KEYBOARD

Computer Keyboard The modern computer keyboard started with an invention called the “Typewriter.” A man named, Christopher Latham Sholes, created this invention. He patented the typewriter that has been around since 1868. Developments in technology created the transition of the typewriter to the computer keyboard. The first type of a computer keyboard was the Teletype machine, which was introduced in the 1930’s. The Teletype machine joined the technology of the typewriter and the telegraph together. In other places the punched card systems were used with the typewriters to create was called keypunches. These keypunches were the start of beginning adding machines. The first computer keyboard was adapted from the punch card and Teletype technologies. The Eniac, in 1946 used a punched card reader as its input and out put device. By 1948, the Binac computer used an electromechanically controlled typewriter to both input data directly onto magnetic tape and to print results. The electric typewriter then improved engagement between the typewriter and the computer. During the 1960’s MIT, Bell Laboratories and General Electric had collaborated to create a computer system called Multics; a time of sharing, multi-user system. Multics encouraged the making of a new user interface, the video display terminal. These displays combined the technology of the cathode ray tube, that is the television, and electric typewriters. Computer users were now able to see what they were typing onto their screens. Thus making text easier to create, edit and delete, and computers easier to program and use. The modern standard of a keyboard which comes with virtually every computer today is referred to as the QWERTY keyboard. The reason that this keyboard has this name is due to the arrangement of the keys in the upper row.