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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and

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Speaker 1: a lot of all things tech. It is time for

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Speaker 1: a tech Stuff plastic episode. This episode originally published on

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Speaker 1: December twenty second, two thousand fourteen, and it's very alliterative.

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Speaker 1: The title is text Stuff Tackles Typewriters. So this time

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk again sort of a historical look,

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Speaker 1: but now we're going to look at typewriters, which actually

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Speaker 1: have a slight connection to sewing machines as it turns out.

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Speaker 1: But in order to look at this, I thought we'd

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Speaker 1: look at sort of the history of type setting. And

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Speaker 1: to do that you got to go back to the

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Speaker 1: fifteenth century. Yeah, we're all the way back, and it's

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Speaker 1: one of those things, uh, and we'll talk about it.

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Speaker 1: But I have often heard people ask like, why didn't

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Speaker 1: the typewriter happen sooner? Yeah, we're going to touch on that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so way back in the fifteenth century, that's when uh,

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Speaker 1: John Gutenberg, when Johann Gutenberg began to experiment with printing techniques,

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Speaker 1: and by the fourteen fifties, he had actually developed the

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Speaker 1: famous printing press produced the Gutenberg Bible, probably the most

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Speaker 1: famous book from the medieval era, simply because it was

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Speaker 1: well medieval Renaissance era, simply because it was the first

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Speaker 1: one to be mass produced in a rapid particularly compared

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Speaker 1: to the other round. Rappid with air quotes is definitely

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Speaker 1: the way to go. But you didn't have to have

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Speaker 1: a school of monks hand illuminating scripts in order to

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Speaker 1: come out with copies of something, and we wouldn't really

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Speaker 1: need a typewriter. However, this was, you know, meant to

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Speaker 1: produce things on a mass scale, like a single document

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Speaker 1: on a mass scale. It wasn't meant to be uh,

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Speaker 1: for one off, right, you weren't going to to type

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Speaker 1: set a letter to your wife, dearest wife. How romantic

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Speaker 1: would that be? Though? Right? H I employed three clerks

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Speaker 1: in the efforts I make too right to you to

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Speaker 1: tell you my tub regulosis as settled. And no, that

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Speaker 1: was not the way things worked. But one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons why we didn't see a need for this sort

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Speaker 1: of thing to to creep into other areas, like the

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Speaker 1: idea of can we make a device like a printing press.

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Speaker 1: But for a personal use is that? Uh, Well, First,

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Speaker 1: until the Industrial Revolution, there was no way to create

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing on a mass scale, right, And

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Speaker 1: you couldn't really go out and churn out a dozen

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Speaker 1: typewriters in a day back in the technology of the

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Speaker 1: mid century yet. But even if there were. The other

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Speaker 1: part was that late particularly in Europe, was really cheap

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Speaker 1: and there was not really a need to go and

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Speaker 1: find a labor saving device for a person because there

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Speaker 1: were plenty of people. There were plenty of people who

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Speaker 1: were starving, and you could pay them a haypenny for

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Speaker 1: them to write down what you assuming they could write that,

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Speaker 1: they could write down what you wanted them to say. So, um,

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Speaker 1: but it would it wouldn't be too much longer. I mean,

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Speaker 1: still pretty early when you look at the first patent

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Speaker 1: or patent as the case may be, for a typewriter,

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Speaker 1: which dates all the way back to seventeen fourteen. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so we jumped forward like three hundred years, but again

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Speaker 1: nothing still an abundance of people very happy to do

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Speaker 1: things in that time when they were not you know,

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Speaker 1: stumbling around dying or or or making one another die. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then in seventeen fourteen. H there was, as you said,

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Speaker 1: the first patent for Henry Mill, and that was issued

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Speaker 1: by Queen Nan of Great Britain, of course, and that

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Speaker 1: patent uh described an artificial machine or method for the

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Speaker 1: impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively, one after another,

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Speaker 1: as in writing, whereby all writings whatsoever may be engrossed

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Speaker 1: in paper or parchment, so that the said machine or

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Speaker 1: method maybe of great use in settlements and public records,

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Speaker 1: the impression being deeper and more lasting than any other writing,

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Speaker 1: and not to be erased or counterfeited without manifest discovery. Yep,

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Speaker 1: that's uh. That's patent language, guys. You can tell that

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Speaker 1: that dates from seventeen fourteen, and patents have become no

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Speaker 1: less obtuse in that time. That's downright clear and brief

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Speaker 1: compared to a lot of modernor's. And as is often

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Speaker 1: the case, the more words there are, the less we

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Speaker 1: know about what actually happened in historical patents. Yeah, in

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Speaker 1: this case, we have no surviving illustrations or model. As

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Speaker 1: far as we know. Mill never built one of these things.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps he did, but if he did, there's no record

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Speaker 1: of it. So most of the sources I've read have

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Speaker 1: essentially said there's there. It was never probably never in so,

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Speaker 1: but still it shows that people as far back as

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Speaker 1: the early eighteenth century we're thinking about creating a machine

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Speaker 1: that would allow for the writing of words in a

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Speaker 1: in a mechanized fashion. Then we moved to forward another

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Speaker 1: century to eight and we have an Italian inventor, Pellegrin

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Speaker 1: no Turi, and he creates a typing machine for the

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Speaker 1: Countess Carolina Fantoni. D Well, sorry not daz vivizan o man.

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Speaker 1: My Italian is terrible. My Germans only slightly worse. Um,

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Speaker 1: at least I didn't try and throw in one of

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Speaker 1: those terrible like like over the top stereotypical Italian accents,

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Speaker 1: as I am wont to do. But it was interesting.

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Speaker 1: You know. He made this for the countess for a

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Speaker 1: specific reason. Yeah, she could not handwrite because she had

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Speaker 1: lost her vision. Yeah, so he created this device for her.

