Keyboards don't inherently need to have the keys laid out like a typewriter. Most people are only willing to use a keyboard that is, because that is what they already developed their muscle memory for. That's the motivation behind the conformity I'm talking about.
A natural convergence would start with many competing options, and gradually boil down to what's popular; but keyboard shapes have only recently seen meaningful diversity be available at all.
I get where you're coming from and it'd definitely agree that the average keyboards has strongly converged on a standardized layout.
Nonetheless, there isn't a single layout. You got ANSI and ISO as the big branching standards with adjustments to bindings and added keys for various extra letters/modifiers depending on the localization.
And yes, i brought up the phone example to illustrate how they're only superficially the same. Your argument maps exactly onto phones after all, as they all have similar looks, input pattern etc.
> I get where you're coming from and it'd definitely agree that the average keyboards has strongly converged on a standardized layout.
They didn't converge: that was my whole point. They never diverged (significantly) from the original typewriter. All of the letter keys are in the same relative position.
Where to place function and return was a new question (the typewriter didn't have those), so naturally that aspect actually had variance until converging on a few standards.
Take one look at a dactyl, and you can see what I mean.
If you want an example of what I'm talking about, look here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ergomechkeyboards/
Keyboards don't inherently need to have the keys laid out like a typewriter. Most people are only willing to use a keyboard that is, because that is what they already developed their muscle memory for. That's the motivation behind the conformity I'm talking about.
A natural convergence would start with many competing options, and gradually boil down to what's popular; but keyboard shapes have only recently seen meaningful diversity be available at all.