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The
original function of the typewriter was to be a faster and easier-to-read
handwriting substitute. The first patent was granted for a typewriting
machine in 1833, to Frenchman Xavier Progin. Separate typebars for
each letter were activated by separate levers. The cylinder used
to move paper up and down was not developed until ten years later,
by Charles Grover Thurber, and in 1856 Alfred Ely Beach invented
a typewriter similar to the modern machine but with raised letters
to be used by the blind. No one, however, had created an efficient,
reliable typewriter until 1868 when Americans Carlos Glidden, Christopher
Latham Sholes, and Samuel W. Soulé patented their version, and Remington
& Sons agreed to produce the machine in 1873.
This Remington typewriter was the basis for today's typewriters.
Paper, held between a rubber platten and a rubber cylinder, moved
from right to left with a spring as letters were typed. The paper
could be returned to its original position using a lever which also
revolved the platen one line. The typebars were circular in format,
and when a key on the front of the typewriter was pressed, a typebar
would strike an inked ribbon of cloth between the platen and the
paper.
Invented in 1925, electric typewriters were used in essentially
the same manner except that the mechanism which lifted and struck
the typebar was now motor driven, as were the carriage returns.
Since keys now simply started the electrical mechanism, it was no
longer necessary to hit them with force, allowing the typist to
type more quickly and easily. More advanced electric typewriters
have extremely good corrective features as well as automatic alignment,
foreign characters, and varying typefaces. However, typewriters
have now essentially been replaced by the personal computer, which
allows a typist to have infinitely more control over the printed
input and output.
45000 BCE to 1605 CE | 1621 to 1807 | 1814 to 1838 | 1839 to 1858 | 1860 to 1877 | 1878 to 1891 | 1893 to 1920 | 1920 to 1937 | 1930 to 1965 | 1965 to 1996
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