With or without knowing it, most of us (native users of the English language, anyway) use a keyboard layout known popularly as QWERTY; if your keyboard’s top row of letters begins with anything but Q, W, E, R, T, and Y, then you probably use an alternative keyboard layout like Dvorak or Maltron.

The QWERTY keyboard layout came about in the late 19th century as the most sensible response to the technology of the day for which it was designed: the typewriter. To eliminate the clashing of typebars that would sometimes result from typing frequently paired letters too soon in succession, such pairings were separated. As technology improved, though, and these mechanical difficulties were left by the wayside, QWERTY stuck around like an old, familiar friend — or enemy, as some would claim.

While many swear by the greater efficiency of movement of Dvorak and Maltron keyboard layouts because the most commonly used keys have been placed in more convenient places (without the technical problems such layouts would have caused in the earliest days of typewriters), QWERTY perseveres for the same reason that many obscure languages continue: people are comfortable with what they first learn. Trying to switch to a completely new experience is like rewiring the brain — it’s not usually a comfortable process, and the learning curve is steep. (This is probably also why Esperanto never really caught on, except as a novelty language and a vehicle for ’60s horror movie Incubus starring a pre-Kirk William Shatner.) Experienced typists, like experienced pianists, don’t usually need to look where their fingers are going to coax an expected result from their machine of choice.

So what do you think about keyboard layouts? Are you satisfied with the QWERTY setup and plan to use it until they pry your keyboard from your cold, decaffeinated fingers, or do you forge ahead with brain rewiring for the sake of efficiency and use an alternative like Dvorak or Maltron? In this video, LockerGnome’s Chris Pirillo and Brandon Wirtz talk a little bit about these three main keyboard layouts and agree that “Maltron” is a damned cool name for human beings and sentient robots, alike.