# 10-key pad vs. phone numbers layout
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 13, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935 "2012-12-13T17:26:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@whc.03grady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whc.03grady)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/1 "2012-12-13T17:26:58Z")
Why are 10-key pads and cash registers
789
456
123
while phones are
123
456
789
?
How do I hack my phone to set it up the right way?
---
### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/2 "2012-12-13T17:38:40Z")
Because cash registers are based upon adding machines. Old mechanical adding machines had a shaft that turned a wheel when you pressed a button. A “9” would move it nine notches while a “1” would move it one. Thus the “9” key had to stick up more than a “1.” The best way to set this up would be for the “9” to be at the top of the row and the “1” at the bottom.\* When they switched to a modern keyboard, they kept the larger numbers at the top.
Phones were developed independently. AT&T made the decision to put the “1” at the upper left.
Since few people care, no one’s bothered to change things, especially since you can’t get any consensus as to which is better.
\*Each digit had a row of keys:
```auto
999999999
888888888
777777777
666666666
555555555
444444444
333333333
222222222
111111111
```
---
### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/3 "2012-12-13T17:39:01Z")
The engineer who designed the original 2500 Bell desk phone deliberately flipped the keypad orientation to forestall comparisons with a 10-key.
What kind of phone do you want to change?
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### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/4 "2012-12-13T17:39:04Z")
Push button phone keys mimic the rotary dial which had 1 at the top and went counter-clockwise down the dial to 0. When AT&T introduced the push button phone, they kept the same arrangement for the keys because that was the arrangement customers were familiar with.
Dex explained it in a column.
> **[Why do telephone keypads count from the top down, while calculators count...](https://www.straightdope.com/21343156/why-do-telephone-keypads-count-from-the-top-down-while-calculators-count-from-the-bottom-up)**
>
> A STAFF REPORT FROM THE STRAIGHT DOPE SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD
D’oh! :smack: Ninja’d.
---
### Author:  [@whc.03grady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whc.03grady)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/5 "2012-12-13T17:46:08Z")
Thanks for the link.
I was mostly unserious about hacking the [Panasonic KX-TS3282B](http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-KX-TS3282B-2-Line-Expandable-Corded/dp/B00009MVHF/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355420751&sr=8-1&keywords=panasonic+kx-ts3282b) on my desk though.
---
### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/6 "2012-12-13T17:53:24Z")
Heh. During hectic times at work, it’s fun to realize you’re trying to add something on your phone! :smack:
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2012, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/7 "2012-12-13T21:01:57Z")
Interesting. The official Bell story seems to have eclipsed all others - here’s a [verbatim transcript](http://robert227.bizland.com/phonemuseum/touchtone.htm) of their official reasons for having the keypad arranged 1-down. That’s what everyone else quotes.
However, I worked in nuts-and-bolts telecom for several years and somewhere in there I saw a presentation involving the original lead engineer of the keypad project. He chuckled at all the pomp and seriousness about design studies and testing and such that Bell Labs was purported to have done, and said when he was handed the request he simply flipped the keypad upside down from adding machines because that seemed to make sense. All else became marketing and publicity dress-up, retconning if you will.
(There was extensive testing on the physical characteristics such as button size, feel, action, etc. However, the layout was never developed from testing; from what I recall, the alternate configurations Bell literature sometimes mentions came much later, after the original 1500 and 2500 were designed.)
Somewhere in my telcom archives is a solid cite… but I think we have here an example where if Google can’t find it, it doesn’t exist.
---
### Author:  [@RedSwinglineOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedSwinglineOne)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2012, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/8 "2012-12-13T21:36:13Z")
> [@gigi](#):
>
> Heh. During hectic times at work, it’s fun to realize you’re trying to add something on your phone! :smack:
I purposely dial my phone with my left hand so my “10-key” reflexes don’t kick in.
---
### Author:  [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2012, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/9 "2012-12-13T21:39:41Z")
Back in the day there was an urban legend that it was done deliberately to slow down people used to using adding machines so that they wouldn’t enter numbers too fast for the system to process them.
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### Author:  [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2012, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/10 "2012-12-13T22:33:33Z")
> [@cochrane](#):
>
> Push button phone keys mimic the rotary dial which had 1 at the top and went counter-clockwise down the dial to 0. When AT&T introduced the push button phone, they kept the same arrangement for the keys because that was the arrangement customers were familiar with.
That doesn’t make any sense. The 1 is not really at the top of a [rotary dial](http://img2.etsystatic.com/007/0/6845262/il_fullxfull.380756778_mfvi.jpg), and assuredly not at the top-left corner. And the position of the other numbers, in relation, is almost nothing like the phone keypad. The closest keypad-arrangement analog would be,
54321
67890
---
### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2012, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/11 "2012-12-13T23:39:34Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#):
>
> That doesn’t make any sense. The 1 is not really at the top of a [rotary dial](http://img2.etsystatic.com/007/0/6845262/il_fullxfull.380756778_mfvi.jpg), and assuredly not at the top-left corner. And the position of the other numbers, in relation, is almost nothing like the phone keypad. The closest keypad-arrangement analog would be,
> 54321
> 67890
That’s what **Dex** said in his column.
> [@](#):
>
> (1) Tradition. People were used to dialing with
> 1-2-3 on top, and it seemed reasonable to keep it
> that way.
>
> (2) AT&T (the only phone company at the time)
> did some research that concluded there were
> fewer dialing errors with the 1-2-3 on top
> (possibly related to the traditional rotary dial
> layout).
>
> (3) Phone numbers years ago used alphabetic
> prefixes for the exchange (BUtterfield 8, etc.). In
> the days of rotary dials, no doubt it seemed
> logical to put the letters in alphabetical order,
> and to associate them with numbers in numerical
> order. The number 1 was set aside for “flag” functions, so ABC went with 2, DEF with 3, and
> so on. When Touch-Tone phones came in,
> keeping the alphabet in alphabetical order meant
> putting 1-2-3 at the top.
You might want to take it up with him.
---
### Author:  [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/12 "2013-08-30T16:54:20Z")
Numberphile:
Why are phone buttons laid out as they are? Sarah Wiseman discusses.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCSzjExvbTQ)
TLDW: First, why a 3x3 or 4x4 grid? Wiseman tracked down some Bell white papers where they explored a variety of layouts including some really bizarre ones. Once they settled on an array layout, they had focus groups label them in the way they thought was most logical. 55% went with what we have today.
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### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/13 "2013-08-30T19:15:52Z")
I’d go with Dex’s #3 explanation. I remember having exchanges that used the letters of the alphabet as part of a phone number.
---
### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2013, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/14 "2013-08-30T19:42:01Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#):
>
> Back in the day there was an urban legend that it was done deliberately to slow down people used to using adding machines so that they wouldn’t enter numbers too fast for the system to process them.
I am guilty of continuing to spread that. I’ll try to ease off a bit.
---
### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-key-pad-vs-phone-numbers-layout/643935/15 "2013-08-31T03:11:50Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#):
>
> I’d go with Dex’s #3 explanation. I remember having exchanges that used the letters of the alphabet as part of a phone number.
**Bill Door** , above, mentions the urban legend that the arrangement is designed deliberately to slow down the user. I’m just glad they didn’t arrange the letters QWERTY style.