Eli5: why is 0 next to 9 on keyboards, rather than 1?
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If you’re talking about the top row number keys, it’s because they enable you to type the number “10” faster since you can type the 1 with the left hand and follow up immediately with the right hand typing the 0.
If 0 were next to the 1, a touch typist would need two consecutive left hand strokes to type “10”, which is less efficient, since it wears out the left hand twice as quickly while the right hand is idle.
Different keyboard layouts have been made over the years. QWERTY layout, which I assume you are asking about, was intentionally made more difficult to use, so that people had to slow down when typing and could not jam the mechanical keys.
Most modern keyboard layouts have adapted from QWERTY to be better for different purposes, like reducing repetitive stress, or better matching foreign language users, etc.
Additionally, lesser used keys are almost universally further from the “home row” which is the natural resting position of your hands on the keyboard. Decades ago very few things required using a 0 key, and cash registers frequently had keys for common amounts (10, 20, 50, etc).
I’m sure that are other reasons I’m oblivious too, but if User Experience and Typography interest you, there is tons of freely available information you can dig in to.
My grandfather’s antique typewriter didn’t have a 1. You were supposed to use a lower case ‘l’ (as in Lima).
I can’t remember if zero had its own key or if you had use a big O (as in Oscar). I do remember some quirky keys along the edges (¢ ½) but that’s off topic.
The simple answer is because an overwhelming majority of people start counting at 1. Grab any random person off the street and tell them to count to 10, and they’ll start at 1, every time. Even programmers, mathematicians, and engineers will start at 1.
For most of us, 0 doesn’t get used anywhere near as often as 1 does.
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Why would you put the 1 next to the 9?
It is just how we are custom to representing them. In a 10 number system we count from 1-10, how ever having a key for 10 is absolutely pointless so you have 0 in place of 10. However if you look at numpad, it goes technically from 0-9.
But here is the thing, numbers when typed don’t start with a 0, unless they are used as codes for something. There is no point in typing “one hundred twenty three” as 0000123, the meaningless 0 are always removed from the sum. Even old mechanical registers don’t type the meaningless 0 even if the counter would show them.
0 is next to 9 on a rotary phone. Also on touch tone. There is no 1 key on an old school typewriter. You use a lower case l. To type 10 you type l0 They look about the same and can be typed same hand quickly.
At this point, it’s tradition. If you were to change it, you’d have a heck of a time re-learning touch typing after 30 or 40 years of typing the same way. Even keyboards with a different backslash location are irritating.
Older typewriter layouts tried to do everything they could to have less keys.
Some didn’t even have a ‘1’ – you were supposed to type a lowercase “L” instead of a digit 1.
And they didn’t even have a ‘0’ either. You were supposed to type a letter ‘O’ instead.
The ‘1’ key got added first, and then later the ‘0’ key got added.
By the time the ‘0’ key got added, the easiest place to find the room for it was to the right, not, the left, of the numbers that were already there. Also, that made it adjacent to the letter ‘O’ that was already there so it was conveniently similar to what people were already doing to reach your finger up there to hit it.
I figured it’s because we type/use zero stand-alone much less than we type/use 10, 20, 30, etc., where the brain expects the zero to be on the left, to “follow” the tens place.
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