According to Cynthia Crossen in the Wall Street Journal (1996, pp. B1, B11) "Not even computer industry executives can explain the illogic of the modern keyboard ... a device jerry-built from technology as old as 1867 and as new as this year. Because there has never been an overarching plan or design, [it] defies common sense. Its terminology is inscrutable (alt, ctrl, esc, home), and the simplest tasks require memorizing keystroke combinations that have no intuitive basis."