QWERTY keyboard

Traditional design employed universally (with slight variations) for all typewriter and computer keyboards using Roman characters. Despite its enduring popularity, it is the least efficient of all keyboard layouts because the most-frequently used letters (E, T, A, I, S, O, and N, in the descending order of use) are not under the most-often used fingers (the index, middle, and fourth finger). Named after the first six letters in the second top row of the keyboard, this 1873 design by Christopher Latham Sholes (1819-90), the US inventor of first workable typewriter, was in fact intended to keep the frequently used keys as far apart as possible to prevent jamming of strikebars in mechanical typewriters. See also Dvorak keyboard.