> Their many modifications included some fine- tuning of the keyboard design in the course of which the "R" wound up in the place previously allotted to the per

> Their many modifications included some fine- tuning of the keyboard design in the course of which the "R" wound up in the place previously allotted to the period mark "." Thus were assembled into one row all the letters which a salesman would need to impress customers, by rapidly pecking out the brand name: TYPE WRITER > Touch typing gave rise to three features of the evolving production system which were crucially important in causing QWERTY to become "locked in" as the dominant keyboard arrangement. These features were technicalinterrelatedness,econ- omies of scale, and quasi-irreversibility of investment. They constitute the basic ingredients of what might be called QWERTY- nomics. >Technical interrelatedness, or the need for system compatibility between keyboard "hardware" and the "software" represented by the touch typist's memory of a particular arrangement of the keys, meant that the expected present value of a typewriter as an instrument of production was dependent upon the availability of compatible software created by typists' decisions as to the kind of keyboard they should learn. Full pdf here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305389640_Clio_and_the_economics_of_QWERTY https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305389640_Clio_and_...