John Sutherland
Think computer and you think 21st century. A techno-archaeologist looking at homo faber’s favourite tool sees something different: a state-of-the-art brain attached to a Sixties TV set, and a device at the human interface which has survived for 120 years: the “Remington-Qwerty” keyboard. The modern computer is an XJS Jag with a rusty starting handle sticking out of its glistening snout.
Qwerty has a fascinating social history. Its invention is credited to an American, Christopher Latham Sholes, in 1873. Remington pioneered its manufacture four years later. The keyboard layout was sold on the basis of being “rational”. In fact, the most used letters in the alphabet are not optimally placed, but you could no more change qwerty now than you could switch traffic to the right-hand side of the road.
Before 1877 women might have read, but men monopolised writing. The pen, like the sword, was power. Until the late 19th century, “secretary”, a maker of documents, denoted social importance. Even lowly scriveners or pen-pushers such as Dickens’s Bob Cratchit were men.
The manual typewriter (as it was called) posed a terrible problem for Cratchit. For speedy and efficient operation, its compacted keys required more dexterity than men possessed. They needed fingers trained by years of embroidery and sewing.The woman’s touch.
To the three professions open to women – governess, seamstress and prostitute – was added a fourth: stenographer. As Sholes put it, “The typewriter is a blessing to mankind and especially to womankind.”
It was one of the most dramatic turnarounds in labour history. Secretaries were suddenly “dumb” blondes who could – mysteriously – handle 100 words per minute. If not power, they had skills male bosses desperately needed but lacked.
One of the initial problems of selling the computer was getting men to put their hands on keyboards. No manager would be seen dead with a keyboard on his desk or even in his office. Five-finger touch typing was for sissies.
When real men, such as hardened journalists, absolutely had to do it, they would adopt a flamboyant “hunt and peck” two-finger style.
All this is apropos the fact that it’s pointless to rabbit on about how “the future is electronic” if otherwise excellent students can’t find “v” on the keyboard without five seconds’ hesitation. Who would employ a graduate with a reading speed of 20 words a minute?
Touch typing takes hundreds of hours of practice to become automatic and fast. But the payoff is huge – you can look at the screen, not at your fingers. And if you don’t learn when you’re young, the chances are you’ll hunt and peck with the electro- chickens for the rest of your days.
You want to put wings on the heels of your children? Don’t let them near the computer until they can do “now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party” without looking. They’ll bless you for it in later life.
ENDS