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Speaker 1: We don't know what this particular device looked like. No

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Speaker 1: model survives. However, unlike the case with mill we know

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Speaker 1: that it existed because there are still uh examples of

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Speaker 1: the letters that the countess wrote on this device. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would give anything to see how it worked and

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Speaker 1: how it particularly addressed her lack of vision, like if

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Speaker 1: it was a sort of a variant almost Braille type

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Speaker 1: situation going on, because there had to be feel elements

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Speaker 1: to the keys or should to memorize placement. Right, we

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Speaker 1: don't even know if there were keys on this device, right,

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Speaker 1: We don't know what the mechanism was for it. We

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Speaker 1: just know that it was a thing that would allow

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Speaker 1: her to write, and it's pretty phenomenal. Again, it's it's

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Speaker 1: sad that that's lost to history because I also would

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Speaker 1: love to hear about, you know, what actually happened. But

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Speaker 1: then we get to the point where the Americans get involved. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: as we moved deeper into the eighteen hundreds, things really

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Speaker 1: start cooking. The first one of note is William Austin Burt,

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Speaker 1: and he was an American engineer, and he was issued

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Speaker 1: a patent for what he called a typographer. And this

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Speaker 1: basically resembled a large chunk of wood and it had

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Speaker 1: sort of a clock like face on one side of it.

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Speaker 1: And according to this pattern, it was twelve by twelve,

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Speaker 1: so twelve inches wide, twelve inches tall, and then eighteen

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Speaker 1: inches long, so a little bit bigger than an actual

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Speaker 1: cube in terms of dimension. And then it was a

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Speaker 1: little bit clunky in its actual function because to type

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Speaker 1: a single letter, you'd have to rotate this lever and

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Speaker 1: then you would press down on it and make that

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Speaker 1: letter press against the paper, So you're kind of just

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Speaker 1: turning this dial to I try to imagine what it

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Speaker 1: would be like to like type an email that way,

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Speaker 1: and it makes me both laughing cringe at the same time.

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Speaker 1: There were a couple of things. I actually watched the

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Speaker 1: video of one of these being used, but it was

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Speaker 1: without any helpful narration to explain what was going on,

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Speaker 1: and I, honestly I could not tell how you could

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Speaker 1: make sure you were putting the right letter on the

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Speaker 1: right spot on a page. It almost looked like the

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Speaker 1: impressions on the page we're going willy nilly. But I've

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Speaker 1: seen actual letters that were written using the typographer, and

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Speaker 1: they look like a fairly not the not the neatest

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Speaker 1: type letter you've ever seen. But it is obviously a

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Speaker 1: typed letter, but neater than handwriting. Yeah, But however, it

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Speaker 1: was not faster than handwriting, so this particular device never

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Speaker 1: really took off. Also, there was a big setback we

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Speaker 1: talked about this, I think in our Sewing Machine episode

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Speaker 1: two we did, and it's actually come up in other

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Speaker 1: episodes we've done and stuff you missed in history class

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Speaker 1: that in UH six there was a huge fire at

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Speaker 1: the U. S. Patent Office which destroyed a lot of

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Speaker 1: historical records, including the only existing model of this device. Now,

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Speaker 1: there was a replica that was bilt and displayed for

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Speaker 1: the eighteen ninete Colombian Exposition in Chicago, So if you

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Speaker 1: weren't busy getting murdered by HH. Holmes, you could have

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Speaker 1: checked out the typographer. I believe that was the same

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Speaker 1: one as H. H. Holmes being active. I could be

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Speaker 1: wrong about that, but it seems correct, but I would

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Speaker 1: want to well at any rate. It just makes me

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Speaker 1: think of the Devil in the White City and a

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Speaker 1: fantastic book that everyone should check out about the the

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Speaker 1: exposition and also about H. H. Holmes. But yeah, so

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Speaker 1: at least there was this replica built, and I think

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Speaker 1: it was the replica of the Smithsonian I believe holds

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Speaker 1: the actual replica today and um I saw the video

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Speaker 1: of it being used in action, and again it didn't

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Speaker 1: have any helpful narration. The patent itself describes how it works,

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Speaker 1: but again it's using such obtunsee language that I could

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Speaker 1: not get the meaning from the description. Yeah, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of one of those things where if you had the

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Speaker 1: machine in the patent in hand and you could like

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Speaker 1: step through the steps and look it out, it would

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Speaker 1: probably become click crystal clear, right, I could be like

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Speaker 1: two elements of the key together. You cannot crack the

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Speaker 1: code exactly my it was. It was completely obscured from me. Now,

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Speaker 1: in eighteen forty three, we have another inventor, Charles Thurber,

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Speaker 1: who incorporates two things that become very important in later

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Speaker 1: h implementations of typewriters. He incorporates a movable carriage, that's

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Speaker 1: the part that holds the paper, and the carriage itself

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Speaker 1: moves as opposed to having to move the device around

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Speaker 1: the paper in order to print the next letter. So

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Speaker 1: you type a letter, the carriage moves a space so

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Speaker 1: that you can type the next letter, and then eventually

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Speaker 1: you have to do a carriage return so that you

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Speaker 1: can start typing again. Any of you guys out there

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Speaker 1: who never used a typewriter, and I assume there's probably

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Speaker 1: more of you than there than otherwise, since typewriters are

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Speaker 1: rarely used at all these days. You might not appreciate that,

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Speaker 1: but of course, you get to the end of a

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Speaker 1: line in a piece of paper and you have to

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Speaker 1: move down and across to the to get to the

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Speaker 1: next line, and that's what the character turn was all about.

