Why is the numberpad on calculators or keyboards are different than the numberpad of the phones. since an avarage human dials mmore numbers than he uses a calculator why it is ordered in a strange fashion?
A friend of mine told me that in accounting numbers 0-1-2-3- and 5 are used very frequently and in order to acess these numbers real quick the calculator is designed that way but i am not sure his explanation is right.
See Cecil’s report on this from several years ago: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mphonedial.html
And you question is backwards: the numberpad on calculators (actually adding machines) long preceeded the telephone touch-tone keypad. So the question is why the phone company used a different design. Which is explained in that column.
The report misses an obvious point about the old-style cash registers and calculators: You did have a matrix of buttons for each decimal point. Each button was attached to a shaft that turned a wheel that changed the numbers. The nine, turned the wheel nine positions; the one turned the shaft one position (there was no zero button; you just didn’t press anything if there was a zero in that column). This meant the 9s had a much longer shaft than the 1s. Putting the 9 at the bottom would have made for an awkward arrangement – the larger number keys would get in the way. By putting 1 at the bottom, you can minimize the difference in key height and, as a bonus, have the keyboard sloping toward the user.
That makes sense. You should post it in Comment’s on Cecil’s and see if they’ll add that to the end of the article.