Month: April 2009

QWERTY theory ?

 - by roguelynn

The dork that I am, I’m in the middle of yet another economics book.  Butterfly Economics is the exploration of rogue economics before Freakonomics and the like.  Pretty awesome – talks about Reich and Krugman before they’ve gained popularity.

The main subject of the book is how social influences go against traditional economic thinking where the most efficient prevails.  One thought he brought up was the idea of the QWERTY keyboard, how come this inefficient model of a keyboard outlived other/better solutions for typing needs.  Where did the idea of QWERTY come from though?  Who was the brilliant jackass that thought this keyboard could possibly be superior to others?

Just a question that I know I won’t get an answer to.