Mechanical desktop typewriters, such as this Underwood Five, were long time standards of government agencies, newsrooms, and sales offices. The Underwood Typewriter Company was a manufacturer of typewriters headquartered in New York City, New York. They were largely replaced in these roles during the later 20th century, first by IBM Selectrics and other electric typewriters, and then by personal computers. A personal computer ( PC) is any Computer whose original sales price size and capabilities make it useful for individuals and which is intended to be operated

Old style Hermes typewriter

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with a set of "keys" that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. A machine is any device that uses Energy to perform some activity In Engineering, electromechanics combines the Sciences of Electromagnetism of Electrical engineering and mechanics. In Typography, a typeface is a set of one or more Fonts designed with stylistic unity each comprising a coordinated set of Glyphs A typeface usually comprises Paper is thin material mainly used for writing upon printing upon or packaging For much of the 20th century, typewriters were indispensable tools in business offices and for many professional writers. By the end of the 1980s, word processor applications on personal computers had largely replaced the tasks previously accomplished with typewriters. A personal computer ( PC) is any Computer whose original sales price size and capabilities make it useful for individuals and which is intended to be operated Typewriters, however, remain popular in the developing world and among some niche markets. A niche market is a focused targetable portion (subset of a market

Manufacturers of typewriters have included E. Remington and Sons, IBM, Imperial typewriters, Oliver Typewriter Company, Olivetti, Royal Typewriter Company, Smith Corona, Underwood Typewriter Company. E Remington and Sons (1816-1896 was a manufacturer of Firearms and Typewriters Founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion New York International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology Imperial Typewriter Company was a former British manufacturer of Typewriters based in Leicester, England. The Oliver Typewriter Company was an American Typewriter manufacturer headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA, known as Olivetti, is an Italian manufacturer of Computers printers and other business machines The Royal Typewriter Company was a manufacturer of Typewriters headquartered in Hartford Connecticut. Smith Corona or the SCM Corporation is a US Typewriter and Calculator company. The Underwood Typewriter Company was a manufacturer of typewriters headquartered in New York City, New York.

History

Early innovations

This Smith Premier typewriter, purchased around the end of the 19th century, was found abandoned in the Bodie ghost town. Smith Corona or the SCM Corporation is a US Typewriter and Calculator company. Bodie California is a Ghost town east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Mono County California, United States, about 75 Miles A ghost town is a Town or City that has been abandoned usually because the economic activity that supported it has failed or due to natural or human-caused This early example had separate keys for upper- and lower-case letters.

No single person or nation can be credited with the invention of the typewriter. As with the light bulb, automobile, telephone, and telegraph, a number of people contributed insights and inventions that eventually resulted in commercially successful instruments. The incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is a source of electric Light that works by Incandescence, (a general Basic principle A traditional landline telephone system also known as "plain old telephone service" (POTS, commonly handles both signaling and audio information In fact, historians have estimated that some form of typewriter was invented 52 times as tinkerers tried to come up with a workable design. ^[1]

In 1714, Henry Mill obtained a patent in Britain for a machine that, from the patent, appears to have been similar to a typewriter, but nothing further is known. Henry Mill (c 1683 - 1771 was an English inventor who Patented the first Typewriter in 1714 ^[2] Other early developers of typewriting machines include Pellegrino Turri, who also invented carbon paper. Carbon paper (originally carbonic paper) is Paper coated on one side with a layer of a loosely bound dry Ink or pigmented coating usually bound with Many of these early machines, including Turri's, were developed to enable the blind to write.

In 1829, William Austin Burt patented a machine called the "Typographer. William Austin Burt ( June 13, 1792 &ndash August 18, 1858) was an American Inventor, Legislator, surveyor Typography is the art and techniques of arranging type, Type design, and modifying type Glyphs Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety " Like many other early machines, it is sometimes listed as the "first typewriter"; the Science Museum (London) describes it merely as "the first writing mechanism whose invention was documented," but even that claim may be excessive, since Turri's machine is well known. For science museums in general check out Science museum. The Science Museum on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London is part ^[3] Even in the hands of its inventor, it was slower than handwriting. Burt and his promoter John D. Sheldon never found a buyer for the patent, and it was never commercially produced. Because it used a dial to select each character rather than keys, it was called an "index typewriter" rather than a "keyboard typewriter," if it is to be considered a typewriter at all.

By the mid-1800s, the increasing pace of business communication was creating a need for mechanization of the writing process. Stenographers and telegraphers could take down information at rates up to 130 words per minute, but a writer with a pen was limited to about 30 words per minute (the 1853 speed record). ^[4] From 1829 to 1870, many printing or typing machines were patented by inventors in Europe and America, but none went into commercial production. Charles Thurber developed multiple patents; his first, in 1843, was developed as an aid to the blind. See Charles Thurber's 1845 Chirographer, as an example. Charles Thurber was a black man Lynched in Grand Forks North Dakota on October 24 1882. Year 1845 ( MDCCCXLV) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Chirography (from the Greek derived ( cheir-'/'cheiro-) Latin chiro- (similar to the Hittite word kesar) meaning hand (i

In 1855, the Italian Giuseppe Ravizza created a prototype typewriter called "Cembalo scrivano o macchina da scrivere a tasti. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Giuseppe Ravizza was an Italian Inventor who in 1855 created a prototype Typewriter, the it Cembalo scrivano o macchina da scrivere a tasti. " It was an advanced machine that let the user see the writing as it was typed.

