Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Wed, 22 May 1991 23:55:46 -0400 From: Jamie Mason Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Why Are *Telephone Keypads* Built Upside Down Message-ID: Organization: University of Toronto Computer Science Undergraduate Student Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 389, Message 6 of 13 Lines: 30 In article <8755@drutx.ATT.COM> mcp@drutx.ATT.COM (Mike Paugh) writes: > What I have always been told, and this is _pure_ folklore with no > facts to back it up, is that the keypad was originally the same > as that of a ten key adding machine. People who used these machines > were so adept at using the keypad that the telephone systems would > miss digit when the person keyed them too quickly. The upside down > arrangement was used intentionally to slow people down so that the > digits could be recognized. Sounds a lot like the querty keyboard which also (according to folklore) was designed to slow people down so they would no jam typewriter keys. Of course, now we have computer keyboards on fast computers which will accept chracters faster than Superman could type. And my local switch can handle my modem dialing with DTMF tones of less than a 35ms duration. So now they are both unnecessary, and besides, we have gotten as fast with them as with the things that we typed too fast on. And now we are used to them, so we are stuck with these crippled interfaces becuase people used to be able to outtype machines. And some idiots decided to slow down the people instead of speeding up the machines. Jamie