If our ancestors of the late nineteenth century hitched a time-machine ride to 2009, nearly everything about the technology we use would leave them dumbstruck. They would, however, immediately recognize our computer keyboards, nearly all of which work in pretty much the same manner as the ones on Victorian-era typewriters. Which is not to say that a bevy of inventors haven’t tried to improve on standard-issue QWERTY. It’s just that most of their bright ideas go absolutely nowhere. Herewith, a gallery of Google Patents finds, including ones that never got off the drawing board, ones that flopped on arrival, and a few that achieved at least minor success among typists with open minds. Oh, and just for fun, there’s one bizarre keyboard in here that turned out to be bizarrely successful, too.
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