When did typewriters appear? Typewriters are gone. Printing presses in the USA

Godrej and Boyce is now selling off the stock of typewriters and no longer intends to manufacture these devices, as they have been completely replaced by computers.

Godrej and Boyce Prima is the last typewriter produced in the world

Godrej and Boyce remained the only typewriter manufacturer in the world after 2000. Until 2009, this Indian company produced 10-12 thousand devices that were used in some public institutions countries. Only 800 pieces of mechanical machines were sold last year

The production of typewriters in India began in the 1950s and at that time was perceived as a symbol of industrialization. And the first commercial mechanical typing device appeared in the United States in 1867.

By the way, at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries, a single standard for placing characters on the keys was developed for typewriters. It has survived to this day in the QWERTY layout, which is now used almost everywhere.

The last typewriter factory closes and the last few hundred typewriters are put up for sale. This news caused a fit of nostalgia among people, although in Asia, apparently, there are several other smaller factories that make typewriters. However, it's no secret that typewriters have now almost completely given way to computers, and soon the only place where you can meet them will be museums and antiques stores (well, or the basements of your crazy collector uncle).

But although typewriters are practically a thing of the past, let's remember the times when they had a tremendous impact on the life of any office.

1. In the early and mid nineteenth century, some inventors tried to realize the construction of mechanical writing machines. The breakthrough came in 1870 when a Danish inventor, Rasmus Malling-Hansen, received a patent for what would become the world's first commercially produced typewriter, the Malling-Hansen printing ball.

2. This is a printed drawing of the Typewriter invented by Christopher L. Scholes, Carlos Glidden, and J.W. Soul. Their idea, which they patented in 1867, bore fruit a few years later in the form of the world's first commercially successful typewriter.

3. This is what Sholes and Glidden's typewriter looked like. Not only was it the first commercially successful typewriter, it was also the first typewriter with a QWERTY keyboard. Not much will change in the basic design over the next 100 years.

4. Engraving depicting the Hammond typewriter, invented by James Bartlett Hammond in the 1870s and produced by the Hammond Typewriter Company.

5. Remington typewriter, made around 1875. Remington Typewriter donated this model to the Smithsonian Institution, describing it as "one of the first typewriters." After the Civil War, Remington, which was the main supplier of weapons, began to manufacture a variety of office equipment.

6. The typewriter also became a predictor of social change, as there was a demand for people who could do office work - this is how women typists appeared at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th.

7. The Blickensderfer typewriter was invented by George S. Blickensderfer in 1891. It was manufactured by the Blickensderfer Typewriter Company. It was one of the first truly portable machines. Instead of a QWERTY keyboard, she had a DHIATENSOR keyboard.

8. Silent typewriter Remington Noiseless Typewriter 6, first made in 1925 by Remington Typewriter.

9. In 1933, IBM bought what was left of Electromatic Typewriters, Inc. from Rochester, New York. Then there was a change in the design of the Electromatic typewriter, and by 1935 the model 01 IBM Electric Typewriter was introduced.

10. This typewriter was used by many in college: the IBM Selectric typewriter. It first appeared on sale in 1961, and lasted on the shelves until the 1980s.

11. The product that ruined all the fun. Not many people realized it at the time, but the debut of the IBM PC signaled the end of the era of typewriters. The first personal computer to gain widespread acceptance in the business world, the IBM PC, soon pushed the typewriter into the background. How it all ended, everyone knows. Any sane company in their right mind soon stopped ordering typewriters, as the budget allowed for a switch to computers. Some of us still remember how it is to change the ribbon in a typewriter. For the rest, we suggest thinking about how quickly any technology used in a modern office is now becoming obsolete.

Horses and buggies, whalebone skirts, cars with steam engines... Yes, everyday life of the previous century is charming in its simplicity. But this does not mean that the artisans and engineers of that time did not understand anything about innovation.

