Quoted from Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and
Chaos by
M. Mitchell Waldrop, 1992
"Scholes designed the QWERTY layout in 1873 specifically to slow typists
down;
the typewriting machines of the day tended to jam if the typist went too
fast.
But then the Remington Sewing Machine Company mass-produced a typewriter
using
the QWERTY keyboard, which meant that lots of typists began to learn the
system,
which meant that other typewriter companies began to offer the QWERTY
keyboard,
which meant that still more typists bgan to learn it, et cetera, et
cetera. To
them that hath shall be given, thought Arthure---increasing returns.
...its
locked-in. p. 35
VHS and the gasoline combustion engine, the clock we use today, (there
is a
counter clockwise clock with 24 hours from 1443) the water cooled
nuclear power
plant...........all examples of lock-in, increasing returns,
unpredictability..... positive feedback for less than optimal
technologies get
locked-in... The concept of lock-in, or increasing returns, pertains to
everything in high technology.
M. Freeman
Eugene Matusov wrote:
> Hello everybody--
>
> I just want to comment that such skill as QWERTY typing or school teaching
> can be viewed as "educational capital" or 'cultural inertia' depending who
> is talking and why. There are so many rationalities often crossing around a
> practice that make it sometimes seemed as irrational especially if these
> rationalities are poorly coordinated.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Eugene