Typewriter. Who invented the typewriter? The first typewriter in the world

In their more than 100-year history, typewriters have "seen" many talented works, they have been direct participants in the creation of thousands of masterpieces and bestsellers around the world. For many decades, the typewriter was considered the main working tool of writers, philosophers and journalists.

And the history of the creation of a typewriter began in 1714, when a patent was issued for a certain typewriter. It was invented by plumber Henry Mill (Henry Mill) from England, but, unfortunately, there is no exact data on the mechanism and photos of the unit itself.

It took almost a century to create the first, and most importantly, working typewriter in 1808. The creator and developer was Pellegrino Turi, who invented it for the familiar Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzono. Carolina was blind, and with the help of such an apparatus she could correspond with her relatives. The letters of Carolina Fantoni da Fivisono have survived to this day, but the typewriter has not. It is known that paper stained with soot was used for printing (it looks like carbon paper). By the way, the idea of ​​"copying" several documents was not developed by Turi. In 1806, the Englishman Ralph Wedgwood patented "charcoal paper". For another two centuries, it was actively used in office work to quickly obtain copies.

But back to printing presses.

The next attempt to create a unit suitable for "quick printing" was in Russia, when M.I. Alisov developed a typesetting machine. Mikhail Ivanovich wanted to simplify and facilitate the procedure for copying manuscripts and originals, and he succeeded. The machine performed great. True, the high cost of the product put a fat cross on the history of the development of this product.

September 1867 was a milestone date for all writing machines in the world.

They say that a talented person is talented in everything. Christopher Latham Scholes was a writer, journalist and, of course, an inventor. In 1867, he applied for a patent for the production of his "brainchild" - a printing apparatus. The "bureaucratic machine" took months to make a decision, but nevertheless, in 1868, Christopher received the coveted confirmation. Glidden and Soule were listed as co-authors of the development.

Six years later, the first batch of writing units under the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer brand entered the American market. It should be noted that the appearance was very different from what we are used to seeing: the keyboard consisted of two rows of letters arranged according to the alphabetical hierarchy. By the way, there were no numbers 1 and 0, their role was played by "I" and "O". The downsides of the first unit were plenty. This is an inconvenient arrangement of letters, and the inability to work quickly, because the hammers on which the stamps with the letters are fixed did not have time to take their original position and got confused with each other.

By the way, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain, which was published in 1876, was printed on just such a typewriter with "tangled hammers". You can envy the patience of the author.

There were several ways to solve the problem of hammer entanglement: work more slowly (this did not suit the writers) or change the design of the typewriter. But Christopher Sholes used a third method: he changed the order of the letters. The fact is that the hammers were installed on an arc, and most often the letters placed in the “neighborhood” jammed. And then, the developer decided to fix them so that the letters that are involved in the formation of stable combinations are farther from each other. By placing letters in right order, the updated keyboard started with letters Q,W, E, R, T, Y.

QWERTY layout or universal keyboard has become popular all over the world.

Did you know that Leo Tolstoy's favorite writing assistant, without whom it was impossible to imagine the interior of his study, was the reliable Remington, and his colleague in the writing workshop V.V. Mayakovsky was a bright admirer of Underwood.

In 1877, Scholes sold the rights to make a typewriter to the Remington arms manufacturer. And that was the start new chapter in the history of the typewriter. Remington engineers supplemented the "source" with the ability to print capital and lower case(in the original version, only capital letters were written). To do this, added the key "shift" (Shift).

Scholes' success inspired other inventors as well. In 1895, Franz Wagner took out a patent for a typewriter with horizontal arms that strike the paper roller from the front. The main difference, and at the same time advantage, from the invention of 1867 was that the printed text was visible in the process of work. Wagner then sold the manufacturing rights to his typewriter to John Underwood. The design was very easy to use, and very soon the new owner made a fortune on it.

In addition to Remingtons and Underwoods, dozens of other companies produced their own versions of other typewriters. From 1890-1920, these devices were constantly modernized and improved. Among the machines of this period, two main types can be distinguished: with a single letter carrier and with a lever device. The convenience of the former was that the printed text could be seen immediately, but at the same time they were very slow in operation and had poor penetrating power. The advantage of the second was speed.

