The first typewriter in the world. Typewriter

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. And on dot matrix printers, the carbon copy was a great help in the absence of a cartridge.

Let us return, however, to the history of the appearance of typewriters in general and keyboards in particular. So, in September 1867, poet, journalist and part-time inventor Christopher Latham Sholes from Milwaukee filed an application for a new invention - a typewriter. After the appropriate bureaucratic procedures, which, as usual, lasted for several months, Sholes received a patent at the beginning of 1868. In addition to Christopher Sholes, the co-authors of the invention were Carlos Glidden and a certain 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 make a profit from their brainchild.

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.

It must be said 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, printing could only be done 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 lift the carriage, which was located on hinges for this purpose. In general, like any new invention, the first typewriters had many shortcomings. And among others, as it soon became clear, the placement of the keys was unsuccessful. The fact is that as the printing speed increased, the hammers of the typewriter with the letter stamps attached to them, which struck the paper, did not have time to return to their place and clung to each other, threatening to lead to a breakdown of the printing unit. Obviously, the problem could be solved in two ways - either by somehow artificially slowing down the printing speed, or by developing a new typewriter design that would prevent the keys from jamming.

Christopher Scholes 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.

Here's the thing. Since the hammers were located in an arc forming a half circle, the letters located close to each other most often jammed during printing. Sholes decided to arrange the letters on the keys so that the letters forming stable English language pairs were located as far away from each other as possible.

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

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

Since 1877, the Remington company began producing typewriters based on the Scholes patent. The first model machine could print only capital letters, but the second model (Remington No. 2), which began serial production in 1878, added a case switch, which made it possible to print both capital and lowercase letters. To switch between registers, the print carriage was moved up or down using a special Shift key. 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 lifting the carriage.

Meanwhile, Scholes' example inspired other inventors. In 1895, Franz Wagner received a patent for a typewriter with horizontal letter levers striking 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 manufacturer John Underwood. This machine turned out to be so convenient that it soon became very popular and Underwood made a huge fortune from it.

Christopher Scholes's first typewriter was designed for typing... with two fingers. The advent of the ten-finger printing method is attributed by historians to a certain Mrs. Longley (L. V. Longley), who demonstrated the new approach in 1878. And a little later, Frank E. McGurrin, a clerk at the federal court in Salt Lake City, proposed the concept of the “touch typing” method, in which the typist worked without looking at the keyboard at all. At the same time, typewriter manufacturers, trying to prove to the public the promise of the new technology, held numerous competitions for printing 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 typical for handwritten text, and typewriters themselves became an integral working tool for secretaries and a completely familiar element of offices.

Until 1907, Remington and Sons consistently produced nine models of printing machines, the design of which was gradually improved. The production of typewriters grew like an avalanche. In the first ten years, more than one hundred thousand copies of Remington were produced.

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. Dozens of new designs and hundreds of models have appeared. Of these developments, only about twenty retained their significance by the middle of the century.

In the period 1890-1920, there was an intensive search for design solutions in order to obtain 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 writing medium and with a lever printing mechanism. For the machines of the first group, the letters were printed on a single letter carrier of various shapes; to select a printed character, either an indicator device or a keyboard was used. By changing the typeface it was possible to print in several languages. These machines produced text that was visible when printed, but their low printing speed and poor punching ability limited their use.

In machines with a lever printing mechanism, the characters are located at the ends of individual levers; printing is done by striking the type lever on the paper support shaft when pressing a key. The variety of lever printing machines of the late 19th and early 20th centuries reflects the struggle of ideas aimed at making text visible when printing, increasing typing speed and reliability of the machine, and ensuring a “light” strike on the keys.

In 1911, Russia held comparative analysis energy consumption when writing different models of typewriters. It turned out that writing 8,000 characters is equivalent to moving 85 pounds with your fingers on Remington No. 9, 100 pounds on Smith's Premier, and 188 pounds on Postal!

