Or maybe IBM already had by then a large international customers base, and knew more about different keyboard layouts than a bunch of engineers in some US uni who believed the whole world began and ended there. You see the same bad design in C, which is also designed around a US keyboard.
For example, Wirth, working in Switzerland - where you have four different languages and related keyboard layout needs, adopted a far different approach, for obvious reasons.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
