Artificial Intelligence Wouldn’t Exist Without This One Man’s Invention

Before there ever was AI…

Before there ever was a computer…

There was a man named Christopher Latham Sholes who invented the typewriter and the QWERTY keyboard arrangement that we use to this day.

This is the story of how he invented it, and why it matters.

Sholes was a newspaper editor long before he ever set out to design the typewriter. As such, he already had a strong valuation for things that could create print and mass produce printed materials.

Before he invented the typewriter, one of the things Sholes created was a machine to add page numbers.

He met a man named Carlos Glidden, who told him he should invent a machine that could write mechanically.

Before long, Sholes started work on the idea with the help of a few others and was well on his way to producing a functioning prototype.

Ever wonder why the keyboard is laid out as “QWERTY” ? The reason is because when the arrangement of the letters were in alphabetical order, the levers of the typewriter were jamming up. The mechanical levers behind each of these letters would run into each other when they were right next to each other.

The rearrangement he created to solve this problem formed the second-to-the-top row with the letters Q, W, E, R, T, and Y- “QWERTY.”

That design is what we have used to this day. What you may have seen as a problem in learning to type was actually part of a solution that Sholes designed in the original keyboard layout.

It took several years before the first model was produced and sold. It wasn’t able to switch between lower case and capital letters. This model was only able to type capital letters, and it didn’t sell very much.

Before he retired, Sholes added an elegantly brilliant modification to his own invention- the Shift key. The Shift key pushed down against the mechanical innerworkings of the typewriter, so when held down at the same time as pressing another key, a capital letter would be printed instead of a lowercase one.

It took until after Sholes’ death, but the typewriter went on to be used in a myriad of various functions.

In the offices of countless corporations.

By legions of writers all around the world.

By presidents and senators.

In the war offices of World War I and World War 2.

In the offices of NASA as they built rockets to go to the moon.

The typewriter and QWERTY keyboard layout would go on to be foundational to the main way to talk to computers, without which, the late 20th century and 21st centuries would look unimaginably different.

What’s the lesson here?

We should remember the roots of our progress.

It’s awe inspiring to consider that I’m typing this thread on an iteration of Sholes’ product- a laptop. Our technological progress is like a giant Jenga puzzle. Without the QWERTY keyboard and the typewriter it was originally associated with, the entire thing would come crashing down.

Sholes died believing his product to be a failure, not having made a lot of money from his invention.

The least we can do is remember him and use his invention to create good content and products. And to remember that even if we don’t see progress in our efforts now, that it doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening right before our very eyes.

Maybe it will even change the world.

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That’s it for this! Thanks for reading!

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