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Speaker 1: Also implemented metal levers that stamped the letters or numbers

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Speaker 1: onto paper into his typing apparatus, and it was also

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Speaker 1: considered to be really slow and clunky and cumbersome, so

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Speaker 1: it never took off in the market, but those metal

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Speaker 1: levers would become important. The mechanical action of moving a

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Speaker 1: lever up to press against some sort of inked piece

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Speaker 1: of paper or maybe carbon paper, to then make an

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Speaker 1: impression against a blank sheet of papers that you stamp

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Speaker 1: whatever letter it is onto the sheet. Yeah, those carried

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Speaker 1: on for many, many, many many moons after that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was. And this seems like a good time to

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Speaker 1: just mention we're really looking at the early years of

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Speaker 1: the typewriter and we're talking specifically about mechanical ones. We

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Speaker 1: could continue that discussion and get into things like, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, electro mechanical and electric typewriter. That's that's an

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Speaker 1: entirely there like that would that would make a two

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Speaker 1: hour podcast. So we're really focusing on the mechanical ones here.

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Speaker 1: But uh, eighteen sixty seven is when we meet a

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Speaker 1: very important person and the way typewriters turned out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to give a little bit of backstory

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Speaker 1: on him because he is such a pivotal figure. So

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Speaker 1: Christopher Latham Shoals was a US inventor. He was actually

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Speaker 1: born in eighteen nineteen, so by the time he was

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Speaker 1: really kind of becoming a figure on the scene of typewriters,

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Speaker 1: he was pretty mature. He had apprenticed for a printer

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Speaker 1: for several years before he eventually became an editor at

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Speaker 1: the Wisconsin Inquirer, which was based out of Madison, Wisconsin.

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Speaker 1: And then he went on to work at other newspapers

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Speaker 1: as well and had them out and he even had

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a for a into a political career.

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Speaker 1: He served in the state legislature, and then he left

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Speaker 1: his newspaper time because someone very important sort of came

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Speaker 1: into his life, and that was President Lincoln who appointed

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Speaker 1: him as collector at the Port of Milwaukee. And so

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Speaker 1: in case anyone does not know what a collector at

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Speaker 1: a port. Is that's the person who is responsible for

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Speaker 1: collected import duties and taxes on goods that are entering

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Speaker 1: the port, and they oversee all those people that go

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Speaker 1: and do those things. I thought he was like a Somalia,

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Speaker 1: that kind of port collector, if only yeah, okay, Well

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Speaker 1: he ended up making friends with a fellow, Samuel soul

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Speaker 1: uh In. In eighteen sixty four, they were issued a

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Speaker 1: patent for a machine that would number pages. So it

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Speaker 1: was an idea. The idea was that would sequentially number

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Speaker 1: pages for like a book, So you would press this

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Speaker 1: button and you get three and then four and then five,

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Speaker 1: and it was considered to be a labor saving device.

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Speaker 1: But then another fellow, Carlos Carlos Glidden, who was also

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Speaker 1: a fellow inventor, you know, someone who liked to work

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Speaker 1: with this kind of stuff, looked at this and said, huh,

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Speaker 1: what if you were to, I don't know, take the

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Speaker 1: same principle that you created, but make it so that

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Speaker 1: you could type, you know, letters onto a piece of paper.

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Speaker 1: So you're using essentially the same approach that you're using here,

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Speaker 1: but now you can actually type in words and make

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Speaker 1: a mechanical typewriter yeah, and that suggestion pretty much change

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Speaker 1: shoals life forever. Was He then focused almost exclusively on

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Speaker 1: the typewriter for the rest of his career. And so

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Speaker 1: he produced a prototype this is around eighteen sixty eight,

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Speaker 1: but it could only print the letter W. It was

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Speaker 1: just really to show a proof of concept, and not

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Speaker 1: to my dearest woo. It wasn't like that, um, but

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Speaker 1: it was to see if he could actually do it.

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Speaker 1: And he did. And then they said, all right, let's

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Speaker 1: let's devote more effort into creating this, uh, this typewriter

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Speaker 1: and to try and make one that we can end

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Speaker 1: up marketing and patenting. Um. So in eighteen sixty eight

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Speaker 1: they had a typewriter patent issue to them two Shoals,

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Speaker 1: Glidden and Soul collectively, and Shoals was the primary person

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Speaker 1: on that patent. And uh, yeah, I love that the

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Speaker 1: note you have here that the first protes it was

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Speaker 1: similar to a telegraph key. That exactly is what it

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Speaker 1: was like. You pressed down, you get that little W

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Speaker 1: and you're like, just send all the ws you want now. Granted,

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Speaker 1: if you if you get the letter upside down, you

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Speaker 1: think it's just there. You go like, we had a

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Speaker 1: really good if you flipped your page a lot, it's

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Speaker 1: about it. And they did end up getting two more

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Speaker 1: patents issued in the following years because you know, they

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Speaker 1: were all inventors and tin careers, as we've said, so

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Speaker 1: they were constantly trying to improve upon it. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we'll be right back with

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Speaker 1: more about typewriters after these messages. So in eighteen seventy

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Speaker 1: we get one of the coolest, weirdest typewriters ever, Rasmus

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Speaker 1: molly Hanson invented what is called the writing ball. And

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Speaker 1: you guys, you need to if you don't know what

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Speaker 1: this looks like, you've got to go on a on

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Speaker 1: a Google image search or something pull up picture of

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Speaker 1: the Rasmus Mulling Henson writing ball or typewriter ball. If

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Speaker 1: that that will probably bring it up to It looks

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Speaker 1: like it could come right out of like a Clive

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Speaker 1: Barker hell razor Kin. Yeah, it's like Pinhead's cousin, you know, Keyhead. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: maybe that could be it. Uh So, Yeah, you look

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Speaker 1: at this thing. It looks like it's it's a sphere

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Speaker 1: that's been cut in half and it's got all the

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Speaker 1: little keys that stick out of it um and the

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Speaker 1: Malling Hanson Society, which by the way, is more than

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Speaker 1: a little biased, they call it the world's first commercially

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Speaker 1: produced typewriter, and Mulling Hanson received lots of different prizes

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Speaker 1: and recognition at various events around the world, mainly in

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Speaker 1: Europe but also in the United States were producing this

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Speaker 1: this particular piece of technology, and his version would evolve

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Speaker 1: over time. It wasn't just you know, it wasn't one

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Speaker 1: set and then it stay that way, but it always

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Speaker 1: retained that strange kind of ball shape. And the society

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Speaker 1: also claims that the key layout on the writing ball

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Speaker 1: allowed for much faster typing than the Quarty based keyboards

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Speaker 1: that would soon follow. So we still haven't gotten to

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Speaker 1: the point where the Quarty keyboard is a thing that's

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Speaker 1: coming pretty soon. But the society is like, well, that

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Speaker 1: keyboard was slow and and and laborious. This thing you

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Speaker 1: could type really really quickly. Now, each key was connected

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Speaker 1: to a piston, and the piston would stamp a piece

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Speaker 1: of paper, either through a carbon paper or InCD ribbon.

