In the standard English language typewriter keyboard the alphabetic row on the top left has the letters Q, W, E, R, T, and Y. The longest English word that can be typed using only the upper row of letters on the QWERTY keyboard is 'Typewriter'.
The QWERTY keyboard was designed by Christopher Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter. According to some the reason for the design was to slow down the typist in order to prevent jamming of the keys, but it was in fact designed to facilitate faster typing. In early typewriters, typing fast often resulted in the mechanism getting jammed. So Sholes came up with a layout to separate the letters of common digraphs. Soon after, the jamming problem was resolved by figuring out a suitable use of springs. The keyboard layout remained though and has now become a world-wide standard.
The QWERTY keyboard was designed by Christopher Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter. According to some the reason for the design was to slow down the typist in order to prevent jamming of the keys, but it was in fact designed to facilitate faster typing. In early typewriters, typing fast often resulted in the mechanism getting jammed. So Sholes came up with a layout to separate the letters of common digraphs. Soon after, the jamming problem was resolved by figuring out a suitable use of springs. The keyboard layout remained though and has now become a world-wide standard.
