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They're recycling typewriter layouts that optimized for what was at the time more important to the average user, making common non-latin characters more accessi

They're recycling typewriter layouts that optimized for what was at the time more important to the average user, making common non-latin characters more accessible. And arguably, for the average user, it's still the right choice. It's only IT nerds who really need all those weird extra characters that aren't even real punctuation, and they can just switch over to the US layout.

exitb 2y ago
That's true, but also not really an explanation. There is a Polish keyboard layout that's derived from a typewriter, but got abandoned very early on in PCs, even though Polish has 9 additional characters.
- SSLy 2y ago
  because Poles had to smuggle computers in, the supply was coming from USA, and then it was too late.
- philistine 2y ago
  Every single keyboard layout has its own story. Let me tell you the one about the keyboard layout I use: CAN/CSA Z243.200-92. When writing French on typewriters, people in Québec and the rest of Canada used a slightly modified US-keyboard layout that assigned the necessary accents and moved the symbols those keys used elsewhere. You could even use this layout with the US 104-keys keyboards on computers without losing much. Aside from having glyphs on your keys that didn't connect to what you were typing but people lived with it. But when we moved to computers there came an opportunity to improve the keyboard. We could now assign keys to common letters with their accents together without losing anything, since we didn't need to focus on the additive nature of accents. You know, moving from a mechanical system to pure software. So who jumped on the opportunity? The government of Québec led the charge in the early 90s for this new keyboard layout to replace the old French (Canada) layout. Feeling at some point that there was a risk of furthering divide in Canada, the federal government asked for some slight changes to the Québec proposal, in exchange for the promise of adopting it as the standard Canada-wide. Québec agreed, but Canada never did anything of value to help with adoption. So we're stuck with two standards, basically on the line of your OS: if you're on Windows, you're probably using the old French (Canada), and Mac users switched over to the new standard. Every. single. keyboard layout. has a story surrounding its creation and its usage.
kelnos 2y ago
Not sure I buy that explanation -- an image search suggests that a lot of US-made typewriters didn't have curly, square, or angle braces, and yet we have them on the standard US keyboard layout.

exitb 2y ago

That's true, but also not really an explanation. There is a Polish keyboard layout that's derived from a typewriter, but got abandoned very early on in PCs, even though Polish has 9 additional characters.

SSLy 2y ago
because Poles had to smuggle computers in, the supply was coming from USA, and then it was too late.
philistine 2y ago
Every single keyboard layout has its own story. Let me tell you the one about the keyboard layout I use: CAN/CSA Z243.200-92. When writing French on typewriters, people in Québec and the rest of Canada used a slightly modified US-keyboard layout that assigned the necessary accents and moved the symbols those keys used elsewhere. You could even use this layout with the US 104-keys keyboards on computers without losing much. Aside from having glyphs on your keys that didn't connect to what you were typing but people lived with it. But when we moved to computers there came an opportunity to improve the keyboard. We could now assign keys to common letters with their accents together without losing anything, since we didn't need to focus on the additive nature of accents. You know, moving from a mechanical system to pure software. So who jumped on the opportunity? The government of Québec led the charge in the early 90s for this new keyboard layout to replace the old French (Canada) layout. Feeling at some point that there was a risk of furthering divide in Canada, the federal government asked for some slight changes to the Québec proposal, in exchange for the promise of adopting it as the standard Canada-wide. Québec agreed, but Canada never did anything of value to help with adoption. So we're stuck with two standards, basically on the line of your OS: if you're on Windows, you're probably using the old French (Canada), and Mac users switched over to the new standard. Every. single. keyboard layout. has a story surrounding its creation and its usage.

kelnos 2y ago

Not sure I buy that explanation -- an image search suggests that a lot of US-made typewriters didn't have curly, square, or angle braces, and yet we have them on the standard US keyboard layout.