In 1861, Father Francisco João de Azevedo, a Brazilian priest, made his own typewriter with basic materials and tools, such as wood and knives. D. Pedro I, the Brazilian emperor, in that same year, presented a gold medal to Father Azevedo for this invention. Pedro I (ˈpedɾuin Brazilian Portuguese and in European Portuguese; English: Peter of Alcantara Francis Anthony John Charles Xavier of Paula Many Brazilian people as well as the Brazilian federal government recognize Fr. Azevedo as the real inventor of the typewriter, a claim that has been the subject of some controversy. ^[5]

Between 1864 and 1867 Peter Mitterhofer, a carpenter from South Tyrol (then Austria) developed several models of a typewriter and a fully functioning prototype in 1867.

Commercial 1878 model of the Hansen Writing Ball.

In 1865, Rev. Rasmus Malling-Hansen of Denmark invented the Hansen Writing Ball, which went into commercial production in 1870 and was the first commercially sold typewriter. Rasmus Malling-Hansen, born 1835, died 1890, Danish inventor minister and principal at the Royal Institute for the deaf and one of the true pioneers of the The Kingdom of Denmark ( ˈd̥ænmɑɡ̊ (archaic ˈd̥anmɑːɡ̊ commonly known as Denmark, is a country in the Scandinavian region of northern Europe Rasmus_Malling-Hansen_1890jpg|thumb|200px| Rasmus Malling-Hansen - 1890]] The Hansen Writing Ball is one of the most finely crafted and impressive of the early Typewriters It was a success in Europe and was reported as being used in offices in London as late as 1909. ^[6] In addition, Malling-Hansen used a solenoid escapement to return the carriage on some of his models and was a responsible candidate for the first "electric" typewriter. A solenoid is a three-dimensional Coil. In Physics, the term solenoid refers to a loop of wire often wrapped around a Metallic core which From the book Hvem er Skrivekuglens Opfinder?, written by Malling-Hansen's daughter, Johanne Agerskov, we know that, in 1865, Malling-Hansen made a porcelain model of the keyboard of his writing ball and experimented with different placements of the letters to achieve the fastest writing speed. Malling-Hansen placed the letters on short pistons that went directly through the ball and down to the paper. This, together with placement of the letters so that the fastest writing fingers struck the most frequently used letters, made the Hansen Writing Ball the first typewriter to produce text substantially faster than a person could write by hand. Rasmus_Malling-Hansen_1890jpg|thumb|200px| Rasmus Malling-Hansen - 1890]] The Hansen Writing Ball is one of the most finely crafted and impressive of the early Typewriters

Malling-Hansen developed his typewriter further through the 1870s and 1880s and made many improvements, but the writing head remained the same. On the first model of the writing ball from 1870, the paper was attached to a cylinder inside a wooden box. In 1874, the cylinder was replaced by a carriage, moving beneath the writing head. Then, in 1875, the well-known tall model was patented and it was the first of the writing balls that worked without electricity. Malling-Hansen attended the world exhibitions in Vienna in 1873 and Paris in 1878. At both exhibitions, he received the first-prize medals for his invention. ^[7][8][9]

Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer from 1873, showing QWERTY key layout. QWERTY (ˈkwɜː(rti is the most common modern-day Keyboard layout on English-language computer and Typewriter keyboards It takes its

The first typewriter to be commercially successful was invented in 1867 by Christopher Sholes,^[1] Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Christopher Latham Sholes ( February 14, 1819 - February 17, 1890) was an American Inventor who invented the first Carlos Glidden (1834&ndash1877 along with Christopher Sholes and Samuel W Samuel W Soule along with Christopher Sholes and Carlos Glidden invented the first practical Typewriter at a machine shop located in Milwaukee Wisconsin ( or wɪˈskɑnsɨn (French Ouisconsin) is one of the fifty United States of America, located in the north central part of the United States Sholes soon disowned the machine and refused to use or even to recommend it. ^[1] The patent (US 79,265) was sold for $12,000 to Densmore and Yost, who made an agreement with E. Remington and Sons (then famous as a manufacturer of sewing machines) to commercialize what was known as the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer. E Remington and Sons (1816-1896 was a manufacturer of Firearms and Typewriters Founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion New York A sewing machine is a textile machine used to stitch Fabric or other material together with Thread. Remington started production of its first typewriter on March 1, 1873, in Ilion, New York. Events 86 BC - Lucius Cornelius Sulla, at the head of a Roman Republic army enters in Athens, removing the Tyrant Year 1873 ( MDCCCLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Ilion is a Village in Herkimer County, New York, United States. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous Another early typewriter manufacturer was Underwood. The Underwood Typewriter Company was a manufacturer of typewriters headquartered in New York City, New York.

Because the typebars of this typewriter strike upwards, the typist in this French postcard, c. 1910, could not have seen characters as they were typed.

The ability to view what is typed, as it is typed, is taken for granted today. In most early keyboard typewriters, however, the typebars struck upward against the bottom of the platen. A typebar is an 'arm' inside a Typewriter with a character on the end of it A platen (or platten) is typically a flat Metal (or earlier Wooden plate pressed against a medium (such as Paper) to cause an impression Thus, what was typed was not visible until the typing of subsequent lines caused it to scroll into view. The difficulty with any other arrangement was ensuring that the typebars fell back into place reliably when the key was released. This was eventually achieved with various ingenious mechanical designs and so-called "visible typewriters", such as the Oliver typewriter, were introduced in 1895. The Oliver Typewriter Company was an American Typewriter manufacturer headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Surprisingly, the older style continued in production to as late as 1915.

