appeared in the 19th century.

On the first typewriters, invented by Christopher Scholes, the letters on the keys were locatedin alphabetical order, in two rows. In addition, printing could only be done in capital letters, and there were no numbers 1 and 0 at all. They were successfully replaced by the letters "I" and "O". At first, this suited everyone. However, over time, the printing speed became increasingly faster, and then a serious problem emerged with such machines: individual hammers did not have time to return to their place and were constantly interfering with each other. Very often, attempts to separate them led to the machines breaking down. And this happened because in the English alphabet there are a lot of neighboring letters that are used more often than others (for example, p-r, n-o). The result was often that adjacent keys were pressed one after another, which led to the hammers sticking and jamming.

Manufacturers of typewriters drew conclusions and developed a keyboard in which letters often found in texts were placed away from the index fingers (after all, before the invention of the “blind” ten-finger method, people typed mainly with the index fingers). This is how the famous QWERTY keyboard layout appeared (see figure below) (according to the first letters of the top row from left to right), which is still used today. It migrated to computer keyboards, although on them the problem of clutching levers (hammers) does not exist at all.

Next, I found out that the layout invented by University of Washington statistics professor Arthur Dvorak is much more convenient. In it, frequently used letters are in the middle and top rows. Under the left hand in the middle row are all the vowels, and under the right hand are the most common consonants.

Then I became interested in the question: why on the Russian keyboard are the letters arranged in this order and not otherwise? I learned that it was originally designed to be ergonomic, that is, with a convenient and rational arrangement of keys. The most commonly used letters were placed under the strongest and fastest index fingers, and the less frequently used letters were placed under the weaker ring and little fingers.

One of my research questions is to study whether a computer can be controlled. It turns out this is possible. I learned that Windows provides two options for using your computer without a keyboard: voice typing (allows you to use voice commands to operate Windows) and using the on-screen keyboard (allows you to enter text by selecting characters on the screen).

I estimate that there are over 100 keys on a standard keyboard, but I don't know the purpose of some of them. So maybe they are not needed at all? Therefore, I decided to find out the purpose of the keys I do not use and answer the question posed.

In the top row with the key, next to Esc, there are several buttons whose names begin with the Latin letter F. They are designed to control the computer without using the mouse. I concluded that the buttonsF1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10, F11, F12are needed in order to use the keyboard alone to do the same thing that we do with the mouse (open and close folders and files, change their name, copy, and so on).

I kept wondering why the numbers on the keyboards are in the back row and are duplicated on the right side of the right side. It turns out that on the right they are located exactly the same as on a calculator, and for many people they are more convenient.

I learned that they are needed in order to work with text without the help of a mouse. You can use the arrows to move the blinking cursor around the text. The Delete button is used to delete a letter after the cursor. The Home button moves the blinking cursor to the beginning of the line, and the End key moves it to the end. The Page Up key moves the blinking cursor to the beginning of the page, and the Page Down key moves the blinking cursor to the end of the page. The Insert button is needed to print text over what has already been printed. If you press this key, new text will be printed, erasing the old one. To cancel this, you need to press the Insert key again. All of these buttons are optional and are rarely or never used by people.

The keyboard also has Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break buttons.

I've learned that the Scroll Lock key is almost always completely useless. That is, it simply does not work. And in theory, it should serve to scroll information up and down - just like the wheel on a computer mouse does. The Pause/Break key almost never works either. In general, it is designed to pause a running computer process. But the Print Screen button may be useful to us. She takes a photo of the screen. Then we can paste this screenshot into Word or Paint. This photograph of the screen is called a screenshot.

Thus, I concluded that not all the keys on the keyboard are necessary, so it could be made more compact.

Finally, I moved on to the last task of my research - studying the prospects for the development of the keyboard.

I learned that some keyboards now have smart card readers built into them. They supposedly serve for security, performing the function of a key: inserted - you entered the operating system, did not insert - did not enter.