Take, for example, a letter. Writing is like a process. Let's look at it before the bright minds of mankind modernized this occupation. Pens (and pens) that were constantly drying out, ink that spilled and smeared across the paper, illegible handwriting... Losslessly conveying the meaning of a letter—especially a handwritten one—was problematic at best, impossible at worst. So it was until they appeared on the stage ...

Typewriters

William Austin Burt invented the typewriter in 1829. Whether Bert's design was the first is a matter of considerable controversy, since a similar machine was built at the same time by Pellegrino Turi. Some even believe that the palm should be given to Henry Mill, who made a "writing machine" back in 1714.

All of these devices were only prototypes: a potential rather than a practical opportunity to make writing clear, fast, and effortless. And after these undertakings there were others, but not a single unit was a commercial success. When you look at them, it's obvious why: in many early copies of typewriters, printing was done by selecting the desired letter on the slider and pressing the letter to the paper. It would be too mild to call them "slow." Replacing the letter slider with a disc mechanism helped a little, but not enough to make any of these machines simple and popular enough.

Here is the Linear Typewriter. It has never been successful with buyers :) Just think about how much effort it takes to decipher the keys on this monster:

"Victor" 1890:

The mechanism considered by many to be the true ancestor of the true, efficient and financially successful typewriter was created by Rasmus Malling-Hansen. In addition to the fact that the "Printed Ball" was effective, it was also effective: elegant and even beautiful. A copper hemisphere, strewn with keys, was located above a cylinder with a fixed sheet of paper. The mechanism was built and actually worked, unlike some of the earlier unsuccessful units, although it looks more like a prestigious watch than office equipment:

Malling-Hansen's "printing ball" is not only the first commercially successful typewriter, but also the most elegant:

Such a ball will certainly decorate any desktop:

Engraving by Hans Gerhard Blödorn:

Of course, the ball had serious drawbacks - such as high cost and inconvenient arrangement of keys above the paper, because the typist could not see what she was typing until she took the sheet out of the typewriter. But they did not interfere with selling it better than many other models. One of the finds of the ball was that the keys on it were located to facilitate the work of the typist, and not the typewriter itself.

Hansen did not stop at the creation of the first ball. For many years of work, he created a whole set of various variations of typewriters. A solid collection of Malling-Hansen balls, including a fine example in a wooden case:

Miniature "printed ball":

Alexis Cohls' Cipher Printing Ball, circa 1883:

Exciting Keyboard Modification: Production Piano Style Keyboard American company"Hammond", 1880th year:

Ultimately, other, cheaper typewriters were created that saved more than one generation of writers, secretaries, businessmen and all those who were used to moving pen on paper from ugly handwriting ...

According to materials:

For a significant part of the 20th century, almost all official documents emanating from state institutions (and their internal document flow) were typewritten. At the same time, in the USSR, statements, receipts and autobiographies of citizens were often written by hand; protocols were often drawn up by hand. However, if a citizen wanted something, the state was required to bring manuscripts, characteristics and questionnaires in typewritten form, so that it was not necessary to parse the often incomprehensible handwriting of the authors. This was done by typists, either in the mashburo, or secretaries-typists in the divisions. The roar was unimaginable, despite the special pads for devices and sound-absorbing lining.

Each typewriter in the USSR came under control in the First Department and a copy of all the letters was taken from it. There were times when they were forced to rent for holidays and weekends. Somehow I was asked to take a print from the fonts of my first matrix "Robotron". I brought. The roll was thick. They didn't ask for more.

A typewriter or a typewriter - once this thing was the property of those who are commonly called people of intellectual professions: scientists, writers, journalists. A brisk tap on the keys was also heard in the reception rooms of high officials, where a charming typist-secretary sat at a table next to a typewriter. Now another time and typewriters are almost a thing of the past, they have been replaced by personal computers, which retained only the keyboard from the typewriter. But maybe if there weren't a typewriter, there wouldn't be a computer? By the way, the typewriter also has its own holiday - Typewriter Day, and it is celebrated on March 1st.