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

Office L.N. Tolstoy, for example, the great writer’s acquaintances could not imagine without the old Remington, just as the office of V.V. It is impossible to imagine Mayakovsky without his beloved “Underwood”.

Typewriter.

A typewriter (colloquial "typewriter") is a mechanical, electromechanical, or electronic-mechanical device that has a set of keys, the pressing of which causes the corresponding characters to be printed on a medium (in most cases, paper).

Typewriters were widely used in the 19th and 20th centuries. Currently, typewriters have largely fallen out of use; their functions have become more successfully performed personal computers equipped with printers.

Typewriter.

The operating principle of most typewriters is to write characters onto paper using special levers ending in pads with metal or plastic characters. When the corresponding key is pressed, the lever strikes the ink-soaked ribbon, thus leaving an imprint of the letter on the supplied sheet of paper. Before printing the next character, the paper sheet is automatically shifted (and, as a rule, the ink ribbon is scrolled).

To print multiple copies of the same document, you use sheets of carbon paper sandwiched between regular sheets of paper.

The history of the creation of the typewriter.

Like many others technical devices and inventions, the development of the typewriter mechanism was not the fruit of the efforts of one single person. Many people, jointly or independently of each other, came up with the idea of ​​​​fast text printing.

The first mention of a typewriter dates back to 1714, when Henry Mill received a patent for the invention of a typewriter from the Queen of England herself. Henry Mill filed a patent not only for a typewriter, but also for a method of sequentially printing characters on paper. But, unfortunately, there is no other information about this writing machine. Also, no information has been preserved about the actual creation and use of the described machine.

In 1808, Italian Pellegrino Turri, also known as the inventor of carbon paper, created his own printing press. Details about the design of his typewriter are also unknown, but texts printed on this device have survived to this day.

In 1843, the Frenchman Charles Thurbert received a patent for a typewriter he invented for the blind. It was he who came up with the idea of ​​lever transmission of the movement of letters and signs.

In 1870, Russian inventor Mikhail Ivanovich Alisov invented a typesetting machine, known as a “skoropychatnik” or “skoropistets”, with the aim of replacing calligraphic copying of papers and manuscripts, a machine for transferring onto lithographic stone.

Alisov's speed printer was suitable for its purpose, and received medals at three world exhibitions in Vienna (1873), Philadelphia (1876) and Paris (1878). By printing method and appearance Alisov's machine was significantly different from most writing machines we are familiar with; wax paper was punched on it, which was then multiplied on a rotator. This machine did not become popular due to the high cost of printing.

In 1868, American journalist and inventor Christopher Latham Sholes of Wisconsin received a patent for his typewriter, which, after significant changes and improvements in design, began to be mass produced in 1874 under the name Remington No. 1.

Remington Typewriter No. 1.

Among the first users of Remington were well-known personalities, in particular the American Mark Twain and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

In the photograph, L.N. Tolstoy and his daughter behind Remington.

Until 1907, Remington and Sons consistently produced nine models of printing machines, the design of which was gradually improved.

The production of typewriters grew like an avalanche. In the first ten years of Remington typewriters, over one hundred thousand copies were produced.

Typewriters "Remington" No. 10 and No. 11.

In 1890, inventor Franz Wagner received a patent for a printing press with horizontal letter arms and visible type when printing. Wagner sold the rights to produce his typewriter to the American manufacturer John Underwood. This machine turned out to be so convenient that it soon began to be in mass demand and Underwood made a huge fortune from it.

In the Foto typewriter"Underwood."

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. As a result, dozens of new designs and hundreds of models of typewriters appeared.

In the period 1890-1920, there was an intensive search for design solutions in order to obtain clear, clearly 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 writing medium and with a lever printing mechanism.

For machines of the first group, with a single letter carrier, the letters are on a single letter carrier of various shapes; to select a printed character, either an indicator device or a keyboard was used. By changing the typeface it was possible to print in several languages. These machines produced text that was visible when printed, but their low printing speed and poor punching ability limited their use.

