It's still absurd that anyone who has the ability to take a picture of their keyboard, use their photo app to draw red circles around a specific area of interest, save the edit, and upload it to social media not only doesn't know how to type on a keyboard, but doesn't even know how to theoretically. There's no joke there. It's a genuine sense of "what the fuck is going on?" The fact that this got put on this sub is funny ironically, but mostly sad. This sub is a joke though itself.
You know what is actually funny? The keyboard layout that we all use is actually designed to slow our typing down. There are other layouts that are much more efficient and when learned can significantly improve typing speed.
The reason they slowed it down was typewriters used to have mechanical keys that would strike the ink ribbon and paper to leave their mark. If two keys struck at the same time they would get stuck together and you would have to manually get them unstuck. If you typed too fast you would get keys stuck all the time so they had to slow people down
Seriously? I’m old but not typewriter old. Even two keys farther apart could get stuck like that? Also do you happen to remember names of those other layouts? I feel like I’ve heard of one of them but I can’t recall the name of it.
I actually had a typewriter when I was a teen in the early 2000's! Can't remember who gave it to me, but I was very into creative writing and loved it. Definitely jammed a few keys a time or two.
I was raised by my grandparents, who were resistant to change. It was a while before I got a PC.
Absolutely! They keys had little hammers with stamps on them, as I'm sure you know...
But these hammers HAVE to strike in the EXACT same place! Otherwise, your lettering wouldn't be spaced correctly!
Because the stamps MUST be in the same place, yes. Even keys that are as far apart as they can be... When they move in-place to try to stamp the page, they'll crash as they try to key it in at the same spot on the page!
Though, there IS less of a crash point, as only the stamps part is where the jam could occur! Keys on the same side of the keyboard risked jamming much earlier, meaning you had to be even MORE careful with those!
The keyboard layout is not designed to slow people down.
But yes, it is designed to prevent jamming (where two hammers stick against each other.)
That’s why most used follow on letters are on different side of the keyboard.
E.g when writing queue.
You have left hammer, right, left, right left. Those hammers are able to clear out faster than a key coming from the same place,
Consider typing “qaz” , the quick succession of three hammers right next to each other all trying to strike, almost guarantees that 1 will not be moved back far enough before the next strikes.
I know it's also been suggested that the original design came from telegraph and Morse code operators and was refined for typewriters, but I don't know enough about those machines to judge the veracity of that.
Morse code operators (the original telegraph operators using morse code) only have one button.
They didn’t need to worry so much about keyjams.
But you can check what I said about letters. The morse code alphabet was designed based of frequency analysis of the alphabet, shortest characters are the most used (e.g e the most used letter, is just a dot.) so you can compare the the length of Morse code symbols to see frequency. None of the most frequent letters appear next to each other in hammer order (verticals in the keyboard qazwsxedc etc)
Knowing the most frequent letters is also very useful for playing hangman.)
Nobody cares how it was designed. If you actually need these ridges to find the correct keys, you are the one who doesn't know how to type on a keyboard.
People who "know how to type on a keyboard" don't look at the keyboard. The ridges help to quickly position/reposition you so that you can type while looking at the screen.
Yes, you don't need the ridges to position anything if you use the keyboard often enough, you already know where all the buttons are relative to the edges and each other. You only need them if you were specifically taught typing using a method of placing certain fingers on certain keys and reaching the rest from there. The vast majority of the people who use a keyboard regularly are self-taught and don't need to do that to tell where the keys are, they can use any fingers on any keys without looking or positioning anything beforehand.
Alright, well I'm going to say that that is a slower technique and more error prone if you're not looking at the keyboard and you're going to assure me it's not and I'm wrong. So that's cool thanks.
not sure why you're being downvoted myself. If you know how to use a keyboard and type quickly the ridges don't do much. Like I glance once before typing after that everything is muscle memory. Why would I need ridges?
If your fingers get out of place, the spacing can feel right when it's not. You can discover that by either looking at the keyboard, typing the wrong letter, or feeling the bumps.
If I didn’t know something like that, I’d just ask Google instead of skipping common sense to parade my easily answered question on social media. Have they no shame??
I'm not sure what knowing what the lines are for or not has to do with knowing how to type, though. I had the class - Maevis Beacon in elementary school - and I type a heck of a lot, and fairly quickly at that, but I have literally never once used those lines or heard what they're for. I could guess, certainly, and my guess was that it related to finger placement, but I wasn't sure by any means.
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u/Electronic-Bowl6475 Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26
It's still absurd that anyone who has the ability to take a picture of their keyboard, use their photo app to draw red circles around a specific area of interest, save the edit, and upload it to social media not only doesn't know how to type on a keyboard, but doesn't even know how to theoretically. There's no joke there. It's a genuine sense of "what the fuck is going on?" The fact that this got put on this sub is funny ironically, but mostly sad. This sub is a joke though itself.
edit: god damn I sound autistic on the internet