The last manufacturing plant typewriters, which was located in India, was closed in April 2011. This means that the era of this writing tool is officially over.

About a year ago - in April 2011 - there was a big hype associated with the cessation of the production of typewriters at the factories of the Indian holding Godrej and Boyce. Whether due to journalistic sloppiness, or because the press release announcing this was slurred, the news headlined "The End of the Typewriter Era", telling that Godrej and Boyce were the world's last typewriter manufacturer, sold huge circulations. The funeral died down, hundreds of people bought vintage Remingtons and IBM Electricks, and a couple of months later it turned out that in reality typewriters were still being produced. For example, the American company Swintec continues to manufacture and supply them, not only to third world countries where there is a shortage of computers, but also to US prisons in 43 states.

The story is not over, but why not look back and see how, for almost a century and a half, typewriters have faithfully served thousands of journalists, secretaries, copywriters and, of course, writers. Contributor of the St. Petersburg men's blog Interes, and now the author of FURFUR Oleg Uppit recalls the favorite typewriters of great writers.

For your information

The history of the modern typewriter began on June 23, 1868, when the American inventor Christopher Latham Scholes received a patent for the Type-Writer device he developed. After five years, dozens of improvements, several unsuccessful presentations to potential investors and attempts to expand their own production, Scholes and Samuel Soule, Carlos Glidden and James Densmore, who helped him in the development, were able to sign a contract for the production of 10,000 typewriters with Remington and Sons. . Production began in September 1873, and on July 1, 1874, the machine, called the Remington No. 1, went on the market.

Mark Twain and "Remington No. 1" - the first typewriter, released in large numbers

According to the writer, "Tom Sawyer" was printed on "Remington No. 1" in 1874, but the publishers recalled that, in fact, the first printed text received from Twain was "Life on the Mississippi", written in 1883. However, this contradiction is in no way did not stop Remington from using excerpts from the "Biography" in their advertisements.

Nietzsche's impetus for purchasing a typewriter is his failing eyesight. On the right - a "writing ball" designed specifically for the blind, one of which was used by Nietzsche

Around the same time, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche began to use the typewriter. However, if Mark Twain is driven primarily by curiosity and a craving for technical innovations, then for Nietzsche, his increasingly deteriorating eyesight becomes the motive for acquiring a typewriter. In the second half of the seventies of the XIX century, Nietzsche already sees very badly, reading, and even more so writing, causes him fatigue and headache. Under the influence of illnesses, the philosopher's handwriting becomes more and more illegible. In 1879, he entered into a correspondence with the Dane Rasmus Halling Hansen, who developed a typewriter for the visually impaired and the blind. In 1881, Nietzsche decided to buy it. He would later remark in one of the letters, "For 375 Reichsmarks (shipping not included), even a half-blind writer can now present to the publisher beautifully designed documents standardized as print."

The Hansen typewriter used by Nietzsche differed significantly from American designs - fifty-four rods, on which letters, numbers and symbols were printed, were arranged concentrically for the convenience of visually impaired users. Hansen wrote: "The blind, for whom this 'writing ball' was primarily designed, can learn to write on it in a remarkably short time. On the surface of the sphere, each position is fully identified with respect to the others. Therefore, you can rely solely on your sense of touch, which would be much more difficult in the case of a flat keyboard.”

Contrary to Hansen's statement, touch typing soon took root on the flat keyboards of ordinary typewriters - already in 1888 the first typing speed competition was held, the winner of which was the developer of the "blind method" Edgar McGurrin. McGurrin wins $500 (nearly 12,000 greenbacks today) and his method becomes very popular.

The heroes of Arthur Conan Doyle's novels often use typewriters, although the author never specified specific models. Right: "Corona 3", printed by Edward Malone - the hero of the novel "The Lost World" - in the film adaptation of 1925.

The whole plot of this story revolves around correspondence on a typewriter. Among other things, Holmes states: "I am going to write a short work on the subject of Typewriters and Crime in the near future."

At the same time, specific models of typewriters are not indicated in the text. Later, Doyle did not specify the model of the typewriter used by the protagonist of the novel The Lost World, reporter Edward Malone. However, this omission was corrected in the film adaptation of the novel in 1925. In the film, Malone is typing on "Corona 3" under a contract signed by the film's producers with the Corona Typewriter Company.

