When the Mac came out it didn't have the numeric keypad, which basically meant Mac's couldn't be used for accounting and it really limited their market at the time, so later Mac's included the numeric keypad. The productivity increases in small business accounting were undeniable and this pushed PCs acceptance in the business world and enabled the PC revolution.īusiness PCs were initially accounting machines and often sat on the accountant's desk, so of course once this was realized they were designed with the UI accountants were most familiar with, the 10 key numeric keypad (which old school accountants could operate by touch at blinding speed). Real businesses used real computers (mainframes and mini-computers from IBM, DEC, HP, DG, etc.) When accounting software packages like VisiCalc came out, computers that were formerly considered toys suddenly had a real business application. Personal computers were originally hobbyists' toys with limited application to business.
The numeric keypad long predates computer keyboards, it was basically the UI of the adding machines used by tens of thousands of accountants in the days before PCs. You can find them on laptops but stand-alone keyboards its much less common.Īre there compelling reasons this change has not happened on hardware more commonly? I can really think of only one, that being inertia and perceived resistance to change. Yet in spite of this, I've found it hard to find non-numbpad keyboards. Spend some time doing normal tasks and pay attention to this for yourself. I move my arm a quarter mile a day extra because my keyboard has a numbpad built-in.This results in roughly a quarter mile of extra movement during the day (again depending on what I'm doing, unfortunately most content creation in Office applications requires TONS of this, internet browsing can be high if vimium doesn't work, coding is much less, etc). I use the number pad about 0.1% of the time my arm moves over it - maybe.I do this movement roughly 2-5 times each minute depending on my current task.My right arm is forced out slightly as compared with natural because of the extra distance.Each time I swap mouse/keyboard with my right hand I have about 13" EXTRA movement (numpad is about 6.5" wide).Having started a new job, I was finding my right arm somewhat more sore. Normally I use a wireless keyboard without a number pad and a mouse right next to it.
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