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Speaker 1: The paper itself was on kind of this curved um

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Speaker 1: uh setting like you would you would put it there

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Speaker 1: was these long sheets of paper and they fit on

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Speaker 1: this little curve platform that would ratchet up by by

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Speaker 1: piece by piece. So if you're typing, like facing the object, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's almost like it's at a ninety degree angle the

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Speaker 1: way that the paper is being typed. So you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: type this like you would on a typewriter where you could,

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Speaker 1: especially a modern typewriter where you can actually see what

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Speaker 1: you've just typed. You type out a line and it

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Speaker 1: would it would be like it would look like it's

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Speaker 1: going vertically across the page to you, but it's because

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Speaker 1: the entire page is ninety degrees from you. So it's

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Speaker 1: a really odd thing. And Terry Gilliam like, that's it's

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Speaker 1: a very Terry Gilliam historical film kind of piece you

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Speaker 1: would see. I would completely expect to see this in

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Speaker 1: the background during Brazil, for example. It would fit in exact.

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Speaker 1: In fact, when I saw it, I thought, this looks

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Speaker 1: like something from Brazil, or maybe twelve Monkeys. But Molly

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Speaker 1: Hanson died when he was only fifty five years old

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Speaker 1: in eight and he had an outstanding order for one

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Speaker 1: writing balls from a manufacturer, and the manufacturer, you know,

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Speaker 1: canceled it because the guy died and since that point

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Speaker 1: no one ever made any more of them. They are

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Speaker 1: collector's items. I think one sold for like a hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand euros at an auction not too long ago. There

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Speaker 1: are a few in museums. They are considered to be uh,

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Speaker 1: really lovely pieces for people who have lots and lots

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Speaker 1: of money, so not highly coveted in the typewriter aficion

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Speaker 1: auto herd. Yeah, and who knew there is one? Oh? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I actually I own a good old uh. I think

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Speaker 1: it's a owned a Rimington's and an Underwood and old.

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Speaker 1: Both of them are pretty old um that I just

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Speaker 1: happened to find it like a h an old uh

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Speaker 1: secondhand shop, and I was very proud of them. They are,

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Speaker 1: by the way, some of the heaviest pieces of technology

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Speaker 1: I've ever had to carry. Yeah, we have an Underwood

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Speaker 1: number five that has been in my husband's family forever

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Speaker 1: and it needs some work, but it's that's a backbreaker

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Speaker 1: to hook it around there. Well. One interesting thing about

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Speaker 1: the writing ball, apart from its strange shape and the

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Speaker 1: fact that it's supposedly was much more easy to type

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Speaker 1: on than the quirty keyboards, was that a famous person

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Speaker 1: owned one Friedrich Nietici. Did I hear the it was

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Speaker 1: a gift from his sister and his mother. That's what

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Speaker 1: I had originally read, although I never substantiated it. I

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Speaker 1: couldn't find a actual sources that said that was true.

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Speaker 1: That's what I heard, But I also heard that Molly

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Speaker 1: Hanson delivered it in person to Nietici, so it may

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Speaker 1: be that it was arranged by his mother and sister.

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Speaker 1: Is we enter the realm of myth occasionally, and I

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Speaker 1: think this is one of those times. So Nietzie his

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Speaker 1: vision was failing, so he needed to have something to

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Speaker 1: help him right. He wanted to continue writing, but he

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Speaker 1: could not really see to write out things Longhand. And

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Speaker 1: what's really cool to me is that there are scholars

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Speaker 1: who talk about how Nietchie's writing. The style of Nizi's

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Speaker 1: writing changed when he switched over to typing on the

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Speaker 1: writing ball as opposed to trying to write in Longhand.

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Speaker 1: And you might argue that that style could have been

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Speaker 1: affected by the fact that he could no longer really see,

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Speaker 1: but most people said that it was the actual mechanical

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Speaker 1: process of typing on the keys that changed the tone

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Speaker 1: of his writing, and Niechee's response to this was actually

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Speaker 1: that he agreed. He said, our writing equipment takes part

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Speaker 1: in the forming of our thoughts. So the way that

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Speaker 1: we are expressing ourselves, the medium through which we do it,

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Speaker 1: impacts the way we we expressed that thought. And if

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Speaker 1: we're writing, longhand, we're going to do it in a

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Speaker 1: different way than if we're typing. I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of people would actually agree with that. But it's kind

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Speaker 1: of fascinating those this early on in the birth of

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Speaker 1: the typewriter that we see someone make that observation. Wouldn't

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Speaker 1: he be fascinated by texting? Probably? Omg uh. And I

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Speaker 1: mean I completely subscribed to that mode of thought because

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Speaker 1: I know even if I change pens, my handwriting changes,

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Speaker 1: and the tone of my writing will change based on that.

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Speaker 1: If I have to write and pen, the tone changes

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Speaker 1: so that I write as brief message as I possibly

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Speaker 1: can because I'm left handed, so I smudge a lot.

