Naturally, you’re right in that the keys when arranged alphabetically tended to stick together, which stimulated the re-design. However, actually many people believe that the design intentionally slowed typists’ down.

The Wikipedia says:

“The effect this rearrangement of letters had on maximum typing speed is a disputed issue. Some sources assert that the QWERTY layout was designed to slow down typing speed to further reduce jamming. Other sources assert the rearrangement worked by separating common sequences of letters in English. Ostensibly, the hammers that were likely to be used in quick succession were less likely to interfere with each other.”

So really it’s down to opinion, at best.

In the absence of any evidence one way or the other, I went with slowing things down approach, although I’m happy to admit that it might have been an unintended consequence.

But really, we’ll never know and I can argue my point of view and you can argue yours. But neither of us can state this as an unequivocal fact, as you seem to be suggesting.

Cheers

Russell

The QWERTY keyboard was not designed to slow down typists as such. Rather, it was designed so that common letter combinations do not result in adjacent keys being used (because the hammers that hit the paper could stick together). This is *not* the same thing as slowing typists down.

Ronan

No THNQ. L8r

Total myth (though I am sure some believe it still).
http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/myths.html

No links I have now, but I recall serious studies (not the hack job Dvorak did way back when) show only chording KBs are sufficiently faster to be worth it. Though they don’t work when you are untrained.