Scienceville
Keyboard Shortcuts
Why aren't the letters on a keyboard in ABC order? The answer goes back about 150 years, to clattering machines called typewriters!
Did you know?
The QWERTY keyboard is named after the first six letters on its top letter row. This layout was made for typewriters in the 1870s, long before computers were invented!
In the 1970s, computer scientists Larry Tesler and Tim Mott, working at a lab called Xerox PARC, developed the copy-and-paste idea that we still use on computers today.
The word TYPEWRITER can be typed using only the top row of letter keys: Q W E R T Y U I O P. Check it on a keyboard!
Try this: Shortcut Detective
With a grown-up's permission, open a blank document and type your name. Select it by dragging the mouse across it. Now try Ctrl + B, then Ctrl + I, then Ctrl + U. What happened to your name each time? Next, press Ctrl + C, click on a new line and press Ctrl + V. How many copies of your name can you make in 10 seconds?
Go further: The Fox That Uses Every Letter
'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' uses all 26 letters of the English alphabet. A sentence like this is called a pangram. An early version of it appeared in a newspaper in 1885! People have used it to practise typing, to test typewriters and keyboards, and to show what a font looks like. Can you invent your own pangram? Tip: fit in the tricky letters J, Q, X and Z first.