Upon the creation of the first digital computers in the mid-20th century, computer designers were faced with the question of how best to input data for the computer to, well, compute. Eventually, they decided to use a tried and true system first used in mechanical typewriters in the late-19th century, that is, the keyboard. For decades after the first incorporation of a keyboard in a digital computer in the ENIAC computer in 1945, the keyboard remained the primary method of human-to-computer interface. In 1984, however, the mouse first appeared in the computer-communication scene, and came to support the keyboard as a system of data input for computers. With the rise of both touch screen interfaces and voice-to-text software, the keyboard may seem to be losing its dominant position as the computer’s data-input device. Nonetheless, the system of the keyboard is still the most effective and accurate ways to input data on a computer, and will likely remain so for decades, if not centuries, to come.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC
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