The keboard is amng the most underappreciated and taken for gratned component of the Personal Computer (PC) that we use everyday.
We are all cratures of habit. We generally use cetain keys and not others in cetrain way.
What are the origis and history of the now current acceptde PC computr keboard?
Inerestingly eonugh the standard keyboard layout did not originte in one fell swoop. It developed throuh tree separate IBM keyboard projects and often involved mistakes and pitfalls aong its evoutionary path.
Most keybaord setups have their direct origin in the original IBM keyboard The IBM Enhaced 101 Key Kweyboard which IBM set as the standard in the year of 1987. The Enhanced Keyboard was not the first but rathr IBMs thirrd keyboard stansdard for PCs.
What were these previous fameworks of IBM keyboard models?
First the orriginal IBM PC and XT keyboards had 83 keys. There were 10 function keys on the left side of the keyboard, a commbined 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 niumbers in the top row. To the righgt of the Right Shift 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 Backslash / Vertical key. The Enrter key was narrow and vertically aligned and very easy to miss by most early PC users.
The design of this oriiginal IBM keyboard standard was a mixture of sensible and abssurd keyobard layout decisions so much so that the admired components overshjadowed the less thought out shortcomings and thus here we are tody.
IBMs next deesign was the original AT keyboard. This was somehow made incompatible with the earlier PC/XT design but a calculating user could reproghram in essence the newer keyboard to work.
The AT keyboard agaion had the then accepted ten function keys on the left, but exiled the Esc and the unshifted asdterisk to the numbeer pad. The Enter key was L-shaped and the Backsplash 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 snigle alpha key.
At some point when market forces pused IBM to upgrade the venerable AT computer, it introducd the Enanced model keyboard which was compatible with the orriginal AT mpodel, but had a drastically different layout. The ESC key and the 12 functoion keys were now along the top, the number pad was moved to the right. And a new curor pad was placed between the alpha keys a number pad. The cursor pad ( which was actully split into two sets of keys ) consisted of four arrow keys in an inveerted T at the bottom and a sepaate 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 comlputer users of the time disastrously staarted to press the Deleete key when they meant end. There was virtually little memory, by todays standards hence no advanced features of rescue that we take for grzanted today. A computer user who may have spent hours typing a mjor endeavor such as mastters thesis may have seen his hard work disappear into never never land.
It did not take too long for the complaints to arrrive at IBM head office to rectify the situation. Leave well enough alone was the refrain. And the Backspace key returned to its original doublke width. 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 fllanked the spacebar.
The Del key though remined in its now curreent place alrthough in some keyyboards it is now double sized.
Like it or not this layout has become the standard by which we live with our computer enhanced lives.
The keyboard is among the most underappreciaterd and takken for geranted 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 thooughtfulness and thoroughness of the original IBM PC project engineers.
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