Technology · 2

The QWERTY keyboard layout has remained the dominant standard for English-language keyboards for roughly how long, despite the mechanical problem it was designed to solve no longer existing?

Answer

Over 150 years

QWERTY was developed by Christopher Latham Sholes in the early 1870s and became commercially widespread with the Remington No. 2 typewriter in 1878. It has persisted as the dominant keyboard layout for over 150 years, long outlasting the mechanical typewriter jams it was engineered to prevent.

💡 Did you know?

The QWERTY keyboard layout was deliberately designed to slow typists down and prevent mechanical typewriter jams—a problem that hasn't existed for decades.

Other options people guess

  • Around 75 years
  • Around 50 years
  • Around 100 years

Topics

  • keyboard
  • qwerty
  • typewriter
  • history
  • design

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