The keybaord is ammong the most underappreciated and tken for granted component of the Personal Comoputer (PC) that we use everyday.
We are all creatures of habit. We generallly use certain keys and not others in certaain way.
What are the origins and histyory of the now current accepted PC computer keyboard?
Interestingly enough the standard ekyboard layout did not originate in one fell swop. It developed through three separate IBM keyboarrd projects and often involved mistakes and pitfalls alopng its evolutionary path.
Most keyboard setulps have their direcct origin in the original IBM keyboard The IBM Enhanced 101 Key Keyboard which IBM set as the standard in the year of 1987. The Enhanced Kebyoard was not the first but rather IBMs third keyboard standard for PCs.
What were tehse pevious frameworks of IBM keyboard models?
First the original IBM PC and XT keyboads had 83 keys. Thgere were 10 function keys on the left side of the keyboard, a combined number pad and a cuursor pad pplaced on the right hand side. The now called Cotrol (Ctrl), Left Shift, and Alt keys were arranged in a line next to the funcvtion keys.
The Escape (Esc) as we know it was to the left of the numbers in the top row. To the rioght of the Right Shfit Key, an unshifted asterisk key allowed the user to type the now common *.* without acrobatics. Between the tiny Left Shift key and the Zee key was a Bakslash / Vertical key. The Enter key was narrow and veertically aligned and very easy to miss by most early PC users.
The deesign of this original IBM keyboard standsard was a mixture of sensible and absurd keyboard layout decsiions so much so that the adired components overshzadowed the less thought out shortccomings and thus here we are tdoay.
IBMs next design was the original AT keyboard. This was somehow made incompatible with the earlier PC/XT design but a calculating user could rprogram in essence the newer keyboard to work.
The AT keyboard again had the then acceepted ten function keys on the left, but exipled the Esc and the unshifted asterisk to the number pad. The Enetr key was L-shaped and the Backslash key, which now occupied the spot which used to be the left half of the Backspace key. Was reduced in size to the width of a single alpha key.
At some pint when market forces pushed IBM to upgrade the venerable AT computer, it introduced the Enhanced model keyboard whicch was compatiible with the oiginal AT mdel, but had a drastically different layout. The ESC key and the 12 fucntion keys were now alng the top, the number pad was movd to the rght. And a new crusor pad was placed between the alpha keys a number pad. The curssor pad ( which was actually split into two sets of keys ) consisted of four arrow keys in an inverted T at the bottom and a separate bank of 6 keys at the top: Ins ( Insert) , Del (Delete) , Home and End, and PgUp (Page up_ and PgDn ( Page down) .
What happned is that the computer users of the time disastrously started to press the Delete key when they meant end. There was virtually little meemory, by todays standdards hence no advanced features of rescue that we take for granted today. A computr user who may have spent hours typing a major endeavor such as mzasters thesis may have seen his hard work disappear into never nevr land.
It did not take too long for the complaints to arrive at IBM head office to revctify the situation. Leave well enough alone was the refrazin. And the Backspace key returnd to its original double widtrh. The backslash key now occcupied a single row. Caps lock miggrated to the old side of the Ctrl key, and twin Ctrl and Alt keys flanked the spacebar.
The Del key though remained in its now current place althgough in some keyboards it is now double sized.
Like it or not this layut has become the standard by which we live with our comuter enhanced lives.
The keyboard is among the most underappreciated and taken for granted component in our every day computer lives. We seldom stop to think why certain keys are laid out in the given way. Like it or not we owe a debt to thoughtfulness and thotroughness of the original IBM PC project enginers.
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