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Speaker 1: But at any rate, getting back to in eighteen seventy three,

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Speaker 1: back to shoals And and his fully functional typewriter. Now, uh,

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Speaker 1: it was finally a real improvement here in the United

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Speaker 1: States over just writing things out with a pen. It was,

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00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:17,760
Speaker 1: it was faster, it was easier. And that's where we

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Speaker 1: get to the Shoals and Glitten typewriter. Yeah, as we

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Speaker 1: mentioned sort of where we left off with these guys

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Speaker 1: before we went to the ball, they were they had

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Speaker 1: additional patents. They had really sort of started to refine

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Speaker 1: and develop this thing, but they were having some very

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Speaker 1: serious money problems. They just did not have the capital

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Speaker 1: to start churning these things out on their own. So

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Speaker 1: they sold the patent rights for twelve thousand dollars in

396
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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, some serious money in eighteen Yeah, that

397
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:50,000
Speaker 1: is not jump change. And the company that bought those

398
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Speaker 1: rights was the Remington's Arms Company. Wait like like like

399
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Speaker 1: the gun. Uh, Well they did a lot of they

400
00:22:57,280 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 1: had their hands in many many pies. Uh. And so

401
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:04,080
Speaker 1: Shoals continue to work with Remington's on this on the

402
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 1: development of the typewriter, and the company had resources and

403
00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:10,440
Speaker 1: machinery where they could develop and manufacture things and it

404
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:14,280
Speaker 1: would eventually become the Remington typewriter, although the initially the

405
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 1: very first model that came out was still called the

406
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 1: Shoals in Glitten, right, And you know Remington make the

407
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:24,400
Speaker 1: joke about the company that makes guns. Uh. We talked

408
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:26,480
Speaker 1: about them, I think in our sewing machine episode, because

409
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,320
Speaker 1: they also made sewing machines. Uh. It was one of

410
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 1: the things that allowed them to say like, well, we've

411
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 1: got a lot of the we've got a lot of

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00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:39,440
Speaker 1: of expertise in making these machine parts, these fiddly bits

413
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:42,960
Speaker 1: that need to all work together, so I think that

414
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 1: we can take this on and uh, yeah, it was

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00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:48,600
Speaker 1: if we If you were to look at the shoals

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Speaker 1: and glitten typewriter, the first match to come out, you'd

417
00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:57,119
Speaker 1: see all the basic parts of typewriters that would follow

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00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: for many years afterwards, decades afterwards. So they it had

419
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 1: the keys that were linked to leavers. These were the

420
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 1: mechanical so you pressed down on a key would cause

421
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: the lever to pivot uh and hit a sheet of

422
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 1: paper first of course, striking an inked ribbon. So that's

423
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:17,200
Speaker 1: what actually would stamp the letter onto the sheet of paper.

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00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:21,879
Speaker 1: And uh. And however, you were had some limitations here,

425
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 1: like you could type any letter you wanted only if

426
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 1: you love capitals the right this is this is like

427
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 1: the constant. The first typewriters were like YouTube commenters who

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00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,199
Speaker 1: haven't figured out that the caps lock is not really

429
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 1: an effective means of trying to get your point across. Um, yeah,

430
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 1: there there were There were no lower case letters. Is

431
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:47,400
Speaker 1: all upper case. And it also introduced the now standard

432
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:52,480
Speaker 1: Corty keyboard. And you might ask, why the heck is

433
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 1: the keyboard like that? Why do we have this weird layout?

434
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: You know, if you were to look at a keyboard,

435
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:00,360
Speaker 1: just take a look at a keyboard, and we're near

436
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 1: you at the moment, you'll see. Yeah, you're right. The

437
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:06,359
Speaker 1: letters are not in any kind of order that I

438
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 1: would normally consider. So why is that? And there are

439
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,000
Speaker 1: a couple of reasons, or at least a couple of

440
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:15,160
Speaker 1: reasons that we tend to think of today. The real

441
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 1: reason is possibly lost to antiquity, but we can make

442
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: some guesses. I think it's a combo burrito of these reasons.

443
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:24,640
Speaker 1: I think so too. The first one is that one

444
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:28,199
Speaker 1: of the problems was that if a user type too quickly, uh,

445
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: the letters would jam up. Yeah, the levers would cross

446
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 1: one another, they get stuck. Then you'd have to unstick

447
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 1: the levers, get them all back in place, and start again.

448
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 1: Because keep in mind, this is purely mechanical yeah, So

449
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:43,920
Speaker 1: there is the the story that it was designed. This

450
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,400
Speaker 1: keyboard layout is designed to kind of slow you down

451
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 1: and not necessarily be intuitive, where one letter follows another

452
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,159
Speaker 1: the way you would anticipate. So it's still faster than writing,

453
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 1: but not as fast as you would like it to be,

454
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:55,959
Speaker 1: because if it were as fast as you like it

455
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: to be, it would all jam up. That's that's one story.

456
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:03,919
Speaker 1: Another one is just that the printing bars themselves, they

457
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: wanted to separate out letters that would be uh common

458
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:13,879
Speaker 1: combinations so together. You wouldn't want the T, N H

459
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: to to be placed so that the two bars would

460
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: be right next to each other, because they'd be more

461
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:22,199
Speaker 1: likely to jam one another. So you wanted to spread

462
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 1: it out so that any letters that would be a

463
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: good combination would normally come from different parts of the machine,

464
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:32,640
Speaker 1: which meant that the keys themselves had to be placed

465
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:35,040
Speaker 1: in specific parts. So I'm guessing there was a lot

466
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 1: of R and D that they did to figure out, like, well,

467
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 1: if we put the T here, where do we put

468
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 1: the H? Because the if the H is right here,

469
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: it's gonna mess everything up. I was gonna say, I

470
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: bet there is a notebook somewhere of like the most

471
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: wonderfully bizarre series of tests and notes on how they

472
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 1: could and couldn't arrange these. I can just imagine notes

473
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: like glidden tried, uh tried keyboard number seven and caught

474
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 1: fire today toss that one out. Uh yeah, So it's

475
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:07,919
Speaker 1: probably a combination of these two things. I personally it

476
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 1: maybe that they wanted to physically slow people down so

477
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,679
Speaker 1: that they made the keyboard awkward as a result, But

478
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: I think it's probably more likely they wanted to just

479
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:19,959
Speaker 1: get these letters as far apart the levers as far

480
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: apart from the most common letters as possible, and as

481
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 1: a result, the keyboard is awkward and thus were slowed down.