Old typewriter, early 20th century

Legends and historical sources tell us that the first typewriter was developed as early as three hundred years ago in 1714 by Henry Mill, and he even received a patent for the invention from the Queen of England herself. But only the images of this machine have not been preserved. A real, working machine was first introduced to the world by an Italian named Terry Pellegrino in 1808. His writing apparatus was made for his blind friend, Countess Caroline Fantoni de Fivisono, who was so able to communicate with the world by typewriting with her friends and loved ones.

Old typewriters with "unusual" keyboard layouts

The idea of creating an ideal and convenient typewriter captured the minds of inventors, and over time, various modifications of this writing device began to appear in the world. In 1863, the ancestor of all modern printing presses finally appeared: the Americans Christopher Sholes and Samuel Soule - former printers - first came up with a device for numbering pages in account books, and then, therefore, they created a workable typewriter, printing words. A patent for the invention was obtained in 1868. The first version of their typewriter had two rows of keys with numbers and an alphabetical arrangement of letters from A to Z (there were no lowercase letters, only capital ones; there were also no numbers 1 and 0 - the letters I and O were used instead), but this option turned out to be inconvenient . Why?

With a quick successive pressing on the letters located nearby, the hammers with the letters got stuck, forcing them to stop work and clear the jam with their hands. Then Scholes analyzed the compatibility of letters in English and proposed an option in which the most frequently occurring letters were spaced as far as possible, which made it possible to avoid sticking when typing, that is, he came up with a QWERTY keyboard - a keyboard that, on the one hand, made typists work more slowly, and on the other, eliminated downtime.

Typewriters with a familiar keyboard layout

Various types of machines over a period, gradually became more practical for daily use. There were also typewriters with a different arrangement of keyboards, but... The classic Underwood Typewriter, which appeared in 1895, was able to dominate at the beginning of the 20th century, and most manufacturers began to make their typewriters in the same style.

What only is not present and there were no typewriters. Printing machines for special purposes: stenographic, accounting, for writing formulas, for the blind and others.

Typewriters for various fields of activity

There was even an alternative - typewriters without ... keyboards. These are the so-called index squeakers: one hand works with the pointer, which selects the desired letter in the index, and the other hand presses the lever to print the letter on paper. Such typewriters were very cheap compared to conventional ones and were in demand among housewives, travelers, graphomaniacs and even children.

Index typewriters

And a little about the Russian keyboard layout - YTSUKEN ... the story of its appearance is as follows: alas, it was invented in America at the end of the 19th century. Then all the companies produced a typewriter with only one layout option - YIUKEN. This is not a typo - the familiar YTSUKEN appeared only after the reform of the Russian language, as a result of which "yat" and "I" disappeared from the alphabet. So now we have on the computer everything that has been invented for centuries before us ... The typewriters themselves have become an antique value and can be quite perceived as works of art.

Madam secretary

Reprinting handwritten texts on a typewriter was the work of special workers - typists (since the profession was predominantly female, the male version of the term did not take root); earlier they were also called remingtonists or remingtonists (after the brand of Remington typewriters). The work of printing documents on typewriters was called typewriting and was carried out in special organizations or departments (“typing bureaus”).

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 enough to accidentally press the wrong key and the entire 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.

Since the last third of the 20th century Computer techologies typewriters began to be replaced. Today, computers (with appropriate peripherals) have completely taken over the functions of typewriters, which are thus hopelessly outdated. Despite the fact that they have become electric, and some have even learned how to correct typos with a special tape.

When the first computers appeared after the Second World War, 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.

But along with the typewriter, the typist also died, this wonderful girlish world where they went to drink tea, and not only tea, and not only .... Yes, and the profession of a typist ordered a long life. But back in the 80s they were so appreciated, they gave chocolates ..

And on April 26, 2011, we learned that the last manufacturer of this wonderful printing device on Earth - the Indian company Godrej and Boyce - is closing the only remaining factory in Mumbai.