Hofard Lovecraft highly valued both Remington guns and typewriters of the same brand.

The author of The Call of Cthulhu, Shadows over Innsmouth and The Sleepwalking Search for the Unknown Kadat, author and connoisseur of Rhode Island history, Gofard Phillips Lovecraft used a 1906 Remington typewriter throughout his life. Lovecraft's biographer Sprague de Camp writes: "When it wore out, he gave it to be repaired. But this happened at long intervals, because, constrained by funds, he could only occasionally afford expensive repairs.

Apparently, Lovecraft purchased a used typewriter when he returned to writing prose in 1919-1920. The modern marketer would be flattered to suggest that Remington was chosen because of "brand loyalty" - Lovecraft previously owned a gun of this brand, which the writer highly appreciated.

The author of the Jeeves and Wooster series preferred the Royal Desktop typewriter.

The author, known to us primarily from the series of stories about Jeeves and Wooster, has been using the Royal Desktop typewriter since the forties. In opening remarks to one of the works of the Jeeves and Worcester cycle, Wodehouse tells how once he took up the phonograph, but after reading a few pages, listened to his voice in the recording, found it very unpleasant and confidently returned to the typewriter.

William Faulkner was not attached to certain typewriters and often changed them.
Olympia SM-1
Remington Model 12

Faulkner viewed typewriters as consumables, preferring portable ones that he could carry and transport from place to place, wearing them out mercilessly. In choosing models, the writer was also not particularly scrupulous - he managed to use the Underwood Standard Portable, Remington Model 12 and Olympia SM-1.

Right: Swedish "Halda Portable" equipped with a carrying case

What came first - the typewriter "Remington Rand" or the pseudonym Ayn Rand has long been the subject of controversy

For a long time there was an opinion that Alice Rosenbaum took the brand of her typewriter as a pseudonym. But her biographers Gotthelf and Berliner established that the writer began to sign Ayn Rand even before the Remington Typewriter Company, Rand Kardex Company, and Powers Accounting Machine Company, united into one company, began to produce typewriters under the Rand brand.

In Cronenberg's film Naked Lunch, based on Burroughs' novel of the same name, protagonist Bill Lee often turns to his typewriter for advice.

Right: IBM Selectric typewriter. Such Thompson used almost all his life, his “last word” was also printed on the same

A police report from the scene of Hunter Stockton Thompson's suicide states that the typewriter in front of the writer's corpse contained a piece of paper dated Feb 22"05 with the single word "Counselor".

Thompson began using typewriters while working as a journalist. To some extent, he was inspired by the example of Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald, to some extent he simply used the most convenient tool, in his opinion, for work.

Here is a fragment of an interview given by Thompson to The Paris Review, in which the creator of gonzo journalism explains why he still uses a typewriter:

The Paris Review:What role does the writing tool play for you? You are known as one of the few writers still using an electric typewriter. What's wrong with a computer?
Hunter S. Thompson: I tried. But the temptation to move on to copying or rewriting what has already been printed is too high. I don't think I could ever stop pressing the keys, rearranging and rewriting the words on the screen. I like to see the finished part of the work when I type on something like this (points to a typewriter). On the typewriter, I never went back two paragraphs to correct something. The text is stored in it as if it were the final version.

The Hermes 2000 on which Neuromancer was written came to Gibson from a journalist relative

An excerpt from an interview given by Gibson to Playboy magazine in 1996:

PLAYBOY:Many people find it ridiculous that you wrote Neuromancer using a typewriter.

Gibson: The typewriter I used then, a Hermes 2000, very similar to the one Hemingway used during the Spanish Civil War, came from my wife's grandfather, who was a journalist. I still have it, but it doesn't work anymore. I tried for a long time to find someone who could fix it, but in the end I gave up on this venture and purchased an Apple II. I remember one guy at the typewriter store said to me, “Well, I can order one for you, they are still being made. It will be exactly the same machine. only with a slightly different mechanism. But it will cost more than a computer.

PLAYBOY:So it wasn't even an electric typewriter?