Standardization

Typebars

By about 1910, the "manual" or "mechanical" typewriter had reached a somewhat standardized design. There were minor variations from one manufacturer to another, but most typewriters followed the concept that each key was attached to a typebar that had the corresponding letter molded, in reverse, into its striking head. A typebar is an 'arm' inside a Typewriter with a character on the end of it To have letters typed in exact location, the typebar was guided all its way till the ribbon by segment. When a key was struck briskly and firmly, the typebar hit a ribbon (usually made of inked fabric) stretched in front of a cylindrical platen that moved back and forth. An ink is a Liquid containing various Pigments and/or Dyes used for coloring a surface to produce an Image, text, or A textile is a flexible material comprised of a network of natural or artificial Fibres often referred to as thread or Yarn. The paper was rolled around by the typewriter's platen, which was then rotated by the "carriage return" lever (at the far left) into position for each new line of text.

A significant innovation was the Shift key. The shift key is a Modifier key on a keyboard, used to type capital letters and other alternate "upper" characters This key physically "shifted" the basket of typebars, so that a different portion of the bar would come in contact with the ribbon/platen. The result is that each typebar could type two different characters, cutting the number of keys and typebars in half (and simplifying the internal mechanisms considerably). The obvious use for this was to allow letter keys to type both upper and lower case, but normally the number keys were also duplexed, allowing access to special symbols such as percent (%) and ampersand (&). With the Shift key, manufacturing costs (and therefore purchase price) were greatly reduced, and typist operation was simplified; both factors contributed greatly to mass adoption of the technology.

Because the Shift key required more force to push (its mechanism was moving a much larger mass than other keys), and was operated by the "pinky" finger (normally the weakest finger on the hand), it was difficult to hold the Shift down for more than two or three consecutive strokes. The "Shift Lock" key (the precursor to the modern Caps Lock) allowed the shift operation to be maintained indefinitely. The caps lock is a key on a Computer keyboard. Pressing it will set a keyboard mode in which typed letters are capitalized by default and (on some computers Unlike the today's Caps Lock, however, the Shift Lock was a two-key operation: Shift would be held down, and the Shift Lock (normally directly above) would be pressed simultaneously, triggering a simple lock mechanism. To unlock, Shift was tapped again, releasing both keys and unshifting the basket.

Some ribbons were inked in black and red stripes, each being half the width and the entire length of the ribbon. A lever on most machines allowed switching between colors, which was useful for bookkeeping entries where negative amounts had to be in red.

In the 1940s, a silent typewriter was marketed, but it failed, leading some observers to the conclusion that the clickety-clack of the typical typewriter was a consumer preference. ^[1]

Electric designs

Although electric typewriters would not achieve widespread popularity until nearly a century later, the basic groundwork for the electric typewriter was laid by the Universal Stock Ticker, invented by Thomas Edison in 1870. Ticker tape was used by ticker tape machines, the Ticker tape timer stock ticker machines, or just stock tickers. This device remotely printed letters and numbers on a stream of paper tape from input generated by a specially designed typewriter at the other end of a telegraph line.

The first electric typewriter was produced by the Blickensderfer Manufacturing Company, of Stamford, Connecticut, in 1902. Blickensderfer Typewriter was designed by George C Blickensderfer (1850-1917 in 1893 Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. While never marketed commercially, this was the first known typewriter to use a typewheel rather than individual typebars, although the element was cylindrical rather than ball-shaped. The next step in the development of the electric typewriter came in 1909, when Charles and Howard Krum file a patent for the first practical teletype machine. The Krums' machine also used a typewheel rather than individual typebars. While innovative, neither of these machines reached the business or personal consumer.

Electrical typewriter designs removed the direct mechanical connection between the keys and the element that struck the paper. Not to be confused with later electronic typewriters, electric typewriters contained only a single electrical component: the motor. Where the keystroke had previously moved a typebar directly, now it engaged mechanical linkages that directed mechanical power from the motor into the typebar. This was also true of the forthcoming IBM Selectric.

IBM and Remington Rand electric typewriters were the leading models until IBM introduced the IBM Selectric typewriter, which replaced the typebars with a spherical element (or typeball) slightly larger than a golf ball, with the reverse-image letters molded around its surface. The Selectric used a system of latches, metal tapes, and pulleys driven by an electric motor to rotate the ball into the correct position and then strike it against the ribbon and platen. The typeball moved laterally in front of the paper instead of the former platen-carrying carriage moving the paper across a stationary print position.

Replaceable IBM typeballs with clip, 2 Euro coin to compare

The typeball design had many advantages, especially the elimination of "jams" (when more than one key was struck at once and the levers became entangled) and in the ability to change the typeball, allowing multiple fonts to be used in a single document. Selectric mechanisms were widely incorporated into computer terminals in the 1960s, because the typing mechanism (a) was reasonably fast and jam-free, (b) could produce high quality output compared to competitors such as Teletype machines, (c) could be initiated by a short, low-force mechanical action, (d) did not require the movement of a heavy "type basket" to shift between lower- and upper-case, and (e) did not require the platen roller assembly to move from side to side (a problem with continuous-feed paper). A teleprinter ( The IBM 2741 terminal was a popular example of a Selectric-based computer terminal, and similar mechanisms were employed as the console devices for many IBM System/360 computers. These mechanisms used "ruggedized" designs compared to those in standard commercial typewriters.

