This article is perpetuating a myth: that the Sholes keyboard was designed to slow-down typists. It wasn't, it was designed to make keystrokes come from alterna

This article is perpetuating a myth: that the Sholes keyboard was designed to slow-down typists. It wasn't, it was designed to make keystrokes come from alternating sides of the keyboard. THAT was what prevented the hammers from sticking, not the reduction of typing speed. In fact, the QWERTY keyboard accidentally increased typing speed, because as one hand was hitting a key, the other hand was targeting the next letter. This alternating hand movement was the greatest factor in increasing typing speed, and Dvorak's tweaks to the layout produces benefits too marginal to measure. When people switched to Dvorak and found they typed better it was because they'd paid more attention to their typing for a while, not because the new layout was superior.