I also learned that User-to-interface devices have appeared, in particular, the DataHand System is not quite a keyboard - it is more reminiscent of a spaceship control terminal. There are no buttons as such, but there are ten holes where you need to stick your fingers. You can move your fingers in five directions, which is how you type. While you learn this method, and even with a new layout... The developer set himself the goal of reducing to a minimum the number of movements performed with the fingers, but at the same time maintaining the ability to work with both the keyboard and the mouse, and at the same time.

While doing my research, I came across some interesting facts about the keyboard.

For example, Dutch scientists have proven that 2 times more germs and bacteria live on the keyboard than on the toilet seat.The reason is that only 36% of respondents regularly clean and wash their office desk and keyboard. The rest clean once a month or even less often. Such neglect of hygiene, first of all, threatens diseases of the digestive tract. Especially now, when lunches at the computer are becoming more and more popular. Therefore, I concluded that you need to wipe the keyboard weekly with special antibacterial wipes (See Appendix “How to properly clean your keyboard?”)

I also found out that there is a monument dedicated to the keyboard.

- the first land art sculpture in Yekaterinburg dedicated to a computer keyboard, located on the second tier of the Iset River embankment, from Gogol Street. Opened on October 5, 2005. Author - Anatoly Vyatkin.

“Monument to the Keyboard” became the first landscape sculpture in Yekaterinburg. Critics see it as a combination of Europe and Asia. A technical tool for communication between people, such as a keyboard, is presented in the form of an Asian rock garden, where people come for creative purposes. However, this is probably not the only thing that attracts local residents. Unlike other sculptures, you can sit on the “Keyboard”, you can walk on it and jump from one letter to another. Parents claim that thanks to this sculpture, children learn the alphabet faster, and active computer users believe in another practical meaning. Urban legends say that if you make a wish and “type” it on the keyboard, jumping from letter to letter, and then “press” “Enter,” it will certainly come true. And if difficulties arise, you need to jump to “CTRL, ALT, DEL”, after which life will “reboot”.

I found out that the sculpture influenced not only the emergence of new urban myths, but also the names of neighboring buildings. Thus, local residents jokingly call the river Iset by analogy with the name of computers “Iset”. The old building nearby is called the "system block".

The popularity of the sculpture is so great that it was included in the “Red Line of Yekaterinburg” route, which runs a line of paint along the asphalt through 30 major cultural sites in the city center. Each of them weighs at least 80 kg.

Conclusion

As a result of the research, I came to the following conclusions.

Firstly, my hypothesis was confirmed. Without a keyboard, it is indeed possible to work on a computer using voice input and an on-screen keyboard, but this is still not convenient enough, so the keyboard remains the main device for entering information.

Secondly, I studied the history of the appearance of the keyboard and learned that the roots of the modern computer keyboard go back to the 19th century and the development of the keyboard went through stages from a typewriter keyboard to a touchscreen one.

Thirdly, I found out why the letters are arranged in this order. A standard QWERTY keyboard places letters that appear frequently in text further away from your index fingers. But the layout invented by University of Washington statistics professor Arthur Dvorak is more convenient: in it, frequently used letters are located in the middle and top rows.

Fourthly, I found out that not all the keys that are on the keyboard are needed, for example, the Insert, Home, Page Up, Delete, End, Page Down, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break keys are very rarely or never used by people.

Fifthly, I studied the prospects for the development of the keyboard and found out that today inSome keyboards have smart card readers built in, and some also devices are appearing that will soon replace the keyboard.

Annex 1

How to properly clean your keyboard

The computer keyboard is modeled after a typewriter keyboard. As when working on a typewriter, the main tactile load falls on the keyboard. This is why computer keyboards become dirty very easily and quickly. To avoid damage, and for the sake of hygiene, it is very important to clean it regularly.

Before cleaning your keyboard, be sure to read the manufacturer's instructions. If it describes the process of cleaning the keyboard, then you just need to follow the instructions.