IBM also gained an advantage by marketing more heavily to schools than did Remington, with the idea that students who learned to type on an IBM Electric would later choose IBM typewriters over the competition in the workplace as businesses replaced their old manual models.

Later models of IBM Executives and Selectrics replaced inked fabric ribbons with "carbon film" ribbons that had a dry black or colored powder on a clear plastic tape. These could be used only once, but later models used a cartridge that was simple to replace. A side effect of this technology was that the text typed on the machine could be easily read from the used ribbon, raising issues where the machines were used for preparing classified documents (ribbons had to be accounted for to ensure that typists didn't carry them from the facility). In fact, a document reconstructed from a used carbon ribbon was the key to solving a crime in an episode of Columbo.

Electronic typewriter - the final stage in typewriter development. A 1989 Canon Typestar 110

A variation known as "Correcting Selectrics" introduced a correction feature, where a sticky tape in front of the print ribbon could remove the black-powdered image of a typed character, eliminating the need for white dab-on paint or hard erasers that could tear the paper. is a Japanese Multinational corporation that specializes in imaging and optical products including Cameras photocopiers and Computer printers These machines also introduced selectable "pitch" so that the typewriter could be switched between pica (10 characters per inch) and elite (12 per inch), even within one document. Even so, all Selectrics were monospaced—each character and letterspace was allotted the same width on the page, from a capital "W" to a period. In Typography, a typeface is a set of one or more Fonts designed with stylistic unity each comprising a coordinated set of Glyphs A typeface usually comprises Although IBM had produced a successful typebar-based machine with three levels of proportional spacing, called the IBM Executive, no proportionally spaced Selectric office typewriter was ever introduced. The IBM Electric typewriters were a series of electric Typewriters that IBM manufactured starting in the late 1940s There were, however, two other machines with fully proportional spacing: the expensive Selectric Composer, which was capable of right-margin justification and was considered a typesetting machine rather than a typewriter; and the more reasonably priced IBM Electronic Typewriter 50, which was capable of proportional spacing but not right-justifying. Typesetting involves the presentation of textual material in graphic form on Paper or some other medium. By 1970, as offset printing began to replace letterpress printing, the Composer would be adapted as the output unit for a typesetting system. Offset printing is a commonly used Printing technique where the Inked image is transferred (or "offset" from a plate to a rubber blanket then to the Letterpress printing is a term for Printing text with Movable type, in which the raised surface of the type is Inked and then pressed against a smooth The system included a computer-driven input station to capture the key strokes on magnetic tape and insert the operator's format commands, and a Composer unit to read the tape and produce the formatted text for photo reproduction.

The final major development of the typewriter was the "electronic" typewriter. Most of these replaced the typeball with a daisy wheel mechanism (a disk with the letters molded on the outside edge of the "petals"). A daisy wheel printer is a printing technology which produces high-quality output comparable to that produced by high-end typewriters such as the IBM Selectric. A plastic daisy-wheel was much simpler and cheaper than the typeball but also wore out more easily. Some electronic typewriters were in essence dedicated word processors with internal memory and cartridge or diskette external memory-storage devices. Unlike the Selectrics and earlier models, these really were "electronic" and relied on integrated circuits and multiple electromechanical components.

Computer/typewriter hybrids

Towards the end of the commercial popularity of typewriters in the 1980s, a number of hybrid designs combining features of computer printers and typewriters were introduced.

These typically incorporated keyboards from existing models of typewriters and the printing mechanism of dot-matrix printers. A dot matrix printer or impact matrix printer refers to a type of Computer printer with a print head that runs back and forth on the page and prints by impact striking The generation of teletypes with impact pin-based printing engines was not adequate for the demanding quality required for typed output. A teleprinter ( Newly developed, thermal transfer technologies used in thermal label printers had become technically feasible for typewriters. In regards to printing a thermal transfer printer has a print-head containing many small resistive heating pins that on contact depending on the type of thermal transfer printer melt A label printer is a Computer peripheral that prints on self-adhesive Label material and sometimes card-stock (also called tags

IBM produced a series of typewriters called Thermotronic with letter-quality output and correcting tape along with printers tagged Quietwriter. International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology Brother extended the life of their typewriter product line with similar products. ( is a diversified Japanese company that produces a wide variety of products including Sewing machines large Machine tools Label printers and Typewriters DEC meanwhile had the DECwriter. Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the Computer industry

The development of these proprietary printing engines provided the vendors with exclusive markets in consumable ribbons and the possibility to use standardised printing engines with varying degrees of electronic and software sophistication to develop product lines.

The increasing dominance of personal computers, the introduction of low-cost, truly high-quality, laser and inkjet printer technologies, and the pervasive use of web publishing, email and other electronic communication techniques have largely replaced typewriters. A personal computer ( PC) is any Computer whose original sales price size and capabilities make it useful for individuals and which is intended to be operated A laser printer is a common type of Computer printer that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics on plain paper Inkjet printers operate by propelling variably-sized droplets of liquid or molten material ( Ink) onto almost any sized page A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages Electronic mail, often abbreviated to e-mail, email, or originally eMail, is a Store-and-forward method of writing sending receiving

Legacy

Keyboard layouts: "QWERTY" and others

The "QWERTY" layout of typewriter keys became a de facto standard and continues to be used long after the reasons for its adoption (including reduction of key/lever entanglements) have ceased to apply. QWERTY (ˈkwɜː(rti is the most common modern-day Keyboard layout on English-language computer and Typewriter keyboards It takes its

