qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm: the seemingly random sequence of letters that make up a standard keyboard from top left to bottom right. Who would choose these letters, and why? The answer goes back to the first commercially available typewriter. The first typewriter had a keyboard about as low-quality as you can get, and it was prone to horrible jamming if nearby keys were pressed at the same type or too quickly. The band-aid solution was to move characters that would commonly be pressed together a couple spaces apart.
The company E. Remington and Sons was interested in purchasing the “Type-Writer,” so inventor Christopher Sholes needed to find the layout that would produce the least amount of jams. With help from Remington mechanics, a layout very near modern QWERTY keyboards was devised. Once Remington had bought the rights to the product, they tweaked the layout until they had the modern QWERTY layout.