If the instructions do not contain any steps for cleaning the keyboard, then the tips below are just about how to clean the keyboard of a computer or laptop. These instructions can be used to clean any type of keyboard.

There are many ways to clean a keyboard, but there is one, the simplest and most original - to clean it with a vacuum cleaner. There's no point in vacuuming your keyboard right where it lies. But it will be very effective if you do this while holding the keyboard with the buttons facing down. Ideally, someone should help you. He should hold the keyboard and lightly tap the top of the lid. A powerful vacuum cleaner will probably remove all large particles of debris, but will not be able to remove dirt stuck to the buttons.

The next method is to pick up a thin ruler or a screwdriver (any other flat and thin object will do too) and start picking out the buttons.

Do this carefully and do not forget to mark the position of the keys (take a photo or sketch of them). After removing all the buttons, clean all debris from the device. The buttons themselves can be cleaned by hand, or you can put them in a sock and tie them. The package can be thrown into the washing machine with the rest of the laundry, don’t be afraid, nothing bad will happen.

After washing, dry the buttons and replace them in their places.

And remember - treat your keyboard with care, and it will not let you down at the most crucial moment.

The roots of the modern computer keyboard go back to the 19th century. It all started with the advent of a simple typewriter. In 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes patented his typewriter. The main key moment of this stage was the emergence of the first layout. It looked like a collection of symbols arranged in alphabetical order. As it turned out later, this was, to put it mildly, inconvenient, since rarely used symbols were in the most prominent places and vice versa.

In 1890, they came up with the “QWERTY” layout, which we still use when typing text in Latin letters. The name of the “QWERTY” layout comes from the first six Latin letters on the keyboard, starting from the upper left corner from left to right. And the Russian keyboard layout, paradoxically, was invented in America at the end of the 19th century. Since then, she has not undergone major changes.

The key moment in the transformation of the typewriter into a computer keyboard was the invention of the Baudot typewriter at the end of the 19th century. This method replaced the telegraph. Baudot communication used a code to encode letters of the alphabet, with which complex electromechanical devices printed the received text onto paper. The communication was synchronous, and the telegraph operator had to press the button only when receiving a special sound signal.

In 1948, the development of UNIVAC and BINAC computers began, intended not for individual production, but for relatively more mass production. Special attention was paid to input/output devices in these machines. The means of input and output for them were teletypes or tabulators-punchers. BINAC could record information on magnetic tape.

The year 1960 is a turning point in the history of the development of computer keyboards - an electric typewriter enters the market. It had a capacitive keyboard. The capacitive keyboard was produced on printed textolite boards. This keyboard allowed you to enter text at a speed of up to 300 characters per second. Its main advantage was the ease of entering text - now, in order to type, you did not need to put in as much effort as, for example, on a classic Scholz typewriter. 1960

1965 - creation of a new user interface - video terminal display. 1980s and early 1980s - manufacturers began to produce personal computers. The keyboards of these machines were superior in function and number of keys to electric typewriters.

1980s – development of modular PCs. The keyboard was connected to the computer using a cord and looked like this: a total of 83 keys, divided into two blocks. Late 1980s - extended keyboard. The layout of the keys on it has been changed. Their number was also increased, and the new keyboard acquired a look that is already familiar to us today - 101 keys.

Manufacturers always try to reduce the cost and simplify production. New technology has come to the aid of the consumer. In a hard-touch keyboard, each key acts like a small switch. When you press a key, an electric current begins to flow in closed conductors, and a special circuit detects its presence.

Thanks to this keyboard, the computer can be turned off and on programmatically. As you know, laziness is the engine of progress, and in order not to reach for a button on the case or not to perform several operations with the mouse, a Power key, a Sleep button and others were added to the keyboard.

Not only with the development of hardware, but also with the improvement of software, they tried to cram more and more keys into the keyboard. Microsoft, which has been producing software all its life, began producing keyboards and also had a hand in the emergence of new keys.