The 1874 Sholes & Glidden typewriters established the "QWERTY" layout for the letter keys. QWERTY (ˈkwɜː(rti is the most common modern-day Keyboard layout on English-language computer and Typewriter keyboards It takes its During the period in which Sholes and his colleagues were experimenting with this invention, other keyboard arrangements were apparently tried, but these are poorly documented. The near-alphabetical sequence on the "home row" of the QWERTY layout (a-s-d-f-g-h-j-k-l) demonstrates that a straightforward alphabetical arrangement was the original starting point. ^[10] The QWERTY layout of keys has become the de facto standard for English-language typewriter and computer keyboards. Other languages written in the Latin alphabet sometimes use variants of the QWERTY layouts, such as the French AZERTY, the Italian QZERTY, and the German QWERTZ layouts. The AZERTY layout is a Keyboard layout used in several (at least partially French-speaking countries including France and Belgium. The QWERTZ or QWERTZU keyboard is a widely used Computer and Typewriter keyboard layout that is mostly used in German -speaking regions

The QWERTY layout is not the most efficient layout possible, since it requires a touch-typist to move his or her fingers between rows to type the most common letters. A popular story suggests that it was designed and used for early typewriters exactly because it was so inefficient; it slowed a typist down so as to reduce the frequency of the typewriter's typebars wedging together and jamming the machine. Another story is that the QWERTY layout allowed early typewriter salesmen to impress their customers by being able to easily type out the example word "typewriter" without having learnt the full keyboard layout, because "typewriter" can be spelled purely on the top row of the keyboard. The most likely explanation is that the QWERTY arrangement was designed to reduce the likelihood of internal clashing by placing commonly used combinations of letters farther from each other inside the machine. ^[11] This allowed the user to type faster without jamming. Unfortunately, no definitive explanation for the QWERTY keyboard has been found, and typewriter aficionados continue to debate the issue.

A number of radically different layouts such as Dvorak have been proposed to reduce the perceived inefficiencies of QWERTY, but none have been able to displace the QWERTY layout; their proponents claim considerable advantages, but so far none has been widely used. The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (ˈdvɔræk or) is a Keyboard layout patented in 1936 by Dr The Blickensderfer typewriter with its DHIATENSOR layout may have possibly been the first attempt at optimizing the keyboard layout for efficiency advantages. Blickensderfer Typewriter was designed by George C Blickensderfer (1850-1917 in 1893

Many old typewriters do not contain a separate key for the numeral 1 or the exclamation point, and some even older ones also lack the numeral zero. Typists who learned on these machines learned the habit of using the lowercase letter l for the digit 1, and the uppercase O for the zero. The exclamation point was a three-stroke combination of an apostrophe, a backspace, and a period. These characters were omitted to simplify design and reduce manufacturing and maintenance costs; they were chosen specifically because they were "redundant" and could be recreated using other keys. On modern keyboards, the exclamation point is the shifted character on the 1 key, a direct result of the heritage that these were the last characters to become "standard" on keyboards.

Many non-Latin alphabets have keyboard layouts that have nothing to do with QWERTY. The Russian layout, for instance, puts the common trigrams ыва, про, and ить on adjacent keys so that they can be typed by rolling the fingers. The Greek layout, on the other hand, is a variant of QWERTY.

Computer jargon

Several words of the 'typewriter age' have survived into the personal computer era. Examples include:

• carbon copy – now in its abbreviated form "CC" designating copies of email messages (with no carbon paper involved, at least not until potential printouts);
• cursor – a marker used to indicate where the next character will be printed
• carriage return (CR) – indicating an end of line and return to the first column of text (and on some computer platforms, advancing to the next line)
• line feed (LF), aka 'newline' – standing for moving the cursor to the next on-screen line of text in a word processor document (and on the eventual printout(s) of the document). Carbon copying, often abbreviated to cc, is the technique of using Carbon paper to produce one or more copies simultaneously during the creation of paper documents Electronic mail, often abbreviated to e-mail, email, or originally eMail, is a Store-and-forward method of writing sending receiving Carbon paper (originally carbonic paper) is Paper coated on one side with a layer of a loosely bound dry Ink or pigmented coating usually bound with On a Typewriter, the cursor is a vertical line indicating the position at which the next character will be printed Originally carriage return was the term for the control character in Baudot code on a teletypewriter for end of line Return to beginning of line and In Computing, a newline (also known as a line break or end-of-line / EOL character is a special character or sequence of characters
• backspace – a keystroke that moved the cursor backwards one position (on a physical platen, this is the exact opposite of the space key), for the purpose of overtyping a character. Backspace is the keyboard key that originally pushed the Typewriter carriage one position backwards and in modern computer displays moves the cursor one position backwards This could be for combining characters (e. g. an apostrophe, backspace, and period make an exclamation point), or for correction such as with the correcting tape that developed later.
• cut and paste – taking text, a table, or an image and pasting it into a document; originally used when such compound documents were created using manual paste up techniques. For a pejorative meaning see Cut and paste job In Human-computer interaction, cut and paste and copy and paste offer Paste up refers to a method of creating or laying out publication pages that predates the use of the now-standard computerized page design Desktop publishing programs
• tty, short for teletypewriter, is used in Unix-like operating systems to designate a given "terminal". tty is a Unix command that prints to standard output the name of the file connected to standard input A teleprinter (
• Shift – Today being a simple function key to make uppercase letters, different symbols, and whatnot, but in the age of typewriters it meant literally shifting the print carriage to allow a different stamp (such as a D instead of a d) to press into the ribbon and print on a page.