“An old Adler typewriter was bought at the bazaar, which lacked the letter “e”, and had to be replaced by the letter “e”. “God sent a fool commissioner for hooves! Ostap got angry. - You can't order anything. Bought a typewriter with a Turkish accent. So I'm the head of the department? You are a pig, Shura, after that!” But even a typewriter with an amazing pronunciation could not overshadow the bright joy of the great strategist. Do you recognize? That's right, an imperishable classic, The Golden Calf. But how many, born in the era of omnipotent computer text processors, can immediately say what kind of outlandish unit that provoked the wrath of Ostap Bender, Shura Balaganov bought on the market? Meanwhile, the typewriter is not a very old invention. In March 2018, it will be only 145 years since the Americans, the Remington brothers, who became famous for the production of weapons, were the first in history to start serial production of typewriters.

In Her Majesty's Secret Service

Let's start with a definition from Wikipedia. Typewriter (colloquially "typewriter") - a mechanical, electromechanical or electro-mechanical device equipped with a set of keys, pressing which leads to the printing of the corresponding characters on the medium (in most cases it is paper). Widely used in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These machines are now largely obsolete. Briefly, but, in fact, true, if we take only the descriptive part. But "out of use" - sorry, this is far from the case. Not only did they not leave, but they also found themselves in the computer age the most important and so far unoccupied niche. Judge for yourself.

In November 2012, the Brother Factory released what they say is the last typewriter to be made in the UK. She was presented to the London Science Museum and the topic was closed at that. But - hurry up! Firms "Olympia" and "Olivetti" continue to produce mechanical typewriters with a "manual drive". True, these devices, both externally and in their capabilities, bear little resemblance to the office miracle of Ostap Bender and are almost as good as computers in paperwork. But everything is done by hand, on levers, wheels, gears and pulleys! Who is the customer? You probably already guessed. Yes, those very British services to which the notorious James Bond had a direct relationship.

But not only them. After all, not only in the UK there are structures, from government to banking and commercial, very interested in keeping their secrets. We do not know for certain how things are with this in Russia, and it is not solid to rely on rumors. But the author doubts that the Russian special services care about the protection of information less than their foreign counterparts. Yes, and ordinary owners of vintage devices, grandmother's inheritance, can safely type by hand and not be afraid that their equipment will become outdated. Because she's been outdated for so long. But, if some kind of catastrophe happens and electricity goes out all over the Earth, the good old mastodons will take revenge. Therefore, take care of your "Reminggons" and "Underwoods", gentlemen!

The very first - the Sumerians!

Who first began to produce typewriters, we know the ear - the Remington brothers. But before you release something, you need to invent it. The name of the author of the idea is drowning in the darkness of time, and she most likely did not have any one author. The idea was, as they say, in the air. Hardly something similar was invented in Ancient Egypt, Greece or Rome. And there is also no information about the fact that in Ancient Russia they printed on birch bark. But one of the most "advanced" ancient civilizations - the Sumerians - already by 3300 BC. e. clay chips were in use various shapes for inventory of property (tokens). So that these chips would not be stolen and replaced, the Sumerians put them in clay cases, and put slips with the owners' signs on top. There is already the main feature of a typewriter, which has safely remained unchanged: a symbol at the end of the rod, imprinted on the media (among the Sumerians on clay). Then the Sumerians thought that it was possible to record various information in this way. Cuneiform writing appeared on clay tablets. It turns out that the Sumerians had printed texts before handwritten ones.

You can't stop progress!

But what about a typewriter? Here mankind had to wait for more than one millennium. England set the tone. In 1714, under the royal signature, a decree was issued by which John Smith, a mechanic at a London waterworks, was ordered to build a device for printing texts. Pi Smith fulfilled the royal will, history is silent. But what is indisputable is that in 1833 the French inventor Francois Progrin assembled a working copy. His car was more like a drawing pantograph. 88 levers connected with alphabetic and numeric characters and moved along and across the paper sheet. Slow and uncomfortable, but easier to write by hand! But you can't stop progress. And in 1843 Progren's compatriot Charles Thurbert patented a typewriter for the blind. He also invented the lever transmission of the movement of letters, which was subsequently used in all typewriters.

