1873 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Sholes
A psychologist named Dvorak from the University of Washington developed the Dvorak keyboard layout as a more efficient alternative to the common QWERTY layout.
It is because the qwerty keyboard is used universally. Most people are used to the qwerty keyboard layout but there are some keyboard layout that you can also consider the devorak and colemak
QWERTY
The layout of a QWERTY keyboard was engineered for the early mechanical typewriters, in order to avoid clashes of keys as much as possible.
Qwerty is the most common keyboard layout
QWERTY .
The QWERTY keyboard layout is taken from old manual mechanical typewriters. It was originally developed for typewriters to actually slow down typing speed and space out the more commonly-used letters to prevent the mechanism from jamming.
Qwerty, and Dvorak. Pertaining to the layout of the keys.
The name "QWERTY" for the typewriter layout derives from the first six letters in the top row of keys on a standard keyboard. Developed by Christopher Latham Sholes in the 1870s, this layout was designed to reduce jamming in early typewriters by placing frequently used letter pairs farther apart. The QWERTY design became widely adopted and remains the most common keyboard layout today.
The layout of a QWERTY keyboard was engineered for the early mechanical typewriters, in order to avoid clashes of keys as much as possible.
Yes there have been keyboards developed that did not follow the standard QWERTY layout, however they did not catch on too well.
The usual keyboard, with the first line of letters reading 'qwertyuiop'.