Gibson:I have never owned an electric typewriter. When I started writing, when I was inventing cyberspace - the pinnacle of writing technology was the IBM Selectric, everyone wanted one. But I could never afford it. And today they fill the landfills. I saw fifty working Selectrics piled up in the back of a university warehouse like dead cockroaches.

McCarthy was an adherent of one typewriter - "Olivetti Lettera 22"

In addition to his commitment to the absence of punctuation marks, the author of "The Road" and "No Country for Old Men" is known for still using a typewriter. "Olivetti Lettera 22", which he has used since 1963 and on which all his works have been written, was sold for in December 2009. In return, McCarthy bought himself a new one.

After reading this headline, many will decide that the era of classic writing devices is long over. Computers, laptops, touchscreen gadgets have supplanted the inventions of the last century. However, the typewriter is still popular among creative people and in some government organizations, especially since the modern electronic goods market offers convenient writing devices. Among the variety of devices, you can find one that will support the very atmosphere of creativity and meet the requirements of progress.

Typewriter device

Technical devices of the XIX-XX centuries are a device equipped with a set of keys, pressing which leads to the appearance of printed characters on the carrier - paper. The history of the creation of a typewriter begins its existence in 1714. In Russia, the first writing device was produced in 1928, it was called "Yanalif". Later, portable devices "Moskva", "Lyubava" and stationery "Yatran", "Ukraine" spread. Of the foreign brands, "Optima", "Erika", "Robotron" were popular. The principle of operation of printing devices is described below.

Mechanical

Letters are applied to paper with the help of special levers, which end with platforms with plastic or metal letters. When the key is pressed, the lever strikes the ink-soaked tape, which leaves a trace of the letter on the paper being fed. Sheet shifting is carried out automatically. The design of the typewriter is of 4 types:

1. With cylinder. The font is placed on an elongated cylinder that moves back and forth to pick up the letter, after which the hammer strikes from the back side, imprinting the character on paper.
2. With levers. The imprint is obtained as a result of hitting the paper with a lever located in the slots of the segment.
3. With a ball. Letters are applied to the writing head, which moves as you type. Such machines print in different fonts.
4. With chamomile. This invention is a specific carrier of matrices from which an imprint is taken. On each petal of a camomile one sign is placed.

Electronic

Modern devices are hybrids of classic printers and computers. An electronic typewriter is equipped with a small E-Ink display that displays text. Electronic ink is used for work, so your eyes will not get tired. The printing device has compact dimensions, a capacious battery that allows it to function autonomously for up to 4 weeks. The typed material is stored in the device's memory and, when connected to a wireless network, is transferred to a virtual storage, from where you can download a file from any gadget.

Buy a typewriter

New devices can be found on sale, but the manufacturer has significantly reduced their release. Appearance modern devices is far from the old models, and does not inspire that atmosphere. If you want to buy a typewriter that has already become a rarity, see private ads, for example, on Avito. Many vintage appliances are still in working condition and can serve not only as a decoration of the collection.

Yatran

This domestic printing mechanism was produced in Kirovograd from 1975 to 1995. There are several modifications of the machine that relate to the length of the carriage (short, medium, long), body material (aluminum, plastic). The manufacturer has created 12 models. Characteristics of the printing machine:

• Title: Yatran.
• Price: used models cost 1000-10000 rubles.
• Works with 7 alphabets, font type "Peak", "Medium". The length of the printed line is 305 and 435 mm. Models have an electromechanical drive unit for printing and carriage return. The number of printing keys is 46, the number of characters is 92. There are 5 line spacings (from 4.25 to 12.75 mm).
• Pros: high quality printing, manual contains a detailed description of how to use the device.
• Cons: heavy, models with plastic levers break quickly.

