Nick Rout wrote:
qwerty was invented to slow down typists so that their typwriters did not jam so often, or so i was told once. it may be an urban legend, i have no authority for that proposition ither than remebering being told it.
Not really. It was designed so that common letter pairs were far apart. If you have ever played with an old typewriter, where the mechanical arms hit the paper (well, the ribbon on top of the paper), you would notice that if you hit two keys in quick succession, where those two keys are physically close as well, the first mechanical arm does not have time to get back to it's rest position before the second mechanical arm comes down. As a result, they jam.
In any case, e-r are a common pair, so that's not so good. Also, I think the inventor wanted to be able to type "typewriter" quickly, so he put all those letters on the top row.
Cheers, Carl.
