When Was the Keyboard Invented?

The manual keyboard was invented in 1868 by Christopher Latham Sholes, the inventor of the manual typewriter. The electric computer keyboard was invented in 1948 for the Binac computer and resembled an electric typewriter.

The first typewriter keyboard featured the same QWERTY layout used on most keyboards in contemporary times. In 1964, the video display terminal was added to computers, allowing users to see data from their keyboards as they typed it. This led to the development of keyboards with direct digital input into the computer to speed up the input process. Keyboards with direct electronic input became the standard for all computer input in the late 1970s.