The letters on the keyboard had to be rearranged so you'd be pressing keys far apart from each other when you typed, minimizing the frequency of typewriter jams. If you pressed keys next to each other in quick succession, the bars would collide with each other and the keys would jam. Whenever you pressed a key, the appropriate bar would swing from the edge of the ring and hit the paper in the center. In the four-row arrangement, these bars were arranged on the outside of a circular ring. Whenever you pressed a key, the bar the key was attached to would hit the piece of paper, printing the letter on the paper. The original layout for the typewriter used keys arranged in alphabetical order.
QWERTY Began With Typewriters in the 1800's You can also get keyboards designed for Dvorak or Colemak, if you like. You can switch keyboard layouts by changing your operating system's keyboard layout setting, although the letters printed on your keyboard won't match the new layout.
