Keyboard Facts for Kids
Keyboards are full of surprises: secret bumps, 150-year-old layouts and keys named after typewriter parts. Here are our favorite keyboard facts.
Want to amaze your friends? Learn a keyboard fact, then show them on a real keyboard!
How Many Keys Are on a Keyboard?
How many keys are on a keyboard? A full-size US keyboard has 104 keys, laptops have about 78 to 86, a MacBook has 78 and a Chromebook about 80.
Parts of a Keyboard
The parts of a computer keyboard explained for kids: letter keys, number keys, function keys, modifier keys, navigation keys, arrow keys, the number pad and the home row, with a color-coded diagram..
Why Is the Keyboard QWERTY (and Not in Alphabetical Order)?
Why are keyboard letters not in alphabetical order? The real story of the QWERTY keyboard, from 1870s typewriters and jammed typebars to telegraph operators, plus Dvorak, AZERTY and QWERTZ..
Why Do the F and J Keys Have Bumps?
Why do F and J have bumps? The little ridges help your pointer fingers find the home row without looking, so you can touch type.
History of the Keyboard
A kid-friendly history of the keyboard: 1870s typewriters, the Shift key, teletypes, the first computer keyboards, the IBM PC, Mac and Windows keys, laptops, Chromebooks and touchscreens..
What does every key do?
Guides to Fn, Ctrl, Alt, Tab, Esc, the space bar and more.
20 fun keyboard facts
- The QWERTY layout is about 150 years old. It was first sold on the Remington No. 1 typewriter in 1874. Learn more
- The first typewriters could only type CAPITAL letters. The Shift key arrived in 1878. Learn more
- A full-size US keyboard has 104 keys. A piano has 88. Learn more
- The bumps on F and J help your pointer fingers find the home row without looking. Learn more
- The space bar is the most-pressed key. About one character in every five or six is a space. Learn more
- You can type "typewriter" using only the top row of letters. Learn more
- The Mac ⌘ symbol is called a "looped square". In Sweden it marks interesting places on maps. Learn more
- Ctrl + Alt + Delete was created by IBM engineer David Bradley around 1981. Learn more
- The Fn key never talks to the computer. It works inside the keyboard to change what other keys send. Learn more
- F1 has meant "help" since IBM's design rules in 1987. Learn more
- The Windows key first appeared in 1994, just before Windows 95. Learn more
- Most Chromebooks have no Caps Lock key. Press Alt + Search instead. Learn more
- Print Screen used to send the screen straight to the printer. Learn more
- Tab is short for "tabulator", a typewriter key for lining up tables. Learn more
- On typewriters, Shift lifted the whole heavy carriage to type capitals. Learn more
- France uses AZERTY and Germany uses QWERTZ keyboards. Learn more
- Number pads have a bump on the 5 key, just like F and J. Learn more
- Esc was invented in 1960 by computer scientist Bob Bemer. Learn more
- Kids need about 50 keys for schoolwork: letters, numbers, Space, Shift, Enter, Backspace and punctuation. Learn more
- A typist from 1890 could find the letters on a modern laptop right away. The layout barely changed. Learn more