In machines with a lever printing mechanism, the characters are located at the ends of individual levers; printing is done by striking the type lever on the paper support shaft when pressing a key. The variety of lever printing machines of the late 19th and early 20th centuries reflects the struggle of ideas aimed at obtaining clearly visible text when printing, increasing the typing speed and reliability of the machine, and ensuring a “light” strike on the keys.

In 1911, a comparative analysis of energy consumption when printing on various types of typewriters was carried out in Russia. It turned out that typing 8,000 characters is equivalent to moving 85 pounds with your fingers on a Remington No. 9 machine, 100 pounds on a Smiths-Premier machine, and 188 pounds on a Postal machine!

Typewriters in Russia.

In pre-revolutionary Russia there was no production of their own typewriters; therefore, foreign-made typewriters were used.

The first writing machine in Russia (in the USSR) was produced in 1928 in Kazan, and was called “Yanalif”.

The photo shows a Yanalif typewriter.

At a later time, the most common domestic brands of typewriters in the USSR were “Ukraine” (stationery), “Moskva” (portable), “Lyubava” (portable) and “Yatran” (stationery).

The photo shows the Moscow typewriter.

Of the foreign typewriters, typewriting machines of the brands “Optima” and “Robotron” (GDR, stationery, in various modifications), “Erika” (GDR, portable), “UNIS tbm de luxe” (SFRY, portable under license) were quite widespread. Olympia" (Germany)) and "Consul" (Czechoslovakia, portable).

The photo shows the Consul typewriter.

The end of the era of typewriters.

In the middle of the 20th century it was impossible to imagine a commercial or scientific organization without a typewriter.

The emergence at the end of the 20th century of a more advanced computer equipment led to the displacement of typewriters from mass use.

TO beginning of XXI century, only a small number of traditional manufacturing companies, such as Smith-Corona, Olivetti, Adler-Royal, Olympia, Brother, Nakajima, continued to produce this kind of devices.

In April 2011, the typewriter plant in Mumbai, owned by the Indian company Godrej and Boyce, closed.

In November 2012, Brother released a writing machine described as the "last one made in the UK". This typewriter was donated to the London Science Museum.

Modern typewriters.

And yet, even today there are people, mostly writers, who, to write texts, are accustomed and want to use not computers, but modern analogues of typewriters.

For such people, they come up with various hybrids of a typewriter and a computer.

Typewriter. Typewriter. History of the typewriter.

Computers for preparing texts have appeared relatively recently, but attempts to come up with mechanical devices for writing began almost three centuries ago. In 1714, Britain's Queen Anne authorized the issuance of a patent to an engineer named Henry Mill, certifying that he had invented "an artificial machine, or method of writing letters, one at a time, or in succession, as in writing by hand." 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 the state. Wisconsin (USA) Christopher L. Sholes finally solved the problem.

There was something in Sholes' character that brought him closer to a modern hacker. After receiving a government job as customs officer for the Port of Milwaukee, he retired from newspaper work, but often recalled the long hours spent writing and rewriting articles, when his only tool was a quill pen or a steel-tipped pen. There had to 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 plenty of time for his favorite pastime - technical invention. While working in a local workshop, Sholes and his companion Carlos Glidden came up with a machine for sequentially numbering book pages. From this simple device and the typewriter began.

Sholes patented his device in 1867. Six years later, the Sholes and Glidden machine began to be produced by Remington and Sons, a reputable arms company that later became Remington Rand and in 1951 began producing sell the Univac UNIVAC, the first commercial computer in the United States. After Civil War In the USA (1861-1865), the Remington company, expanding the range of its products, began to produce sewing machines in addition to weapons. This was also 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 quite attractive in appearance, but not entirely convenient to use. With a typewriter of this design, hammers with letters struck the roller from below, and the typist could not see the printed text.