Effect on culture

"Get out! Can't you see I'm busy. " Early 20th century humorous postcard; boss man puts his arm around female typist

When Remington first started marketing typewriters, the company assumed the machine would not be used for composing but for transcribing dictation, and that the person typing would be a woman. Flowers were printed on the casing of early models to make the machine seem more comfortable for women to use. In the United States, women often started in the professional workforce as typists; in fact, according to the 1910 U. S. census, 81 percent of typists were female. With more women brought out of the home and into offices, there was some concern about the effects this would have on the morals of society. The "typewriter girl" became part of the iconography of early-twentieth-century typography. The "Tijuana bibles" — dirty comic books produced in Mexico for the American market, starting in the 1930s — often featured women typists. Tijuana bibles (also known as eight-pagers or dirty little eight-pagers) were pornographic Comic books produced in the United States In one panel, a businessman in a three-piece suit, ogling his secretary’s thigh, says, "Miss Higby, are you ready for—ahem!—er—dictation?"^[1]

The famous quote by Marcus Glenn, "Live by the typewriter, die by the typewriter!" also dates from this period.

Correction methods

According to the standards taught in secretarial schools in the mid-1900s, a business letter was supposed to have no mistakes and no visible corrections. A business letter is a letter written in formal language usually used when writing from one business organization to another or for correspondence between such organizations Accuracy was prized as much as speed. Indeed, typing speeds, as scored in proficiency tests and typewriting speed competitions, included a deduction of ten words for every mistake. Corrections were, of course, necessary, and several methods were used.

The traditional method involved the use of a special typewriter eraser made of hard rubber that contained an abrasive material. It was in the shape of a thin, flat, disk, approximately 2 in (50 mm) in diameter by 1/8 in (3 mm) thick, allowing for erasure of individual typed letters. Business letters were typed on heavyweight, high-rag-content bond paper, not merely to provide a luxurious appearance, but also to stand up to erasure. Typewriter erasers were often equipped with a brush for clearing eraser crumbs and paper dust, and using the brush properly was an important element of typewriting skill (if erasure detritus fell into the typewriter, a small buildup could cause the typebars to jam in their narrow supporting grooves).

Erasing a set of carbon copies was particularly difficult, and called for the use of a device called an eraser shield to prevent the pressure of erasure on the upper copies from producing carbon smudges on the lower copies.

Paper companies produced a special form of typewriter paper called erasable bond (for example, Eaton's Corrasable Bond). Eaton's Corrasable Bond is a Trademarked name for a brand of erasable typing Paper. This incorporated a thin layer of material that prevented ink from penetrating and was relatively soft and easy to remove from the page. An ordinary soft pencil eraser could quickly produce perfect erasures on this kind of paper. However, the same characteristics that made the paper erasable made the characters subject to smudging due to ordinary friction and deliberate alteration after the fact, making it unacceptable for business correspondence, contracts, or any archival use.

In the 1950s and 1960s, correction fluid made its appearance, under brand names such as Liquid Paper, Wite-Out and Tipp-Ex. A correction fluid is an opaque white fluid applied to paper to mask errors in text Liquid Paper, a Brand name of opaque Correction fluid, is used to cover up mistakes on paper without retyping the entire sheet Also see Whiteout, and 1951 invention Liquid Paper. Wite-Out is a Trademark for a line of Correction fluid Tipp-Ex is a Brand of Correction fluid and other related products that is popular throughout Europe. This was a kind of opaque, white, fast-drying paint that produced a fresh white surface onto which a correction could be retyped. However, when held to the light, the covered-up characters were visible, as was the patch of dry correction fluid (which was never perfectly flat, and never a perfect match for the color, texture, and luster of the surrounding paper). The standard trick for solving this problem was photocopying the corrected page, but this was possible only with high quality photocopiers. A photocopier (or copier is a machine that makes Paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply

Dry correction products (such as correction paper) under brand names such as "Ko-Rec-Type" were introduced in the 1970s and functioned like white carbon paper. Correction paper, or correction film, its plastic based equivalent is a tab of Plastic with one side coated with white correction material A strip of the product was placed over the letters needing correction, and the incorrect letters were retyped, causing the black character to be overstruck with a white overcoat. Similar material was soon incorporated in carbon-film electric typewriter ribbons; like the traditional two-color black-and-red inked ribbon common on manual typewriters, a black/white correcting ribbon became commonplace on electric typewriters.

The pinnacle of this kind of technology was the IBM Electronic Typewriter series. International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology These machines, and similar products from other manufacturers, used a separate correction ribbon and a character memory. With a single keystroke, the typewriter was capable of automatically reversing and overstriking the previous characters with minimal marring of the paper. White cover-up or plastic lift-off correction ribbons are used with fabric ink or carbon film typing ribbons, respectively.

Typing speed records and speed contests

During the 1920s through 1940s, typing speed was an important secretarial qualification and typing contests were popular and often publicized by typewriter companies as promotional tools.

