GoKawiilHow PC keyboards lost their old icon-based keys to text labels
A retrospective piece traces how early IBM and other PC-era keyboards, including the Selectric typewriter and IBM 1130 computer, used pictorial symbols for functions like space, backspace, and page navigation. Over time, as computing shifted toward American office use, most of these icons were phased out in favor of plain text labels, leaving only Shift, Enter, and Tab as widely recognized symbolic holdouts on modern PC keyboards.
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This history highlights a broader design tension between text-based and icon-based interfaces, driven by cultural and market differences between the U.S. and Europe. It also explains why most PC keyboards today rely on words rather than universal icons, unlike Apple's recent moves to reintroduce more iconography, hinting at an ongoing negotiation between clarity and universality in interface design.
- Early IBM keyboards experimented with icons for functions later standardized as text, such as Backspace and Page Down.
- American markets favored text labels, while European markets pushed for icons due to language diversity.
- Only Shift, Enter, and Tab symbols survived from the icon era into modern PC keyboards.
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Published there as: “Key symbols we lost to time, pt. 1: The PC side”
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