Early typewriters
Oct. 21st, 2006 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinThe Virtual Typewriter Museum. As with most technologies, there was an astonishing variety of designs in the early years. I recently joked about using a spherical keyboard but had no idea that one was produced in 1870, and was arguably the first production typewriter.
Many of these 19th- and early 20th-century machines are gorgeous and some are amazingly small. Many seem not obviously less advanced than the Remington-Rand my mom was using well into the 1980s, and I was surprised to learn that such things as interchangeable typewheels go back to the 19th century. Here's an electric typewriter from 1902.
At the other extreme, there was also a whole category of cheap "index typewriters" that worked on the principle of the Dymo labelmaker. In between, there was a bizarre typewriter with a keyboard consisting of a sort of massive D-pad.
Many of these 19th- and early 20th-century machines are gorgeous and some are amazingly small. Many seem not obviously less advanced than the Remington-Rand my mom was using well into the 1980s, and I was surprised to learn that such things as interchangeable typewheels go back to the 19th century. Here's an electric typewriter from 1902.
At the other extreme, there was also a whole category of cheap "index typewriters" that worked on the principle of the Dymo labelmaker. In between, there was a bizarre typewriter with a keyboard consisting of a sort of massive D-pad.
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Date: 2006-10-22 02:12 am (UTC)