As of 2005, Barbara Blackburn was the fastest English language typist in the world, according to The Guinness Book of World Records. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Guinness World Records, known until 2000 as The Guinness Book of Records (and in previous U Using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, she has maintained 150 words per minute (wpm) for 50 minutes, and 170 wpm for shorter periods. The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (ˈdvɔræk or) is a Keyboard layout patented in 1936 by Dr She has been clocked at a peak speed of 212 wpm. Blackburn, who failed her typing class in high school, first encountered the Dvorak keyboard in 1938, quickly learned to achieve very high speeds, and occasionally toured giving speed-typing demonstrations during her secretarial career. She appeared on The David Letterman Show and was deeply offended by Letterman's comedic treatment of her skill. The David Letterman Show was a live morning NBC Talk show hosted by David Letterman every weekday from David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American late-night Talk show host and Comedian and the host since 1993 ^[12] Blackburn died in April 2008. ^[12]

Authors and writers who had unusual relationships with typewriters

William Faulkner's Underwood Universal Portable sits in his office at Rowan Oak, which is now maintained by the University of Mississippi in Oxford as a museum. William Faulkner (born William Cuthbert Falkner) ( September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American Author The Underwood Typewriter Company was a manufacturer of typewriters headquartered in New York City, New York. Rowan Oak, also known as William Faulkner House, is William Faulkner 's former home in Oxford Mississippi. The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational Research University located in Oxford Oxford is a city and the County seat of Lafayette County, Mississippi, United States.

Early adopters

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used a typewriter in an attempt to stem his migraine headaches and his incipient blindness. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15 1844 August 25 1900 ( was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist Mark Twain was the first important writer to present a publisher with a typewritten manuscript (for Life on the Mississippi). Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30 1835 – April 21 1910 better known by the Pen name Mark Twain, was an American Humorist, satirist Henry James dictated to a typist. Henry James, OM ( –) son of theologian Henry James Sr, brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James ^[1]

Others

E.E. Cummings may have been the first poet to deliberately create poetic high jinks with a typewriter. Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14 1894 &ndash September 3 1962 popularly known as E His grasshopper poem is perhaps the most famous example.

William S. Burroughs wrote in some of his novels — and possibly believed — that "a machine he called the 'Soft Typewriter' was writing our lives, and our books, into existence," according to a book review in The New Yorker. William Seward Burroughs II ( – ˈbʌroʊz was an American Novelist, Essayist, Social critic, painter and Spoken word And, in the film adaptation of his novel, "Naked Lunch," his typewriter is a living, insect-like entity (voiced by Burroughs himself) and actually dictates the book to him.

Ernest Hemingway used to write his books standing up in front of a Royal typewriter suitably placed on a tall bookshelf. Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21 1899 — July 2 1961 was an American novelist short-story writer, and Journalist. This typewriter, still on its bookshelf, is kept in Finca Vigia, Hemingway's Havana house (now a museum) where he lived until 1960--the year before his death. Finca Vigía ( Spanish for "Lookout Farm" was the home of Ernest Hemingway in San Francisco de Paula, Cuba, and now houses a Museum Havana ( IPA: aˈβana officially Ciudad de La Habana, is the Capital city, major port and leading

Jack Kerouac, a fast typist at 100 words per minute, typed On the Road on a roll of paper so he wouldn't be interrupted by having to change the paper, pushing him back into the world’s inauthenticity. Jack Kerouac ( March 12 1922 &ndash October 21 1969) was an American Novelist, Writer, Poet, and On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951 and published by Viking Press in 1957. Within two weeks of starting to write On the Road, Kerouac had a single, single-spaced paragraph, 120 feet long. Some scholars say the scroll was shelf paper; others contend it was a Thermo-fax roll; another theory is that the roll consisted of sheets of architect’s paper taped together. ^[1] Another fast typist of the Beat period was Richard Brautigan, who said that he thought out the plots of his books in detail beforehand, then typed them out at speeds approaching 90 to 100 words a minute. Richard Gary Brautigan ( January 30, 1935 – ca ^[13]

Tom Robbins waxes philosophical about the Remington SL3, a typewriter that he bought to write Still Life with Woodpecker, and eventually does away with it because it is too complicated and inhuman of a machine for the writing of poetry. Thomas Eugene Robbins (born July 22, 1936 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina) is an American Author. Still Life With Woodpecker (1980 is the third novel by Tom Robbins, concerning the love affair between an Environmentalist Princess and

After completing the novel Beautiful Losers, Leonard Cohen is said to have flung his typewriter into the Aegean Sea. Beautiful Losers is a Novel by Leonard Cohen. Published in 1966 by McClelland and Stewart, it was the Canadian novelist- Leonard Norman Cohen CC GOQ (born September 21, 1934 in Westmount, Quebec) is a Canadian Singer-songwriter Etymology In ancient times there were various explanations for the name Aegean.

Late users

Andy Rooney and William F. Buckley Jr. were among many writers who were very reluctant to switch from typewriters to computers. Andrew Aitken "Andy" Rooney (born January 14, 1919) is an American Radio and Television writer William Frank Buckley Jr ( November 24 1925  – February 27 2008) was an American Author and conservative David Sedaris used a typewriter to write his essay collections through Me Talk Pretty One Day at least. David Sedaris (born December 26, 1956) is a Grammy Award -nominated American Humorist, Writer, Comedian, bestselling Me Talk Pretty One Day published in 2000, is a bestselling collection of Essays by American humorist David Sedaris.

Typewriters in popular culture

In music

• The composer Leroy Anderson wrote a short piece of music for orchestra and typewriter, which has since been used as the theme for numerous radio programs. Leroy Anderson ( June 29 1908 – May 18 1975) was an American Composer of short light concert pieces many of which were

• The Pulitzer Prize–winning musical comedy How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying (music and lyrics by Frank Loesser) is a satire set in the world of big business and features typewriter sound effects in the song "A Secretary Is Not A Toy. The Pulitzer Prize, ˈpʊlɨtsɚ PULL-it-sər is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in Newspaper journalism, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows, Jack Frank Henry Loesser ( June 29, 1910, New York City – July 26, 1969, New York City) was an American "

• The Winnipeg band Poor Tree incorporates typewriters into its music. Two to three members would type a poem while reading them at the same time, interlocking the lines, words and sounds.