482
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 1: But that that was not necessarily the intent, however, I

483
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 1: don't know for sure. Here's my favorite fact about the

484
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 1: shoals in Gluten typewriter. Okay, it was made by Remington's

485
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 1: sewing machine division, And if you have ever seen an

486
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 1: older like treadle sewing machine, they often have these beautifully

487
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:47,200
Speaker 1: embellished little flowers and stuff on them. So did the typewriter.

488
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 1: And not only that, but the earliest typewriters they had

489
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: they were on top of a of a of a

490
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: pedestal like a sewing machine. It was like part of

491
00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 1: a of a table almost, and they even had the

492
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 1: least ones had foot pedals for the carriage return. Yeah,

493
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: and so you would make sense if that's your manufacturing equipment,

494
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 1: you have an engineer that goes, we can adapt that well. Yeah,

495
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 1: especially if they're saying, look how effective this is on

496
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 1: sewing machines, It only makes sense that we should have

497
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:16,399
Speaker 1: it where the same sort of thing works here. The

498
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: only problem was that they discovered that putting the pedal

499
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 1: it wasn't always reliable. The carriage would catch, it would

500
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,160
Speaker 1: be problems that would get jammed up, and so it

501
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: wasn't It wasn't long after that. I think it might

502
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:32,479
Speaker 1: have even been their second model where they introduced the

503
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 1: hand powered carriage return, where that would be a little

504
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 1: lever on one side. When you depressed the lever, it

505
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 1: allows you to push the carriage back to a starting

506
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:44,959
Speaker 1: position and start over again. So whenever you hear old

507
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: movies where you hear the typewriting sound and you hear thing,

508
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 1: that was the indicator that you were getting toward the

509
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: end of the line. You needed to hit a character

510
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: turn start the next next page. Did you ever type

511
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: on a regular typewriter. Yeah, because I remember I would

512
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 1: hear the ding and I would try to keep going

513
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 1: as long as I could because I was an obstinate.

514
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: It was just you were playing chicken with the end

515
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: of that piece of paper. I was also young enough

516
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: that it wasn't really life and death kind of situation

517
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: I had. I had the typewriter I was using as

518
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 1: a kid was not It wasn't a hand powered carriage return.

519
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: It was an electric typewriter. But it still would do

520
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: the ding. It wouldn't automatically go to the next line.

521
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: You had to hit a hard return to do it.

522
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: But I did type on that kind of typewriter as

523
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 1: a kid. So there's a no here about this being

524
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: an understroke machine. Holly, can you explain to me what

525
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 1: that means. Yeah, So this is what's also referred to

526
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 1: as a blind machine. And the way that the keys

527
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 1: were arranged and where they struck meant that the space

528
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 1: on which they typed was actually covered. It sat in

529
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: like this little basket underneath the keys, so that the

530
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: type is could not actually see what they typing. They

531
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: had to lift up the carriage to check things out.

532
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: And you've probably seen that happen in movies sometimes, like

533
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: older movies, where you'll see the secretary typing away and

534
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: then she'll pause and lift up the carriage and check.

535
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: And that's what's going on, is that she simply could

536
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 1: not see what she was typing. Right. You would didn't

537
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 1: have any field of view of that at all. So

538
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 1: once you started typing several lines, you could see the

539
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,719
Speaker 1: things that you type ten minutes ago, but you couldn't

540
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:27,719
Speaker 1: see the actual line that you're typing at that moment, right,

541
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: which I would think would be maddening, But I guess

542
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 1: people adapt to anything. Well, yeah, I think I've finally

543
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 1: gotten to a point now where I can type without

544
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 1: looking at the screen and I can be fairly confident

545
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:41,240
Speaker 1: that I'm doing it properly. But when I was learning,

546
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: it certainly would have been a detriment seeing not knowing

547
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: if I typed, you know, something that was intelligible or

548
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 1: just gobbledegook um. An interesting little little point here. We

549
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: talked about Nietzsche previously with the typing ball. Well, the

550
00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: original Remington typewriter also had a celebrity uh consumer, Mark Twain.

551
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 1: He purchased an early Remington typewriter for the princely sum

552
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: of dollars back in eighteen seventy four, and then later

553
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: on wrote a letter to the Remington Company using the

554
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: typewriter that said he would stop using the typewriter because

555
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: he said it was a bad influence. I think he

556
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: said it was specifically it was corrupting his morals because

557
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:25,959
Speaker 1: it was causing him to swear so much. However, in

558
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 1: his nineteen oh four autobiography, Twain said that his first

559
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: novel was written on a typewriter, which isn't actually true,

560
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: because his first novel was Tom Sawyer and that was

561
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 1: on a handwritten manuscript. His book was not a novel,

562
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: but his book Life on the Mississippi, was typed, although

563
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: some suspect that by then he had employed a type

564
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: ist and that he essentially dictated the book to the typeist,

565
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: and that he maintained his distance from the infernal device

566
00:31:55,920 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: his moral high ground. Yes, he was, he was, his

567
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: his morality was reserved. Not long after the Shoals and

568
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 1: Glynn typewriter came out, another one called the calligraph branded

569
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,479
Speaker 1: typewriter appeared on the market, and this machine made another

570
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 1: little step forward in terms of technology, and that now

571
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: you could have upper or lower case. It was your choice.

572
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: You could use them both, but they had a separate

573
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: set of keys for each instead of like the shift key.

