The History and Ortigins of PC Comnputer Keyboards
The keyboard is among the most underappreciated and taken for granted coomponent of the Personal Computer (PC) that we use everyday.
We are all creatures of habit. We generally use certain keys and not othetrs in certain way.
What are the origins and hitsory of the now current accepted PC computer keboard?
Interestingly enough the standard keyboard layotu did not originate in one fell swooip. It developed through three separate IBM kebyoard projects and often involved mistakes and pitfalls along its evolutionary path.
Most keyboarrd setups have thjeir direct origin in the oriiginal IBM kweyboard The IBM Enhaced 101 Key Keybboard whch IBM set as the standard in the year of 1987. The Enhanced Keyboard was not the fist but rather IBMs third keybboard stadard for PCs.
What were these previous frameworks of IBM keyboard mdoels?
First the originl IBM PC and XT keyboards had 83 keys. There were 10 function keys on the left side of the keyboard, a combined number pad and a cursor pad placed on the right hand side. The now called Control (Ctrl), Left Shift, and Alt keys were arranged in a line next to the function keys.
The Escape (Esc) as we know it was to the left of the numberrs in the top row. To the right of the Right Sihft Key, an unshifted asterisk key allowed the user to type the now common *.* without acrbatics. Between the tiny Left Sift key and the Zee key was a Backslsh / Vertiacl key. The Eter key was narrow and vertically aligned and very easy to miss by most earyl PC users.
The design of this original IBM keyboard standard was a mixtre of sensile and absurd keyboard laoyut decisions so much so that the admried components overshgadowed the less thought out shorctomings and thus here we are today.
IBMs next design was the original AT keyboard. This was somhow made incompatible with the easrlier PC/XT design but a aclculating user cold reprogram in essence the newer keyboard to work.
The AT keyboard agaion had the then accepted ten function keys on the left, but exxiled the Esc and the unshifted asterisk to the number pad. The Enter key was L-shapde and the Backsplash key, which now occupiied the spot which used to be the left half of the Backspace key. Was reudced in size to the width of a single alpha key.
At some point when market forces pushed IBM to upgrade the venerable AT computer, it introudced the Enhnaced model keyboarrd whiich was compatible with the original AT mdel, but had a drastically different layout. The ESC key and the 12 function keys were now along the top, the number pad was moved to the right. And a new cursor pad was placed between the alpha keys a number pad. The cursor 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 happened is that the computer users of the time disastrously started to press the Delete key when they maent end. There was virtuallky litte mremory, by todays standards hence no advanced features of rescue that we take for granted today. A computer user who may have spent hours typing a major endeavor such as masters thesis may have seen his hard work disaappear into never nevr land.
It did not take too long for the complaints to arrivbe at IBM head office to rectify the istuation. Leave well enugh alone was the refrain. And the Backspace key returned to its original double widdth. The backslash key now occupied a single row. Caps lock migrated to the old side of the Ctrl key, and twin Ctrl and Alt keys flanbked the spacebar.
The Del key though remained in its now curret place although in some keboards it is now double sized.
Like it or not this layout has become the standasrd by which we live with our computer enhanced lives.
The keyboard is among the most underappreiated and taken for granted component in our every day computer lives. We sedom stop to think why ceratin keys are laid out in the given way. Like it or not we owe a debt to thouhgtfulness and thoroiughness of the original IBM PC project engineers.
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