why are the number pads on a telephone the opposite of the numbers on a calculator?

Question

why are the number pads on a telephone the opposite of the numbers on a calculator?

Answer 1

When the touch-tone telephone was being designed in the late 1950s, the calculator and adding-machine designers had already established a layout that had 7, 8 and 9 across the top row. Data-entry professionals, and others who used calculators fairly regularly, were quite adept at navigating these keypads. They could hit the numbers extremely quickly, which was great for data entry, but not so great for dialing a touch-tone phone. The tone-recognition technology could not operate effectively at the speeds at which these specialists could dial the numbers. The telephone designers figured that if they reversed the layout, the dialing speeds would decrease and the tone-recognition would be able to do its job more reliably. This theory has little proof to substantiate it, but it does make sense :)

Answer 2

While I believe that Saylor Moon is right there is another answer.



Rotary phones are laid out similar to the modern touch tone phone. People were accustomed to the 1 through 0 order of the numbers and the alphabet had already been applied to those numbers. It would be confusing for our right to left/ top to bottom society to read the alphabet upside down. So blame it on the alphabet.

Answer 3

I never noticed but I am curious to know why you did.

Answer 4

cos they are two different things