Interesting Facts

According to a study carried out by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, UK schoolchildren are taking up pop instruments due to the influence of reality TV shows like the X Factor. (In 1999 the instrument plaed by most kids was the recorder, in 2014 it is the electric keyboard. 1999 Recorder – 19% Keyboard – 9% Piano – 8% Acoustic guitar – 5% Drums – 4% Violin – 2% Flute – 2% Electric guitar – 1% Percussion – 1% Bass guitar – 0% 2014 Keyboard – 30% Piano – 28% Recorder – 28% Acoustic guitar – 20% Drums – 14% Electric guitar – 13% Violin – 12% Flute – 7% Percussion – 6% Bass guitar – 5% I would think that with synthesisers, the electric keyboard encompasses all the instruments.) 

The QWERTY keyboard isn't standard all over the world. (In Germany and Austria they have QWERTZ, in France and Belgium AZERTY and in Italy they have QZERTY, which sounds more Russian to me.)

The QWERTY (named for the key placement of the upper left row) was invented by Christopher L. Sholes, who began its development in 1867 (This keyboard was designed to be as inefficient as possible because if people typed too fast the typewriter would jam. So Sholes arranged the keys so that many words would be typed with only one hand, few words can be typed on the home row, and the left hand gets the majority of the work. The DVORAK keyboard, which uses a different setup, improves efficiency by at least 70%, but like many good ideas it never caught on.)

Sensitive hacking equipment could tell what words are being typed on a keyboard by analysing the unique sounds made by each key. (Stop listening!)

The average computer keyboard is reportedly infected with 3,295 germs. (As I am typing: "Yuck, yuck, yuck!")

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. (Yes, you can type it out on the top row of your keyboard, but not in Germany! In Germany the y key is on the bottom row and the z key appears on the top! It makes organiying mz tzping verz interesting!)