Calculators & Phones

Why is it that a number pad on a phone has 123 on the top row and 789 on the bottom, but that the same number pad on a calculator is the opposite way around, with 789 on the top and 123 on the bottm? Is this just poor design, or is their a real reason for it?

Andrew

...I never noticed that before ... 😲 ... and I have no idea why though.

I have no idea why either.... Maybe there's a scientist guy (gal) here that can answer that. I bet it's something simple like the guy that invented it had a crazed assistant who flipped the numbers around by accident and no one ever caught it until the calculator was completed...

and then... well it's just too late to do anything at that point.

Or maybe the crazy assistant did it on purpose?

I just noticed it's that way on my pc keyboard too. This is starting to require a government inquiry.

Probobly something to do with the alphabet.

I dont imagine there's a specific reason, but an obvious generic one springs to mind...

Calculators put the 0 near the 1, so the numeric order 0, 1, 2, 3 etc. is kept (and mathematicians would have REALLY gone balastic over something like that).

Whereas phones have no purpose in keeping the numeric order, for practical layout purposes it makes more sense to put the 0 at the bottom (as with calculators) but would only confuse non-mathematicians by starting (from a reading point of view, top left) with 7...

MÅ¥HÅRM

it was done this way to ensure that the 2 number pads I use frequently, the one on my keyboard and the one on my phone, are totally different, thereby foiling my attempts to be able to use either without looking at them and bringing further stress & misery to my life.

Original rotary phones (waaaay back in the day) were pulse dial. Numbers were put in order from lowest number of pulses to highest - as 0 was represented by 10 pulses, it came last, whilst 1-2-3 were at the top. As phones changed, the keypad was designed to resemble the rotary phone, with 1-2-3 at the top and the 0 last.

I assume calculators derived from cash registers, which were simply designed with numbers going up consecutively from 0-9 (for whatever reason),