The primary component of the keyboard is the QWERTY keypad. So-called because of the order of the first letters on the top row (Q,W,E,R,T,Y). This keypad has been around since the early years of the typewriter. The older typewriters had character dies on metal arms which struck an inked ribbon, transferring the character image into the paper. The keypad layout was designed so that the most frequently chosen characters would not be on adjacent arms. This minimized the chances of the arms interfering with each other. The QWERTY keypad includes all letters and numbers, with punctuation and auxiliary symbols (?,!,@,&,%, and others). Also included are basic function keys which control the input of these characters (Tab, Return, Caps Lock, Spacebar, Shift, Backspace).