Underwood

One of the most popular typewriters from the USA. The first two models were produced between 1896 and 1900. Particularly successful was the release of Underwood No. 5: in the early 1920s, more than a million units were sold. Later, machines began to be equipped with mechanisms that perform addition and subtraction operations. Before World War II, the manufacturer created the world's largest typewriter. In 1959, the Olivetti company acquired a controlling stake in Underwood. Device characteristics:

• Title: Underwood.
• Price: you can buy a typewriter for 9000-16000 rubles.
• The machine is compact and stylish, has horizontal letter levers. The keyboard has 42 keys and 90 characters. There are three types of devices with different carriage lengths, two font sizes: standard and large.
• Pros: the device is light, easy to care for, the correct design of the device minimizes typos, even the photo shows an elegant design.
• Cons: high cost, the buyer needs to look for goods from individuals who can put an inappropriate price.

The typewriter is a licensed copy of "Erika" produced by the GDR. It was relatively easy to buy a typewriter in the USSR, since the price of its two models was 180 and 190 rubles (after 1983). Characteristics:

• Title: Love.
• Price: 1000-3500 r.
• The body of the device is plastic, the bottom is black, there is no under the keys. The number of keys is 44, the length of the printed line is 225 and 305 mm, three options for line spacing. The diameter of the scroll shaft is 32.3 mm. Through a carbon paper you can get 3 clear copies.
• Pros: the models are light (5.2 and 5.7 kg), have small dimensions, making it possible to carry the machine to any place.
• Cons: the machine is completely mechanical, so careful maintenance is needed for its normal operation - regular cleaning and lubrication. The plastic case is resistant to damage.

How much does a high quality typewriter and an old year of manufacture cost? Valuation in monetary terms is set by collectors who know what kind of product they are dealing with. However, even the early Olivetti typewriters do not belong to the rare category, so knowledgeable people sell them at a low price. Modern models are also inexpensive. Profitable ads from private traders can be found not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but throughout Russia. Characteristics:

• Title: Olivetti.
• Price: 1200-1500 r.
• The electric typewriter uses the chamomile type of printing. Equipped with a cartridge that needs to be changed or refilled periodically. Line length - 228 mm, 5 options for line spacing, correction of typos.
• Pros: low price, light weight.
• Cons: inconvenience when working with the cartridge.

Optima

Cars made in the GDR were popular in the 50s of the last century. A lot of running models have been released - Elite 2, Elite 3, M12, M14 and others. However, the Optima factory did not exist for long, and soon the Zentronik Robotron enterprise became a monopoly in East Germany. Features of the popular model:

• Name: Optima M12/
• Price: 1500-3000 r.
• The mechanical printing device has a carriage width of 32 cm. There are 5 spacing options, 46 keys and 92 characters.
• Pros: line guides are made of transparent material that does not cover the printed text, there is a key to unravel the letter levers.
• Cons: not found.

Video

It must be admitted that Wedgwood's invention was then actively used in office work for a good two centuries to obtain several copies of one document. Yes, and on dot-matrix printers, carbon paper in the absence of a cartridge helped out a lot.

Let us return, however, to the history of the emergence of typewriters in general and keyboards in particular. So, in September 1867, the poet, journalist and part-time inventor Christopher Latham Sholes from Milwaukee applied for a new invention - a typewriter. After appropriate bureaucratic procedures, which, as usual, dragged on for several months, Sholes received a patent at the beginning of 1868. In addition to Christopher Scholes, co-authors of the invention were Carlos Glidden (Carlos Glidden) and a certain Soule (S. W. Soule), who also worked on the creation of the first typewriter. However, the Americans would not be Americans if they did not try to profit from their offspring.

The production of the first typewriters began at the very end of 1873, and in 1874 they entered the American market under the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer brand.

I must say that the keyboard of the first typewriters was strikingly different from the current one. The keys were placed in two rows, and the letters on them were in alphabetical order.

In addition to this, it was possible to print only in capital letters, and there were no numbers 1 and 0 at all. They were successfully replaced by the letters "I" and "O". The text was printed under the roller and was not visible. To look at the work, it was necessary to raise the carriage, which was hinged for this purpose. In general, like any new invention, the first typewriters had a lot of shortcomings. And among others, as it soon became clear, the bad layout of the keys. The fact is that with an increase in the speed of printing, the hammers of the typewriter with stamps fixed on them, which struck the paper, did not have time to return to their place and clung to each other, threatening to break the printing unit. Obviously, there were two ways to solve the problem - either to somehow artificially slow down the typing speed, or to develop a new typewriter design that would eliminate key jamming.

