Qwerty Questions

“Ayy Ess Dee Eff. Jay Kay Ell Sem.”

I repeated the teacher’s mantra in my own head as I sat down at my electronic keyboard. My left hand found its way to the ASDF configuration, with each finger finding the correct key, and my right hand joined in, making a neat line across the middle letter keys to connect the J with the semicolon.

I was all set to type. Now, all I had to do was remember where every single other key was. Piece of cake!

Tenth grade taught me a lot of things, but the one skill I probably use the most is typing. Here I am, once again showcasing this increasingly arcane skill, working on this piece for you to read.

Years after overcoming my initial struggles with memorizing the ASDF—JKL; configuration, I couldn't help but wonder about the origins of this seemingly arbitrary layout.

Over the ensuing decades, I realized that there must be a reason why the keys were in this particular order on the keyboard. If someone was designing it from scratch, I would imagine the first t…