/ Do you know when the first keyboard appeared?

Do you know when the first keyboard appeared?

Keyboard history

The first keyboard appeared more than 140 years ago: at the beginning of 1868, a certain Christopher Schols received a patent for his invention - the first typewriter. Its layout consisted of printed characters arranged in alphabetical order. As practice has shown, the alphabetical arrangement of keys was extremely inconvenient: because many rarely used symbols ended up in the center of the keyboard, and frequently used ones - on the edges. The modern keyboard layout appeared much later: already 22 years later. And the Cyrillic layout was first made even later: at the very end of the 19th century, in America.

How and when did the typewriter evolve into a real computer keyboard? This also happened at the end of the 19th century, when the teletype was invented. But its keyboard was also radically different from the modern computer keyboard, which appeared in 1943, simultaneously with the first ENIAC computer (a bulky unit used for military calculations and having a whole plug switching system as a control panel). And the capacitive keyboard appeared along with the first electric typewriter: already in 1960.

• Translation

Imagine the keyboards of a telephone and a calculator. Can you remember how they differ without looking anywhere? If you didn't succeed, it's okay. Most of us are so accustomed to common data input devices that we simply do not realize that on a calculator, compared to a telephone, the keys are arranged in the reverse order. The top row of calculator buttons contains keys 7-8-9, and the top row of a telephone keyboard contains keys 1-2-3. There is no logical reason for the fact that these two keyboards, whether presented as physical devices or as applications, are designed differently. Why do they look this way?

Keyboard layout used in telephone services, 1950s

In more modern versions of iOS, instead of such a keyboard, a panel of special characters is offered.
On the other hand, if you analyze Oculus Go, it turns out that there is a calculator keyboard used to enter any numbers (I tested it in a web application).

Oculus Go keyboard, 2018

Why do Apple and Google prefer to use the traditional telephone keyboard and even keep the letters under the numbers? Why not create a special numeric keypad that is optimized for use with the thumb of one hand? Why hasn't a special keyboard been created for virtual reality that is easier to operate using pointing devices? Considering that neither of the two classic digital keyboard layouts offered speed benefits, their only advantage was their ease of perception. It is likely that the reasons for using existing layouts in programs are that they are easy to implement and that they exploit pre-existing human-machine interaction patterns in the software. Smartphones preserve the legacy of ordinary push-button phones. Oculus and Xbox stick to the legacy of desktop apps.

Chronology

• 1642: Blaise Pascal's summing machine.
• 1822: James White's concept of a computer with keys.
• 1844: Schwilge calculating machine - a numeric keyboard was used for the first time in history.
• 1857: Thomas Hill's machine, predecessor of the comptometer.
• 1874: E. Remington and Sons begins production of the Shoals and Glidden typewriter.
• 1879: The first cash register in history, created by James Ritty.
• 1885: Comptometer, which first uses a keyboard with numbers arranged in columns from 9 to 1.
• 1887: Early prototypes of push-button telephones.
• 1887: NCR Model 79 cash register using a vertical layout.
• 1902: Dalton's first adding machine, using a 10-key zero pad.
• 1914: Sundstrand 10-key adding machine using a 3x3+1 keyboard layout.
• 1919: Western Electric & AT&T introduce rotary dial telephones.
• 1940: The division operation appears in the Olivetti Dividisumma calculator.
• 1940: IBM hammer drill with a 10-key keyboard with the numbers 1-2-3 on the top row.
• 1955: AT&T begins testing feature phones.
• 1963: Bell introduces 10-button telephones.
• 1963: Canon introduces the prototype of the first electronic calculator with display.
• 1966: Sharp/Facit began producing electronic calculators with a display.
• 2007: Apple released the iPhone, which included a calculator app.

Dear readers! Do you think we can expect new digital keyboard layouts to emerge in the foreseeable future that have a chance of becoming as popular as the existing ones?

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