Seems Like Yesterday

No old-fashioned typewriters for us. No siree. We’re high-speed.

We stretch our hands across a keyboard and gain access to the world. This is the information age and we’re babies of a high-tech tomorrow. And yet, look at your keyboard.

It was designed in 1867. Placement of the six top left letters, QWERTY, was arranged not to speed up a typist, but to slow one down. If you typed fast in the old days, the type bars would jam.

Although we’ve invested millions in what appears on the screen, the keyboard remains a relic of the past. The type “feels” and “sounds” a little different, but not much else has changed.

Assoc. Prof. Neil Gershenfeld of the Media Lab says the reason the keyboard has remained so low-tech is because the market is so competitive, they just don’t have the leisure to change it.

Maybe an old-fashioned keyboard is exactly right. Merging the past with the future we find balance, leaving us precisely where we need to be–right in the present.

by Liz Karagianis

On Topic: technology+society