The first typewriter model had serious shortcomings. The machine was quite expensive at that time, $125, and it could only print in capital letters. In addition, since the type driven by the keys was hidden under the carriage, the carriage had to be lifted to see the printed text.

The typewriter did not become an immediate success, 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 touch typing system was invented a few years later), Twain typed 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 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 smudge or leave ink blots."

Mark Twain

A few years later, Mark Twain was the first writer to submit a typewritten manuscript to the publishing house. (According to Twain’s own memoirs, it was “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but historians have determined that it was “Life on the Mississippi.”) Twain was so fascinated by mechanical devices for typing and typesetting that he later invested $300,000 in a typesetting machine. It turned out to be impractical - and Twain went broke.

Other companies soon released their own types of typewriters, including ones that allowed you to immediately see the typed text, as well as case-shifting models that could type in both lowercase and uppercase letters. The efficiency of improved models and the fact that they “do not smear or create ink blots” eventually dispelled all doubts of entrepreneurs, and the typewriter became a common tool.

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

The typewriter not only revolutionized office work, but also changed the composition of office workers. By providing women with a socially acceptable occupation outside of housework, the typewriter became a powerful tool for their emancipation, opening doors to places where previously only men had worked. The typewriter, Christopher Sholes observed shortly before his death in 1890, “has obviously been a blessing to all mankind, especially to the female half. My invention turned out to be much smarter than I could have thought.”

However, women soon began to realize that they had freed themselves from the kitchen stove only to become slaves to the typewriter. This device was unforgiving of mistakes: if you accidentally pressed the wrong key, you had to retype the entire page. The appearance of the electric typewriter in the 1920s did not solve the problem. It worked faster and was easier on the fingers, but still one accidental hit on the wrong key would inevitably cause errors.

Photos of the first typewriters

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

Chinese typewriter?

Did the Chinese have something similar to the European typewriter?

After all, there are thousands of characters in the Chinese language. Before the invention of the computer, all documentation was completed manually, with the help of scribes and hieroglyph experts?

Artificial Intelligence August 01, 2010 (edited August 1, 2010 20:30) replied: 90 50

Chinese MingKwai typewriter, 1946:

Shuangge Typewriter:

It allowed you to type 30,000 hieroglyphs, but at the same time - only 3000 - so many hieroglyphs fit in the machine's tray, the rest were stored separately. The operator placed the “scanner” over the desired hieroglyph, the hammer grabbed the block with the hieroglyph and hit it on the paper.

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

Printed 2400 hieroglyphs. The operator moved mechanical system over the desired hieroglyph and pressing the handle activated the “foot”, which grabbed the block with the hieroglyph and imprinted it on a sheet of paper.

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

The reel (tray) contains more than 2000 symbols, with several thousand more available in other reels (there are data that there are about 5700 symbols in total). The typist first aligns the drum, then presses the key, which collects the required symbol 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

The next picture shows an “advanced”, “cool” Chinese typewriter, newest model 47 years old. :) In it, each hieroglyph is printed component-by-component - 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 approximately one meter, onto which imprints with hieroglyphs (letters) that were previously in a 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. The ones that are out of use are waiting in the wings in a box. Before printing a hieroglyph, the operator needs to find it using a magnifying glass. And only then, fixing it on the holder, transfer the image to paper. The fastest and most professional typists achieve a typing speed of only 11 words per minute.

Nippon Typewriter Co. began producing typewriters with Chinese and Japanese characters in 1917. "Nippon has a flat bed with 3,000 Japanese characters. This is considered sufficient for shorthand, since Japanese 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, produced similar machines in the 1970s.

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

So - if you:

- you can’t force yourself to work;

- if everything around you annoys you;

- if you are only thinking about how to go home early;

- even if you're just in a bad mood -

JUST THINK OF THE CHINESE TYPIST!!!