stedr asked:
Numeric keypads on keyboards and ATM machines have "7 8 9" as the top row, whereas keypads on telephones have "1 2 3" on the top row. Both seem to have 0 on the bottom. I know the arrangement of keys on a phone comes from the two tones that combine to make it a "touch-tone phone", but this still doesn't answer my question as to *why* they are not the same. Has anyone else noticed this and/or been annoyed by it? Am I alone?
actually its the same format as calculators..especially the desk top models..i think they followed this plan because those same desktop calculators are used by people who are paper pushers at desks all day or night
Good question. They should be the same. It would be beneficial in learning to speed dial as well as speed type. Make a suggestion to the designers of one or the other.
The keypad on your computer matches office desktop adding machines. As banks, offices and other businesses were switching to computers from adding machines, people who used them everyday were trained in the layout. It made it eaiser for them to do the switch to the keyboard.
It was the same idea as the ‘standard’ or QWERTY layout of the keyboard. That was done to match the layout on typewriters.