Good points. I don't buy the telegraphist story as a full explanation or as proof, but found it interesting at least. I agree that Keep's comment seems a sensible one. :)

As for home row friendliness, touch typing as we know it hadn't been invented yet unless I'm mistaken so one shouldn't expect overmuch. Nevertheless, these days my feeling is that the Colemak WF and UY keys are practically home row positions too – how's it looking with that in mind?

One eyesore with the improved Sholes layout is how ET/TE, EA/AE and AT/TA all seem to become same-finger bigrams! Unless he had some other fingering in mind, that is not a modern touch typist's dream at all. In fact, a bigram analysis supposing modern fingering looks rather disastrous...

When you look at Qwerty it appears as though it started off alphabetised.  There are remnants of such on the home row.  In practice, I guess, it didn't work as a viable layout.  However it may have been an easier to learn letter placement.  Which does beg the question: Why and how did Sholes and co arrive at their final layout?

I thought a main impedement to some typewriter layouts was the hammer collisions.  This happens anyway, but I guess it could have been legions worse under some layouts.

Dvorak also designed a typewriter layout, but years later.  The vowel separation on the left hand that lends itself to hand alteration partly remedies the hammer collision issues.  Which raises the question as to why Sholes didn't bother doing the same?  Unless the Y, U, I and O placments were an attempt, or a natural evolution towards something similar.

I just checked 'The Iron Whim' by Darren Wershler-Henry, and it's chapter 'Qwerty', actually points out that it's hypothesised that the keyboard started out alphabetised,  but there is lack of evidence of such, apart from the middle row clue.  And that to avoid hammer (type bars) collides, Scholes took a list of common digraphs and tried to place each letter of each, on opposing sides of the keyboard.

Again there's no mention of trying to slow the typist down, but the exact culmination in the layout is left to the imagination, as there is scant fact.

An interesting point the book mentions is that the hardest keys to press are backspace and shift-lock.  Was there a need for a backspace?  Perhaps the right hand got a bit of a break with the keys, as it had other work to do: carriage returns, sweeps and paper changes.

I personally can't see any benefit in slowing the typist down (except to lesson the key jams - or RSI!).  I wouldn't dismiss mudslinging in an effort to finanancially benefit from the dethroning of Qwerty.  You would hope that the origins of such statements should be easy verify - with the digitisation of everything...

Re-reading Dreymar's post, I see that Scholes did have a go at bettering his layout.  Very interesting!  I guess Dvorak must have been in-part inspired by that work.  How much was the layout inspired by machine?

"The keyboard is a crazy patchwork put together too long ago in a series of heartbreaking experiments to fit keys into positions without their colliding or sticking, and so to invent a usable machine.  It was put together a few fingers at a time when no one dreamed of fast, all finger, touch typing" - August Dvorak.