Monday
Feb022009
The History of Buttons
Monday, February 2, 2009 at 2:34AM 
From Wikipedia:
Buttons as control devices were unknown until the early 20th Century, with the possible exception of valves on wind instruments. Where small controls were needed- for example on camera shutters- they were usually styled after latches or triggers, early teleprinters had keyboards similar to keyboard instruments with white and black keys.
The earliest examples of buttons as currently understood were probably mechanical typewriter keys in the early 20th Century, followed by electromechanical devices such as teleprinters and teletypes. These became more closely associated with electrical switching when used as a component of devices such as theEnigma Machine, and became commonplace in around the 1960s.
I'd love to know more about the history of buttons. We take them for granted now, but they're really not that old as a control device. I'm trying to think of any non man-made thing that you'd poke/tap with your finger to use:
- Poke your friend to wake them up
- Poke some wet clay to create art
- Tap a drum head to make a sound
Buttons, from this angle, seem more a human adaption to what technology can do, rather than the other way around. Please do share any stories about buttons, or good links to the history of buttons as control devices in machines and then computers.
Reader Comments (2)
Very interesting, I didn't know buttons were so new!
But I can't think of alternatives to buttons that are found in nature either. As far as I know, latches, triggers, etc. only appear on man-made objects. (And as a small nitpick, I would consider a drum-head man-made.)
It seems reasonable that a uniquely man-made thing would have a unique interface. I don't see that as evidence of it being in intrinsically the wrong affordance. Cameras today have buttons, not latches, even at the professional grade.
re: drum heads, good point. I don't know why I thought drums would be growing on trees.
I wonder if the first 'buttons' were actually buttons?