• The Dolly Parton song "9 to 5" features typewriter noises as percussion. Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American Country music Singer / Songwriter, Author, actress " 9 to 5 " is the title of a Grammy -winning number-one song written and performed by Dolly Parton for the 1980 film comedy Nine

• The Tom Tom Club used the clacking keys of a typewriter to open its 1981 single Wordy Rappinghood. Tom Tom Club is an American new-wave band founded in 1980 by spouses and Talking Heads alumni Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz Tom Tom Club was Tom Tom Club 's 1981 first album and contained the UK hit singles "Wordy Rappinghood" which reached No

• On the album "Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy," Brian Eno takes a typewriter solo in the song "China My China. Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (born 15 May 1948 commonly known as Brian Eno (ˈiːnoʊ is an English Musician, producer "

• Multi-instrumentalist and composer Yann Tiersen has used the typewriter as a percussion instrument in a number of his compositions, notably "Pas si simple" on his 1996 album Rue des Cascades. Guillaume Yann Tiersen (born 23 June 1970) is a French musician and composer known internationally for composing the score to the Jean-Pierre Rue des cascades ( Waterfall Street) is the second album by the musician and composer Yann Tiersen.

In film

• Typewriters in songs and ambient typewriter sounds are present throughout the 1985 movie Brazil. Events 3 December - Roger Moore steps down from the role of James Bond after twelve years and seven films Brazil is a 1985 Dystopian Black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam.

• Typewriters are foundational in the soundtrack for the 2007 film Atonement. 2007 saw major releases such as The Simpsons Movie, National Treasure Book of Secrets, Atonement is a 2007 film adaptation of Ian McEwan 's critically acclaimed novel of the same name, directed by Joe Wright, and based

• In the 1982 movie Tron, when the Master Control Program's defenses are destroyed, he reverts to his core form of an old man. Events June 10 = Steven Spielberg 's Science fiction PG-rating film E Tron is a 1982 Disney Science fiction film starring Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn (and his counterpart inside the electronic world The sound of typewriters is heard, associating him with obsolete technology.

Forensic identification

Because of the tolerances of the mechanical parts, slight variation in the alignment of the letters and their uneven wear, each typewriter has its individual "signature" or "fingerprint," allowing a typewritten document to be tracked back to the typewriter it was produced on. Forensic Identification is the application of forensic science and technology to identify specific objects from the Trace evidence they leave often at a Crime In the Eastern Bloc, typewriters (together with printing presses, copy machines, and later computer printers) were a controlled technology, with secret police in charge of maintaining files of the typewriters and their owners. During the Cold War, the term Communist Bloc (or Soviet Bloc) was used to refer to the Soviet Union and countries it either controlled or that were A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth thereby transferring an image A photocopier (or copier is a machine that makes Paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply Secret police (sometimes political police) are a Police agency which operates in Secrecy to maintain National security against internal (In the Soviet Union, the organization in charge of typewriters was the First Department of the KGB. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 The First Department (Первый отдел Pervyj Otdel was in charge of secrecy and political security of the workplace of every enterprise or institution of the Soviet KGB ( Transliteration of "КГБ" is the Russian abbreviation of Committee for State Security ( Komityet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosty ) This posed a significant risk for dissidents and samizdat authors. A dissident, broadly defined is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine policy or institution Samizdat (самиздат was the clandestine copying and distribution of government-suppressed literature or other media in Soviet-bloc This method of identification was also used in the trial of Alger Hiss. Alger Hiss (November 11 1904 – November 15 1996 was a US State Department official involved in the establishment of the United Nations. This was also a significant plot point in the Academy Award winning film The Lives of Others. "The Oscar" redirects here for the film see The Oscar (film. The Lives of Others (original German: Das Leben der Anderen) is a German Drama film, marking the feature film debut of

Leopold and Loeb were firmly identified with kidnapping after a typewriter they used to type up a ransom note was traced back to a typewriter they owned. Nathan Freudenthal Leopold Jr ( November 19 1904 – August 29 1971) and Richard A Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner to extort money or property to secure their release or it can refer to the sum of money involved

Black/white computer printers have their "fingerprints" as well, but to a lesser degree. Modern color printers and photocopiers typically add printer identification encoding—a steganographic pattern of minuscule yellow dots, encoding the printer's serial number—to the printout. Printer steganography is a type of Steganography produced by Color printers including HP and Xerox brand color Laser printers, where Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one apart from the sender and intended recipient even realizes there is a hidden message A serial number is a unique Number assigned for Identification which varies from its Successor or Predecessor by a fixed discrete Integer

Other forensic identification method can involve analysis of the ribbon ink.

Gallery

Types in a 1920s typewriter

Fr. Azevedo's typewriter

The Hansen Writing Ball, invented in 1865. This model is from 1870

1868 patent drawing for the Sholes, Glidden, and Soule typewriter.

See also

References

Patents

• US79265  -- Type Writer Machine

External links

• Early Typewriter Collectors' Association
• Robert, Paul (2001). The Virtual Typewriter Museum. Many photos and closeups of machines, histories of early machines, historical photos of typewriters being used.
• Antique Typewriter Collecting, History & Resources for the Collector
• Martin Howard's Antique Typewriters