Modern Keyboards Still Run On QWERTY

From mechanical typebars to touchscreens — the layout survived every technological revolution

Look at your keyboard.

Now look at a 19th-century typewriter.

Different materials. Same structure.

The first commercially successful writing machines introduced QWERTY to solve a mechanical problem: metal typebars were colliding. The layout wasn’t optimized for speed or ergonomics. It was engineered to prevent jams.