Christopher Sholes proposed an elegant solution that made it possible to do without changing the mechanics of the rather complex design of the printing unit. It turned out that in order for things to go better, it is enough to change the order of the letters printed on the keys.

And here's the thing. Since the hammers were located in an arc forming a half circle, most often when printing, letters located close to each other jammed. Scholes decided to arrange the letters on the keys so that the letters that form stable in English language couples were located as far apart as possible.

In order to choose the "correct" arrangement of keys, Scholes used special tables that reflected the frequency of occurrence of certain stable combinations of letters in writing. The relevant materials were prepared by educator Amos Densmore, brother of James Densmore, who, in fact, financed the work of Christopher Scholes to create a typewriter.

After Scholes arranged the hammers with the letters in the right order inside the carriage of the printing press, the letters on the keyboard formed a very whimsical sequence that began with the letters QWERTY. It is under this name that the Scholes keyboard is known in the world: the QWERTY keyboard or the universal keyboard (Universal keyboard). In 1878, after the modernization had been tested on the typewriters that were being produced, Sholes received a patent for his invention.

Since 1877, the Remington company began to produce typewriters according to the Scholes patent. The first model machine could only print capital letters, while the second model (Remington No.2), which began production in 1878, had a shift switch, which allowed both uppercase and lowercase letters to be printed. To switch between registers, the print carriage was moved up or down using a special Shift key (shift). In this and subsequent (until 1908) Remington typewriters, the printed text remained invisible to the worker, who had the opportunity to look at the text only by raising the carriage.

Meanwhile, Sholes' example inspired other inventors. In 1895, Franz Wagner received a patent for a typewriter with horizontal letter levers that strike the paper roller from the front. The main advantage of this design was that the newly printed text was visible during operation. He sold the rights to its production to the manufacturer John Underwood. This machine proved to be so convenient that it soon became very popular and Underwood made a huge fortune on it.

Christopher Scholes' first typewriter was designed for typing ... with two fingers. The appearance of the ten-finger printing method is attributed by historians to a certain Mrs. Longley (L. V. Longley), who demonstrated a new approach in 1878. And a little later, Frank E. McGurrin, a federal court clerk in Salt Lake City, proposed the concept of touch typing, in which the typist worked without looking at the keyboard at all. At the same time, manufacturers of typewriters, trying to prove to the public the prospects new technology, held numerous competitions for typing speed on the first Remingtons and Underwoods, which, of course, spurred typists to type faster and faster. Very soon, the pace of work of "typewriter workers" exceeded the average 20 words per minute characteristic of handwritten text, and the typewriters themselves became an integral working tool of secretaries and a completely familiar element of offices.

Until 1907, Remington & Sons produced nine models of printing presses in succession, the design of which was gradually improved. The production of typewriters grew like an avalanche. Over the first ten years, Remingtons produced over a hundred thousand copies.

In addition to large firms (such as Remington and Underwood), typewriters were produced by hundreds of small factories and dozens of large companies specializing in precision engineering. There are dozens of new designs and hundreds of models. Of these developments, by the middle of the century, only about twenty retained their significance.

During the period 1890-1920 years is coming intensified search for constructive solutions in order to obtain a clear, visible text when printing and expand the capabilities of the printing machine. Among the machines of this time, two main groups can be distinguished: with a single type carrier and with a lever printing mechanism. For machines of the first group, the letters are applied on a single letter carrier various shapes, either an indicator device or a keyboard was used to select a printed character. By changing the media, it was possible to print in several languages. These machines produced text that was visible when printed, but their slow printing speed and poor penetrating power limited their use.

In machines with a lever printing mechanism, the letters are located at the ends of separate levers, printing is done by hitting the lettering lever on the paper support shaft when a key is pressed. The variety of lever printing presses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries reflects the struggle of ideas aimed at obtaining a text that is visible when printing, increasing the speed of printing and the reliability of the machine, and ensuring a "light" hit on the keys.

In 1911, Russia held comparative analysis energy consumption when writing various models typewriters. It turned out that writing 8000 characters is equivalent to moving your fingers on "Remington No. 9" 85 pounds, on "Smiths Premier" - 100 pounds, on "Postal" -188 pounds!

