How The Computer Keyboard Got Its Numbers, Fiction

Before the dawn of the electronic age, all of the future devices had a meeting. Well, almost all. The computer keyboard was not there yet.

The computer keyboard was taking its time. The computer keyboard knew it was going to to be big and wanted everything to be just right. When it got to the numbers, all of the other machines had left the dressing room. The computer keyboard was on its own. It looked at the numbers one way. It looked at the numbers the other way.

“Well,” it said, “Only one way makes sense.” So, it arranged its numbers and went off to the meeting.

When the computer keyboard arrived, it saw that the numbers on its own keypad where in the opposite direction from the other devices. The computer keypad had 7-8-9 across the top row. The other devices had 1-2-3 on the top.

“Why are all your numbers on upside down?” The keyboard asked.

The telephone spoke, “We aren’t upside down, you are.”

“Nope,” said the keyboard. “You count DOWN from nine to one. You don’t count up from nine to one. I’m right. All of you are wrong.”

They fell to arguing.

Telephone Handset: Telephones were the first. I have tradition on my side

Computer keyboard: You are going to be old news. Enjoy your time in the sun. It won’t last.

ATM machine: Telephones you were still rotary when I started. I have the authority.

Computer keyboard: Cash, really? How quaint.

Cell phone: I am modern and I have numbers in the the traditional order.

Computer keyboard: Yes, you are popular, but your keyboard? People touch a name, or click on an icon.

The computer keyboard looked around the room. It addressed all of the other machines.

“It doesn’t matter which of you came first. I’m going to be bigger than all of you and I say the larger numbers go on top.”

That is why to this day, computer keypads have numbers different from the rest of our devices.

Afterword – Inspiration

Write a fable. Imperfect Patience: YOU MIGHT TEACH WRITING, February 15, 2025.

Make it ridiculous. Imperfect Patience: FRAMES & RLP, February 5, 2025.

Afterword – Back in the real world

Why are the keyboards different? No one knows, not definitively. All of the versions I found are presented as theories, or “possibly apocryphal” stories. Touchtone phones had 1 at the top to mimic rotary dial phones. Perhaps. They were arranged awkwardly to stop speedy fingers from jamming the system. Call this the QWERTY explanation. Computer keyboards descended from adding machines, which had smaller numbers at the bottom. Maybe. A theory on one site is debunked on another site. The WayBack Machine has a compilation of answers from various folks, WayBack Machine: Keyboard Trivia, 2013

If anyone can find a confirmed source, please advise.

Afterword – Methodology

Wrote first, surfed later. Looks like I completely overlooked calculators, and may not have been correct in the order that things evolved. I knew I might be making errors. I wanted to get the fictioning done in isolation before I got distracted, or contradicted, or derailed, by research.

The plan was to work on my fiction skills, which need practice, rather than my research & expository skills, which are strong. By way of proof, I give you this post, which has an afterword almost as long as the story it discusses.

Anyway.

Result. A complete fiction piece with a beginning, middle, and end.

Onwards!
Katherine