History of the Keyboard
The computer keyboard is about 150 years old. It started on typewriters in the 1870s, moved to teletype machines and early computers, and now lives on laptops, tablets and phones.
People have been typing on QWERTY for 150 years. Now it's your turn!
Keyboard timeline
1868 Christopher Latham Sholes and partners patent a "type-writer" in the United States.
1874 The Remington No. 1 typewriter goes on sale with a QWERTY-style layout. It can only type CAPITAL letters. Why QWERTY?
1878 The Remington No. 2 adds a Shift key, so one key can type both lowercase and capital letters.
1888 Typist Frank McGurrin wins a famous typing contest using all ten fingers without looking. "Touch typing" catches on.
1900s–1950s Teletype machines let people type messages that print out far away over telegraph wires. Their keyboards later become the first way to type into computers.
1960s–1970s Computers get screens and keyboards (computer terminals). New keys appear, like Esc and Ctrl.
1981 The IBM PC arrives with an 83-key keyboard, including ten function keys on the left side.
1984 The Apple Macintosh launches with the Command key, plus a mouse.
mid-1980s IBM's 101-key "enhanced" keyboard (the Model M) sets the layout most keyboards still use: F1 to F12 across the top, separate arrow keys and a number pad.
1994 The Windows key appears, ready for Windows 95.
1990s–2000s Laptops become popular, with thinner keys and the Fn key so small keyboards can do more.
2007 The iPhone popularizes the on-screen touchscreen keyboard.
2010s Chromebooks swap Caps Lock for a Search key and become a favorite in classrooms.
What stayed the same?
Through all those changes, one thing barely moved: the letters. A typist from 1890 could sit down at a modern laptop and find the keys right away. That is why learning to touch type is a skill that lasts a lifetime.
Fun fact
The first typewriters typed on paper the typist could not see. The letters were hidden under the machine until you lifted the carriage!
FAQ
When was the keyboard invented?
The keyboard layout we use comes from typewriters of the 1870s. Computer keyboards came from teletype machines and arrived with computer terminals in the 1960s and 1970s.
Who invented the keyboard?
Christopher Latham Sholes and his partners invented the QWERTY typewriter keyboard. Many engineers later turned it into the computer keyboard.
When did keyboards get a Shift key?
In 1878, on the Remington No. 2 typewriter.