The typewriter was widely used by writers. It is noteworthy that Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, published in 1876, became the first book whose text was prepared using a typewriter.

Office of L.N. Tolstoy, for example, the acquaintances of the great writer could not imagine without the old "Remington", just like the office of V.V. Mayakovsky is unimaginable without his beloved Underwood.

History of the typewriter

Writing computers are relatively recent, but attempts to invent mechanical writing devices began nearly three centuries ago. In 1714, Britain's Queen Anne authorized a patent to an engineer named Henry Mill certifying that he had invented "an artificial machine or method of drawing letters, one by one, or successively one after another, as in hand writing." Unfortunately, this turned out to be easier in theory than in practice. Mill failed to build a working typewriter; a similar fate befell dozens of other inventors who tried to put the same idea into practice. This could not be done until the 60s of the last XIX century, when a newspaper editor and publisher from pcs. Wisconsin (USA) Christopher L. Sholes finally solved the problem.

There was something in the character of Sholes that brought him closer to a modern hacker. Having received public office As customs officer for the Port of Milwaukee, he retired from the newspaper business, but often reminisced about the long hours he spent writing and rewriting articles, when his only working tool was a quill pen or a steel-tipped pen. There must be a better way, and Sholes was determined to find it. Since the new job did not require much effort - Milwaukee was not a major international port - Sholes found enough time for his favorite pastime - technical invention. Working in a local workshop, Scholes and his companion Carlos Glidden came up with an apparatus for sequential numbering of book pages. From this simple device the typewriter originates.

Sholes patented his device in 1867. Six years later, Sholes and Glidden's typewriter began to be manufactured by Remington and Sons (Remington and Sans), a solid arms company, which later turned into Remington Rand (Remington Rand) and in 1951 began to produce and sell Univac UNIVAC, the first commercial computer in the US. After the American Civil War (1861-1865), Remington, expanding its range of products, began to produce sewing machines in addition to weapons. This was reflected in the models of typewriters: they were decorated with cheerful floral patterns and began to be mounted on the bed of a sewing machine in such a way that pressing the pedal caused the carriage to return.

The first typewriter, created in 1873 by Sholes and Glidden, was attractive enough in appearance, but not very comfortable to use. With a typewriter of this design, hammers with letters hit the roller from below, and the typist could not see the typed text.

The first typewriter model had serious flaws. The typewriter was quite expensive at that time, $125, and it was possible to print on it only in capital letters. Also, since the characters driven by the keys were hidden under the carriage, the carriage had to be raised to see the printed text.

Success for the typewriter did not come immediately, but some of the first buyers rated it very highly. Among them is the former typographical compositor Samuel Clemens, who wrote books under the pseudonym of Mark Twain. Striking the keys with one finger (the blind typing system was invented a few years later), Twain typed out a letter to his brother:

"I'm trying to get used to this newfangled typewriter, but so far, it seems without much success. However, this is my first attempt, and I still think that I will soon and easily learn how to use it ... I believe that it will type faster, than I can write. she fits a lot of words on one page. she writes clearly, does not smear or plant ink blots."

Mark Twain

And a few years later, Mark Twain was the first of the writers to submit a typewritten manuscript to the publishing house. (According to Twain's own recollections, it was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but historians have determined that it was Life on the Mississippi.) Twain became so fascinated with mechanical devices for typewriting and typesetting that he later invested $300,000 in a typesetting machine. It turned out to be impractical - and Twain went bankrupt.

Other companies soon came out with their own types of typewriters, including ones that allowed immediate reading of typed text, as well as case-shifting models that could be typed in both lowercase and uppercase letters. The effectiveness of the improved models and the fact that they “do not smear or plant ink blots” eventually dispelled all entrepreneurial doubts, and the typewriter became a common tool.

One of the stubborn opponents of the new technology was the developing company Sears Roebuck, which traded by mail order. The management of the firm believed that typewritten letters were too impersonal, and even after the typewriter became widespread in the 90s of the 19th century, the secretaries of the firm continued to write all correspondence by hand, so as not to offend the feelings of their traditional farm clientele with newfangled "machine" letters.