And yet, the “god of inventors” was pleased to order that the first apparatus, which already contained all the elements of subsequent typewriters, appeared in America, and not in Europe. The names of the creators of this device are Samuel Sull and Christopher Latham Scholes. They began and finished work on it in 1867, then Scholes, already alone, improved the device to an industrially suitable model of 1873. And then ... Then the Remington brothers enter the scene, and the typewriters that received their name are rapidly conquering the world.

"Remington" was so successful that its design has survived almost to this day. But there were others. For example, in the German typewriter "Jost". In 1887, the fly was replaced by a pad soaked in ink. And the letter was in contact with the paper when the sheet scrolled under the roller, so the printed line could not be immediately seen. However, the early (more precisely, already average) Remingtons had the same drawback. Those who worked at Remington-3M did not see what they were printing at all. The carriage was closed, only later they realized to open it. And the "portable" (by design) "Bambina" resembled a telephone without a disk and a handset. On the panel of this masterpiece was placed a scale with letters and punctuation marks. A lever slid along it, and three keys were attached to the side. To print a letter or sign, it was necessary to set the lever opposite the scale division and only then hit one of the keys. Indeed, “there was no hassle - we bought a typewriter ...”

It happened…

Until 1928, typewriters were not produced in the USSR. All devices that were then used in the country were produced for our market. foreign companies. And before the spelling reform, the layout of the keys (and their number), of course, was slightly different from what it became after the reform and what we see today on computer keyboards. By the way, why exactly this location? Yes, actually, no reason. It happened. Christopher Latham Scholes scattered the letters across the keyboard so that those frequently found next to each other in words were further apart. So, he hoped, there would be fewer mistakes: two adjacent buttons, pressed almost simultaneously, led to the hammers interlocking and jamming each other. Of course, according to this principle, any other arrangement is possible, but it is impossible to relearn for each model! And so it went ... Force of habit. What about the current layout? Was it also invented in America? Yes, and at the same time with Latin, although the author is unknown. It is unlikely that Sapa Scholes took care of this.

Just two decades ago, no office could do without typewriters. By the end of the 20th century, the typewriter had reached the peak of technical perfection. In parallel with classical mechanical machines, electromechanical and electronic ones were produced. The latter were the harbingers of the coming era of universal computerization, which sent typewriting technology itself into oblivion.

Today we can safely say that the era of typewriters is over. In the summer of 2011, the last plant for their production was closed. Typewriters are history...

And it all started a very long time ago. One of the first inventors of the typewriter was the Englishman Henry Mill. In 1714, he received a patent for a method of sequential character-by-character printing and for a typewriter of his own design. The details of Mill's machine are unknown, just as it is not known whether the inventor managed to build it.

Almost a century has passed. And in 1808, the Italian Pellegrino Turri, who remained in history as the inventor of carbon paper, invented the typewriter for the second time. We don't know what his car looked like in reality. To this day, not a single copy of it, drawings, or at least sketches of this invention have survived. But there is no doubt that the machine existed. Museums in Italy have typewritten pages printed on Turri's typewriter.

The next inventor of the typewriter was Mikhail Ivanovich Alisov, our compatriot. In 1870 he created a typesetting machine. In this machine, letters with letters punched wax (wire paper), from which copies were then printed on a rotator. From the point of view of technology development, Alisov's machine was a real breakthrough. She produced printouts of such quality that

the customer did not require the services of a printing house. The only drawback was limited quantity copies - no more than a hundred.

Alisov's invention received honorary medals at three World Exhibitions: at Vienna in 1873, at Philadelphia in 1876 and at Paris in 1878. The award was also received from the Russian Imperial Technical Society. But at the same time, Alisov's machine did not find application. Oddly enough, the reason was the high quality of the printouts. Having ordered a batch of machines in England, the Russian authorities equated Alisov's invention with small-circulation printing houses. Printouts were required to pass the assessment of state censorship. For customers, the purchase of Alisov's car turned into unnecessary trouble. In the end, the inventor was forced to independently look for a use for his machine. He opened a bureau for printing institute lectures. However, the enterprise did not last long. The further fate of the invention of Mikhail Alisov is unknown ...

