This article is about keyboard technology, the hardware. For the software that controls the keyboard, see keyboard layout.
Not to be confused with keyboard computer.
File:Typing example.ogv
Typing on a computer keyboard

Keyboard keys

Backlit keyboard

A Lenovo's ThinkPad compact USB keyboard

A white standard wired chiclet keyboard (flat keyboard)

A traditional keyboard with bicolor keys
A computer keyboard is a typewriter-style device[1] which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. Replacing early punched cards and paper tape technology, interaction via teleprinter-style keyboards have been the main input method for computers since the 1970s, supplemented by the computer mouse since the 1980s.

Keyboard keys (buttons) typically have a set of characters engraved or printed on them, and each press of a key typically corresponds to a single written symbol. However, producing some symbols may require pressing and holding several keys simultaneously or in sequence.[2] While most keyboard keys produce letters, numbers or symbols (characters), other keys or simultaneous key presses can prompt the computer to execute system commands, such as such as the Control-Alt-Delete combination used with Microsoft Windows.[3][4] In a modern computer, the interpretation of key presses is generally left to the software: the information sent to the computer, the scan code, tells it only which key (or keys) on which row and column, was pressed or released.[5]

In normal usage, the keyboard is used as a text entry interface for typing text, numbers, and symbols into application software such as a word processor, web browser or social media app.


Contents
1 History
2 Types and standards
2.1 Desktop or full-size
2.2 Laptop-size
2.3 Flexible keyboards
2.4 Handheld
2.5 Thumb-sized
2.6 Multifunctional
3 Non-standard layout and special-use types
3.1 Chorded
3.2 Software
3.3 Projection
3.4 Optical keyboard technology
4 Key types
4.1 Alphanumeric
4.2 Modifier keys
4.3 Cursor keys
4.4 System commands
4.4.1 Break key
4.4.2 Escape key
4.4.2.1 ESC origins
4.4.3 Enter key
4.4.4 Shift key
4.4.5 Menu key
4.5 Number pad
4.6 Miscellaneous
4.7 Multiple layouts
5 Illumination
6 Technology
6.1 Key switches
6.2 Control processor
6.3 Connection types
7 Alternative text-entering methods
8 Other issues
8.1 Keystroke logging
8.2 Physical injury
9 See also
10 References
11 External links
History
While typewriters are the definitive ancestor of all key-based text entry devices, the computer keyboard as a device for electromechanical data entry and communication derives largely from the utility of two devices: teleprinters (or teletypes) and keypunches. It was through such devices that modern computer keyboards inherited their layouts.

As early as the 1870s, teleprinter-like devices were used to simultaneously type and transmit stock market text data from the keyboard across telegraph lines to stock ticker machines to be immediately copied and displayed onto ticker tape.[6] The teleprinter, in its more contemporary form, was developed from 1907 to 1910 by American mechanical engineer Charles Krum and his son Howard, with early contributions by electrical engineer Frank Pearne. Earlier models were developed separately by individuals such as Royal Earl House and Frederick G. Creed.

Earlier, Herman Hollerith developed the first keypunch devices, which soon evolved to include keys for text and number entry akin to normal typewriters by the 1930s.[7]

The keyboard on the teleprinter played a strong role in point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communication for most of the 20th century, while the keyboard on the keypunch device played a strong role in data entry and storage for just as long. The development of the earliest computers incorporated electric typewriter keyboards: the development of the ENIAC computer incorporated a keypunch device as both the input and paper-based output device, while the BINAC computer also made use of an electromechanically controlled typewriter for both data entry onto magnetic tape (instead of paper) and data output.[8]

The keyboard remained the primary, most integrated computer peripheral well into the era of personal computing until the introduction of the mouse as a consumer device in 1984. By this time, text-only user interfaces with sparse graphics gave way to comparatively graphics-rich icons on screen.[9] However, keyboards remain central to human-computer interaction to the present, even as mobile personal computing devices such as smartphones and tablets adapt the keyboard as an optional virtual, touchscreen-based means of data entry.