574
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: That was so twice as many keys. Yeah, wow, I

575
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: can't imagine what that must have looked like, dizziness, I would, Yeah,

576
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 1: it would have to be. So those two were clunking

577
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: around and giving people opportunities to type like the wind

578
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: for a while before in the Smith Premier came onto

579
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: the market, it to use the Corty keyboard, and at

580
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 1: that point that was becoming really standard in terms of, uh,

581
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 1: how typing machines were going to work, and so a

582
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 1: lot of typewriters at this point we're starting to adopt

583
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: this basic form factor, the one that we associate with

584
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: old typewriters, but not everyone. No, we're going to talk

585
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 1: about a really cool one. Yeah, and this really is

586
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: awesome if you take a look at some of the

587
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: ones we're about to talk about. Yeah, we're going to

588
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: take a quick pause on the episode for a break,

589
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 1: but we will be right back. So we're going back

590
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 1: a few years to kind of the middle of that

591
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: between eighteen eight and eight nine, where things were mostly

592
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: pretty much Smith Glitten Remington and then the Smith's premiere

593
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 1: uh to talk about the Hammond. And this did not

594
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: follow the similar design to the Shoals and Glinten typewriter

595
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: at all. It had this really unique looking curved keyboard.

596
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 1: It kind of made like a U shape, which was

597
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 1: supposed to be much more ergonomically natural for people. The

598
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 1: whole typewriter was like a giant circle. Yeah, and it

599
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 1: also used this type shuttle made a vulcanized rubber. It

600
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:57,719
Speaker 1: almost looked like a puck when you saw it, just

601
00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 1: inserted into the middle of the machine, and it used

602
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 1: that to imprint the paper. And you can actually remove

603
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 1: the shottle and put in new shuttles if you wanted

604
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 1: different typefaces, and you could also do different languages, which

605
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: is pretty cool. Yeah, you could do. It's like, for example,

606
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 1: if you wanted to do something in a European language,

607
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:20,760
Speaker 1: for example, German has letters that have boomblouts, or perhaps

608
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,280
Speaker 1: French which has accents over certain letters, which you couldn't

609
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 1: do with a standard American typewriter. But this would allow

610
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:30,840
Speaker 1: you to have that flexibility where by switching out that shuttle,

611
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 1: you could have a brand new typeface, whether it's a

612
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: different font or even different letters that normally wouldn't be

613
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 1: accessible to you. That's really forward thinking idea. Yeah, and

614
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 1: I sort of liken the Hammond as the typing equivalent

615
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 1: to the Apple Newton. This may seem weird, but come

616
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:50,799
Speaker 1: along with me. It had a really devoted following. There

617
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 1: were a lot of people that were like, alright, that

618
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:57,399
Speaker 1: typewriter seemed cool, but this is perfect, uh, And they

619
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 1: just loved it. It really seemed like the best ranch

620
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 1: of the technology treat to them at the time, and

621
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: there were a lot of people that use them for

622
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 1: way longer than you might have expected. Those things were

623
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:10,280
Speaker 1: built really well. They lasted forever, well into the nineteen hundreds.

624
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:13,400
Speaker 1: People were still using them, and I it makes me

625
00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 1: think of my friends that had Newton's that just insisted

626
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 1: on carrying them forever when other people were like, really,

627
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 1: what is that thing? It looks huge and clunky. You

628
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: shut up, it's my Newton. It just makes me think

629
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: of the Simpsons. Write it down in your Newton. Beat

630
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:32,879
Speaker 1: up Martin, beat up Martha. Uh. Yeah, And I love

631
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 1: that you have here that you know that his ideas,

632
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:39,879
Speaker 1: James B. Hammond's ideas were preserved his patents. He left

633
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 1: them upon his death to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

634
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 1: So that that says a lot too. This wasn't just

635
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 1: a utilitarian device. It was a work of art. And

636
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 1: if you look at one of these things, it really does. Yeah.

637
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 1: I mean, anyone who has that that they love, like

638
00:35:56,400 --> 00:36:00,399
Speaker 1: that steampunk aesthetic, something that that just looks differ has

639
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 1: a has real character to it. Yes, I think has

640
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:06,399
Speaker 1: a lot of appeal. Oh yeah, they're gorgeous, and part

641
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 1: of it is just like the curvy lines are just

642
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:11,320
Speaker 1: very sort of appealing to a lot of people, especially

643
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:14,560
Speaker 1: curvy lines in technology. If you look at it from above,

644
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:17,800
Speaker 1: based upon just the different elements, it kind of is

645
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:21,200
Speaker 1: like a smiley face. The keys are the are the mouth,

646
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 1: and then there's a couple of round elements that look

647
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:26,480
Speaker 1: like eyes. Yeah, I could see that. And they did

648
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:30,360
Speaker 1: keep making those even after James Hammond died, um but

649
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties, so those were being made for

650
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: quite a while. At that point, almost forty years. The

651
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: company was purchased by Frederick Hepburn Company, and the Hammond

652
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 1: was eventually rebranded under the name Vera Typer uh And

653
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:46,359
Speaker 1: which is sort of much less romantic sounding. I think

654
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:50,200
Speaker 1: of Hammond Organs When I when Vera Typer, I think

655
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:52,759
Speaker 1: of some sort of AlSi reptor. Yeah. And while it

656
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 1: was still the Hammond Company, they had also been producing

657
00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 1: producing a design that was more of a rectangular keyboard,

658
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 1: similar of the shoals in glind and they were kind

659
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:03,839
Speaker 1: of like, we'll cover the whole market, uh, And that

660
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 1: was called the Hammond Universal, and the Vera Typer once

661
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:09,440
Speaker 1: they had rebranded it pretty much went along with that

662
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: model and they abandoned that beautiful career design. And this

663
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:17,799
Speaker 1: also eventually introduced electricity into typing. I think that was

664
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:21,439
Speaker 1: the first one that had an electric typing function, right.