The typewriter not only revolutionized office work, but also changed the composition of office workers. By providing women with socially acceptable occupations other than housework, the typewriter became a powerful tool for their emancipation, opening the door to where previously only men worked. The typewriter, Christopher Sholes remarked shortly before his death in 1890, “is evidently a blessing to all mankind, and especially to the female half of it. My invention turned out to be much wiser than I could have imagined."

However, women soon began to realize that they had freed themselves from the kitchen stove only to become slaves to the typewriter. This device did not forgive mistakes: it was worth accidentally pressing the wrong key and the whole page had to be retyped. The advent of the electric typewriter in the 1920s did not solve the problem. It worked faster and was more comfortable for the fingers, but still one accidental hit on the wrong key inevitably caused errors.

Photos of the first typewriters

When the first computers appeared after World War II, modified typewriters naturally began to be used to print the output of the central processing unit. Approximately ten years later they were already used for data preparation. However, the problem of errors and the tedious retyping associated with them remained, which looked even more annoying against the background of the high speed of the computer's central processor.

Chinese typewriter?

Did the Chinese have something similar to a European typewriter?

After all, there are thousands of characters in Chinese. Before the invention of the computer, all documentation was drawn up manually, with the help of clerks, connoisseurs of hieroglyphs?

Artificial intelligence August 01, 2010 (rev. 1.08.2010 20:30) replied: 90 50

Chinese typewriter MingKwai, 1946:

Hieroglyphs were typed with a combination of keys according to the Lin system. The machine could create 8,000 different characters, and with the help of their combinations, it could print 90,000 words.

Shuangge typewriter:

It allowed to type 30,000 hieroglyphs, but at the same time - only 3,000 - so many hieroglyphs fit in the tray of the machine, the rest were stored separately. The operator placed the "scanner" over the desired hieroglyph, the hammer grabbed the bar with the hieroglyph and hit it on the paper.

And here is the Japanese Nippon SH-280, 1929:

I printed 2400 hieroglyphs. The operator moved mechanical system over the desired hieroglyph and by pressing the handle actuated the "foot", which grabbed the bar with the hieroglyph and printed it on a sheet of paper.

The complexity of classical Chinese writing is illustrated by the structure of the Chinese typewriter.

The drum (tray) contains more than 2000 symbols, with several thousand more available in other drums (there is information that there are about 5700 symbols in total). The typist first aligns the drum, then presses the key, which collects the required character and makes an impression on the paper opposite. The machine can print vertically and horizontally.

SOURCE: David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, (Cambridge: Cmabridge University Press, 1987), p. 31

In the next picture - "improved", "cool" Chinese typewriter, the latest model of '47. :) In it, each hieroglyph is printed component by component - the upper, middle and lower parts. There are much fewer buttons, but it has a very complex mechanism and difficult controls.

The width of the keyboard is about one meter, on which prints with hieroglyphs (letters) that were previously in the box are placed. Naturally, the most popular words used in print are located on the canvas. Such as "Mao", "Peace", "Labor", "May" are located closer to the center. Accordingly, the closer to the edge of the canvas, the less popular the hieroglyph. Disused waiting in the box. Before printing a hieroglyph, the operator needs to find it with a magnifying glass. And only then, fixing it on the holder, transfer the image to paper. The fastest and most professional typists achieve typing speeds of only 11 words per minute.

Nippon Typewriter Co. began producing typewriters with Chinese and Japanese characters in 1917. "Nippon has a flat bed of 3,000 Japanese characters. This is considered sufficient for shorthand, as the Japanese language contains over 30,000 characters." (Thomas A. Russo, Office Collectibles: 100 Years of Business Technology, Schiffer, 2000, p. 161.) The successor company, Nippon Remington Rand Kaisha, made similar machines in the 1970s.

To use a typewriter, the paper must be wrapped around a cylindrical rubber roller that moves on rollers over a bed of type. The operator uses a level to control the an arm, which picks up the pieces of the metal symbol from the stock, makes an impression on paper, and returns them to their niches.

So - if you:

- you can't force yourself to work;

- if everything around you annoys;

- if you think only about how to get home early;

- even if you just Bad mood -

JUST THINK OF THE CHINESE TYPIST!!!