The glory of the typewriter has already sunk, but just recently it was truly grandiose. At the end of the last century, the typewriter had to pass the baton further - to the personal computer. But what was the first typewriter? Photos, invention history and design features - more.
First experiments
When did the first typewriter appear? The history of the portable printing device begins long before the twentieth century. Many people, together or independently of each other over the years, invariably came up with the idea of quickly typing a wide variety of texts. This happened for the first time at the beginning of the eighteenth century, namely in 1714.
Then the English Queen Anne issued an official patent to Henry Mill, an employee of a waterworks in London, for a machine in which the artificial method of printing letters allows each one to be placed separately and in the required order. At the same time, the text is printed on paper clearly and clearly. Unfortunately, apart from the text of the patent, nothing has been preserved.
The second typewriter was designed already in Germany in the fifties of the same century by Friedrich von Knauss. This device was not destined to become popular, the typewriter was again forgotten. Then it was Spain's turn. Around 1808, the talented mechanic Terry Pellegrino created his own typewriter. This device gave birth to love.
A touching love story
Terry Pellegrino fell in love with the lovely Countess Caroline Fantoni. The young girl suddenly became blind, but her chosen one turned out to be a faithful and rather enterprising person. For his blind beloved, Terry created the first typewriter. On it, the blind Carolina Fantoni wrote letters to her lover and composed poems.
The device worked as follows. With her fingers, the countess found a key with the necessary letter engraved on it, pressed it lightly, and the letter fell, imprinting the letter on paper through a carbon paper. After Karolina's death, the typewriter itself was lost, but several letters printed on it survived.
First carbon paper
In the autumn of 1808, Caroline informed Terry that she was running out of paper, without which she would no longer be able to write letters to her beloved. Thus, the enterprising Italian can be considered the creator of not only the world's first typewriter, but also the prototype of modern carbon paper.
Regular sheets Terry Pellegrino impregnated with printing ink and dried in the sun. After this touching story, various experiences in creating new versionsmachines for the blind are widely known in many countries around the world. To the bitter end, the typewriter began to be invented in the USA.
American inventions
In 1829, an American citizen, William Austin Burt, patented a typewriter for the blind called the "Typograph" ("printer"). Using a special embossing method, letter blanks left a clear mark on a thick paper tape. In 1843, Charles Tober received a patent for a printing device.
The inventor was worried about the fate of the blind. Like his predecessors, the American wanted to provide jobs for blind people who had not previously participated in social life in any way. Tober's typewriter did not resonate with manufacturers, but his invention uses the fruitful idea of \u200b\u200blever transmission of the movement of letters.
The next "first" typewriter is the invention of Samuel Francis. His 1856 typewriter had a movable carriage, and levers with letter blanks, and a tape impregnated with special printing ink, and even a bell that warned of the end of a line.
Other inventors
So who invented the first typewriter? In the middle of the nineteenth century, another prototype of a typewriter was created by an Italian. He called his invention "harpsichord writing", or "keyboard writing machine". It was a more modern device that allowed you to see the written text in the typing process.
In 1861, the BrazilianPriest. Inspired by this invention, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil awarded the priest with a gold medal. The father became the real pride of the Latin American country. In Brazil, he is still considered the only inventor.
Russian typewriter
Who created the first typewriter in Russia? In 1870, Mikhail Ivanovich Alisov designed a "quick printer", or "scribe". Its purpose was to replace the calligraphic rewriting of manuscripts and various documents. The rapid printer was quite suitable for this, for which he received high reviews and medals at three exhibitions: in Vienna in 1873, in Philadelphia in 1876 and in Paris in 1878.
The inventor who came up with such a device was awarded a medal by the Russian Technical Society. That typewriter was very different in appearance from most devices familiar to the modern man in the street. Wax paper was used, which was then multiplied on a rotator.
QWERTY keyboard
Different types of printing presses have gradually become more practical for daily use. The familiar QWERTY keyboard was invented by a certain Scholes. The inventors analyzed the compatibility of letters in the English language, and QWERTY is an option in which frequently combined letters are located as far as possible. This prevented sticky keys while typing.
Timeless classic
The classic "Underwood" appeared as early as 1895 and achieved dominance in the early twentieth century. This is the first typewriter in the worldwhich really received a stunning commercial success. Soon another classic model appeared. American Christopher Latham Sholes patented a device that, after several improvements, received the commercial name "Remington No. 1". These cars were mass-produced.
The Remington trade was hard until the Treasury ordered the machines. By 1910, over two million of these typewriters were in use in America. Even the writer Mark Twain purchased one printer from this series.
Serial production in Russia
In Russia, before the revolution, typewriters were not produced, but were actively used. Due to the pre-revolutionary spelling, the letters on them were rather unusual. Numbers were missing on portable devices, which were replaced with the corresponding letters (O, Z, and so on) when printed.
The first typewriter in Russia, which was mass-produced, was called "Yanalif". The device was produced since 1928 in Kazan. In later times, the most common domestic brands of typewriters were portable "Moscow" and "Lyubava", stationery "Ukraine" and "Yatran". From foreign devices, "Optima" and "Robotron", "Erika" from the GDR, "Consul" from Czechoslovakia, "Olympia" from Germany were popular.
