Zero was (is) special. It dials the operator. This was much more common back then than it is today, so it is fitting that it got a special position. I can't spe

Zero was (is) special. It dials the operator. This was much more common back then than it is today, so it is fitting that it got a special position. I can't speak for keyboards, but I do recall once reading a Knuth paper on METAFONT where he noted the difference between the order that mathematicians write numbers (0123456789) and the order that typographers write numbers (1234567890).