Monday, August 14, 2006

Then a crucial event in 1888 probably added the decisive increment to QWERTY's small advantage. Longley was challenged to prove the superiority of her eight-finger method by Louis Taub, another Cincinnati typing teacher, who worked with four fingers on a rival non-QWERTY keyboard with six rows, no shift action, and (therefore) separate keys for upper and lower case letters. As her champion Longley engaged Frank E. McGurrin, an experienced QWERTY typist who had given himself a decisive advantage that, apparently, no one had thought of before. He had memorized the QWERTY keyboard and could therefore operate his machine as all competent typists do today - by what we now call touch-typing. McGurrin trounced Taub in a well-advertised and well-reported public competition. -- Stephen Jay Gould: "The Panda's Thumb of Technology", Natural History, Vol.96, No.1 (January 1987), pp.14-23.

Prof. Gould's article shown above is totally a fable. First, in the typing contest at Cincinnati on July 25, 1888, Mr. Frank Edward McGurrin competed with Mr. Louis Traub, not Taub. Second, Mrs. Elizabeth Margaret Vater Longley was never challenged by Mr. Louis Traub in 1888. In May, 1885, Mrs. Longley left Cincinnati to Los Angeles, transferring her Shorthand and Type-Writer Institute to her pupils including Mr. Louis Traub. Third, Mr. Louis Traub was after Mrs. Longley, so he was also an eight-finger typist on Caligraph No.2. Furthermore, Mr. Traub could operate Caligraph No.2 with a blank keyboard. Fourth and last, Mr. Frank Edward McGurrin was never engaged by Mrs. Longley. At the beginning Mr. McGurrin challenged to public on typing speed, then Mr. Traub of Longley's Institute accepted the challenge. Mr. McGurrin won the competition, writing 8709 words in ninety minutes on Remington No.2, while Mr. Traub reached 6938 words on Caligraph No.2.

Additionally, Mr. Frank Edward McGurrin and Mr. Louis Traub competed again on January 22, 1889, at Cincinnati. At this time both competitors operated Remington No.2. Mr. Traub was given a handicap of ten percent and won the competition, writing 434 words in five minutes, while Mr. McGurrin wrote 447 words (cf. "McGurrin vs. Traub", The Cosmopolitan Shorthander, Vol.10, No.2 (February 1889), pp.21-23).

4 Comments:

Blogger J.B. said...

The question is, just because "er" and "th" are close to each other on the keyboard -- does that mean that QWERTY was created for a different reason than keeping frequently occuring pairs away from each other? If so, what was the true purpose?
Couldn't it be that Shole just didn't do as good a job as he should have?
I don't think there was a lot of beta testing in the late 19th century.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006 6:31:00 PM  
Blogger Koichi Yasuoka said...

Scrutinizing Sholes' patents and letters, I conclude that Sholes started with the keyboard arrangement of Hughes-Phelps printing telegraph. Then he moved vowels and frequently-used consonants: T and R. Please see my page for detail.

Thursday, August 24, 2006 1:17:00 PM  
Blogger Andrew Lepore said...

Wow, this is an old post, but interesting!

Koichi, you say right here:

"Furthermore, Mr. Traub could operate Caligraph No.2 with a blank keyboard. Fourth and last, Mr. Frank Edward McGurrin was never engaged by Mrs. Longley. At the beginning Mr. McGurrin challenged to public on typing speed, then Mr. Traub of Longley's Institute accepted the challenge..."

I know it was some time ago, but i was wondering if there was ever a rematch between the two....and if there was, who's method prevailed.

Also if I understand the importance of the contest, do you think that there will ever be a change, moving away from qwerty?

Thanks,

Mikayla,
Author @ Art Prints

Friday, April 01, 2011 2:28:00 AM  
Blogger Koichi Yasuoka said...

I think that the contests between McGurrin and Traub were less important than the Typewriter Trust for QWERTY. See my other page for detail.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011 3:41:00 PM  

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