Blog Post #4 - Each One, Teach One: The Typewriter

Once upon a time, before the internet, people had a much more complicated way of simply typing out a document. 

Behold....the typewriter!!!

The What?

That's right, a typewriter. This "prehistoric" device is a mechanical typing machine that is used for producing printed characters. Typewriters date back as early as 1714, when an English engineer named Henry Mill issued a patent of a typing device. Unfortunately, his patent was never recovered and the idea of a mechanical typing machine didn't resurface until over a century later. In 1868, a man named Christopher Latham Sholes issued the first completed patent of a typewriter. It didn't take long before every office in the world had one of these devices before personal computers entered the market. 

How Does it Work?

You're probably wondering, how does one of these weird machines even work? It's simple...well...not really. It's crucial to remember that typewriters are completely mechanical and are controlled by your own hands. Here is a picture of what the levers and springs look like within a typewriter. To use a typewriter, a piece of paper must first be placed onto the cylinder bar above the keyboard. To generate printed characters, the keys must be pressed using your fingertips. When a ket is pressed, a metal lever swings forward onto the paper after being hit by an inked cloth. As you continue to type characters, the cylinder bar continues to move to the left to create space for the following characters. Once the bar reachers the end of the paper, you must manually push the bar back into place by hitting the return lever. 

Sound complicated enough? I haven't even mentioned the worst features of a typewriter. Unlike our lightweight mobile personal computers and laptops we have today, typewriters weigh an average of 22 pounds. They are large and rather bulky devices that are basically considered immobile due to their weight. Not to mention, typewriters take a large amount of force when pressing keys to generate characters and are very loud in the process of doing so. But wait, it gets worse. If you make a mistake while typing on a typewriter, a delete key is nonexistent. Instead, you can either use white paint or white correction tape to correct a mistake. Typewriters also require a lot of maintenance and upkeep, such as replacing paper, ink, and repairing broken or damaged metal levers. 

From Slugs of Metal to Keys

Okay, so typewriters aren't completely awful. It's simple: typewriters solved ineligible writing. Also, thanks to typewriters, the mechanical devices soon evolved into the personal computers that we know and love today. It didn't take long for typewriters to spark the evolution of technology, as personal computers began to appear in the late 1970's. Typewriters have changed our world forever as we know it, making our lives easier and more efficient. Nowadays, everyone can type on an electrical computer device accommodated by the internet of course! We are all familiar with many of the features personal computers have that typewriters don't, such as a screen, mobility, and most importantly: a delete key! 

Today, our society is very fortunate to have immediate access to advanced technology. Most of us walk around with a smart phone, or should I say, a universal assistant, in our pockets. Therefore, it's pretty hard to believe that there ever was a time that the internet didn't exist. A lot of us take for granted the efficiency of the technological age we are in. Typewriters saved us time, allowing for people to type faster than they could write and have news spread more quickly! Where would our world be without computers? Who knows what evolution has in store for the next round of technology!