The mechanical lever-segment typewriter was patented on June 23, 1868 in the United States by a resident of the American city of Green Bay, in the state of Wisconsin, Christopher Latham Scholes. Chronologically, this machine must precede the invention of Alisov. But this is not so - it took Sholes about seven years to bring his design to mind.

As a young man, Scholes was a newspaper publisher and editor. In the mid-1960s, he was appointed to the post of chief customs officer of the port in Milwaukee. Both in his newspaper past and in his new job, Scholes had to deal with handwritten documents, painfully parsing the fluent handwriting of many sometimes not the most literate people. The idea to create a universal writing tool was born after Scholes, together with his friend Samuel Soule, invented a pagination machine. This device was patented on November 13, 1866. A year later, Sholes, Soule, and their new partner, Carlos Glidden, set about developing a typewriter.

The first typewriter of Sholes, Soule and Glidden was very different from the typewriters we know. She had not a push-button, but a piano two-row keyboard with wide flat keys arranged in alphabetical order. The letters hit the roller from below, the printer did not see what was happening in the course of work - the result could be assessed only after removing the sheet of paper.

In 1868, the design team for the typewriter expanded. James Densmore, a journalist, politician and wealthy man, who invested a lot of money in Scholes' enterprise, joined the inventors. Together, over the next seven years, Scholes and his colleagues built fifty prototypes of their typewriter. In April 1870, the keyboard was redesigned. Instead of piano-type keys, a push-button keyboard appeared. In 1872, Sholes' typewriter received four rows of keys. The layout changed from one prototype to another.

Finally the typewriter was ready for serial production. And in 1875, the Remington arms company produced the first batch of Remington 1 typewriters in the amount of 5 thousand pieces. It was a QWERTY typewriter patented by Scholes in March 1875. This layout is still different from the classic one. But a few years later, it underwent the latest changes and became the industry standard.

The fate of the inventors of the typewriter was happy. Typewriters were in great demand in the United States and quickly sold around the world. In pre-revolutionary Russia, cars were not produced - they were imported from America and England. And each copy sold replenished the accounts of patent holders. Only James Densmore earned a million and a half dollars from patent royalties - huge money for those times!

The typewriter radically changed office work and gave rise to new professions, most notably the profession of a typist. The new writing tool was also appreciated by writers. The first American writer who bought a typewriter and began to work on it was Mark Twain.

Christopher Scholes was very proud of the effect produced by his invention. Shortly before his death, he noted that the typewriter “obviously became a blessing for all mankind, especially for the female half of it. My invention turned out to be much wiser than I could have imagined." Scholes did not exaggerate: his typewriter gave work to millions of women. The word "typist" in many languages of the world, including Russian, does not have a semantic analogue of the masculine gender. Thus, the invention of Scholes acquired social significance, becoming a milestone on the path of women's emancipation.

Christopher Latham Scholes ended his days on February 17, 1890. Fate gave him the opportunity to see the fruits years of work. Even during the lifetime of Scholes, the typewriter became ubiquitous ...

Nowadays, old typewriters gather dust in pantries and mezzanines. But you shouldn't throw them away. A mechanical machine can still come in handy - for example, for working in the country. This chirping thing doesn't require electricity. And typewritten text is easy to process computer programs recognition, allowing you to translate typewritten pages into digital format.

In their more than 100-year history, typewriters have "seen" a lot of 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 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 sustainable combinations, were further apart. 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 office, 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 Remington, a gun manufacturer. And this was the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the creation of the typewriter. Remington engineers added the ability to print uppercase and lowercase letters to the "source" (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 rights to manufacture 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 typewriter factory in India closed in April 2011. This means that the era of this writing tool is officially over.

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