665
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: So I liked also that you have detailed out the

666
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 1: first time we finally get away from that understroke approach,

667
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:33,239
Speaker 1: the one that didn't allow type as to actually see

668
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 1: what was going on. Yeah. Yeah, that was the first

669
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 1: one that allowed you to actually see was the Doherty

670
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:45,439
Speaker 1: Visible in eight, which had front stroke and type bars

671
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: that set below the Was it Clayton Platin, I don't know.

672
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:55,759
Speaker 1: I don't know typewriter lingo. I have heard it both ways. Wow, okay,

673
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: but I don't know how much of that was regional dialect.

674
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 1: But I'll just cite Layton because I'm from the cup

675
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:03,880
Speaker 1: It was just anyway it hits the front of the

676
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 1: paper that way, and you could actually see where you

677
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:10,400
Speaker 1: could what you were typing. And uh, I think that

678
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 1: is probably the biggest advance before you get to electric typewriters, uh,

679
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:21,799
Speaker 1: that the basic system had. You know, it's it's one

680
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: of those things where the the basic design of the

681
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:31,360
Speaker 1: mechanical typewriter there were important developments, but it remained largely

682
00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:34,720
Speaker 1: the same for a really long time. Yeah, and really

683
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 1: like the dirty Visible is probably one of those that

684
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:41,719
Speaker 1: anyone listening that has ever seen a typewriter would look

685
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: at and go, oh, that's a typewriter, and I wouldn't

686
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:45,120
Speaker 1: really think a whole lot other than oh, it's old

687
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: and interesting, whereas any of these previous models, you'd be like,

688
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: that's a typewriter, but there's something really weird about it,

689
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: and it would be one of these other things that

690
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:54,440
Speaker 1: had not advanced yet. Does this is the typewriter have

691
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:59,919
Speaker 1: an accelerated Yeah, well, I mean that it's it's great

692
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:04,400
Speaker 1: to think of, uh, these tiny little things that we

693
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: would you know, in retrospect, we see it being a

694
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 1: huge benefit. But It's interesting just seeing people sit there

695
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 1: and say, you know, what would be make this device

696
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: really useful if I could see what the heck I

697
00:39:14,239 --> 00:39:18,200
Speaker 1: was typing. Uh. And there were other models that did

698
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:21,879
Speaker 1: the same thing, Like once the Visible came out. There

699
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 1: were of course many many other tin carews and companies

700
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 1: that were like, oh, of course we should have been

701
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: doing this all along. So a brand called the Williams

702
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: came out, and then a machine called the Oliver. But

703
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:35,160
Speaker 1: then this is also when I feel like the most

704
00:39:35,160 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 1: famous of the old old typewriters, I say with air

705
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,839
Speaker 1: quotes came out, which is the Underwood, And that came

706
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 1: out in I Love, I love the Underwood I have.

707
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: It is, like I said, incredibly heavy. It's one of

708
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: the earlier models. Probably not not. I'm pretty sure it's

709
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 1: from early twentieth century, so not one of the first

710
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: models that were released, but they definitely have a lot

711
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: of character to them. Um and uh, I love that

712
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 1: you have the origin story. It's like a superhero tale. Well,

713
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 1: you know, I always like when there's a little intrigue.

714
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 1: So the Underwood allegedly was born out of what I

715
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: like to call a business burn, um, which is the

716
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: the company that produced Underwood was originally a company that

717
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 1: just produced ribbons and carbon paper for other typewriters and

718
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:26,440
Speaker 1: type machines. But then Remington's, which was of course the

719
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: big player at that point in terms of the market,

720
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 1: decided that they were going to do their own accessories

721
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:35,879
Speaker 1: and they didn't need Remington's products anymore, or they didn't

722
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 1: need Underwoods products anymore. Underwood leadership was like, well them, fine,

723
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:42,800
Speaker 1: we're gonna make our own typewriter. We'll use our own stuff.

724
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:46,040
Speaker 1: I just kind of love that once again we see

725
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: businesses entering into ecosystems that, uh that you get trapped in.

726
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 1: You know, Oh, I've got a ribbon, but it's only

727
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 1: for an Underwood guests, I better go out and buy

728
00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: an Underwood typewriter. Um yeah, I wonder. I wonder if

729
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: they ever got to the where it was just cheaper

730
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:03,280
Speaker 1: to buy a new machine than a new ribbon, because

731
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:06,239
Speaker 1: that's kind of how we are with printers. I don't

732
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 1: think so. Yeah, No, that's that's a relatively new development.

733
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:12,800
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I mean between sort of from the eighteen

734
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 1: nine time frame up through the twenties, typewriters evolved a

735
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: little bit, but by the time we reached the twenties,

736
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: they had really completely homogenized, like they were almost all quirty.

737
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 1: They were all using a ribbon, They all had the

738
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 1: four rows or banks of keys and one shift key

739
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: like some of the previous ones that had multiple shift

740
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:34,280
Speaker 1: keys depending on which keys you were trying to switch

741
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: over to the capital or a lower case. This is

742
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:39,880
Speaker 1: where it kind of really all just smoothed out. And

743
00:41:39,920 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: then from that point forward we kind of stuck with

744
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 1: that form factor until we got to the electro mechanical

745
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: on electrical typewriters and then started looking at different ways

746
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: to imprint letters onto paper. But as I said, to

747
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,879
Speaker 1: cover all that would take another podcast, I did want

748
00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:00,080
Speaker 1: to spend a little more time to talk about the

749
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:03,840
Speaker 1: quirty issue because a lot of people pointed out that

750
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: once you got away from the metal levers coming up

751
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 1: and hitting the paper, because that that that held sway

752
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:12,319
Speaker 1: for a long time and typewriters, But eventually we got

753
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: away from that, then there wasn't as much of a

754
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:18,319
Speaker 1: reason to keep the quirty keyboard. The only reason was

755
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:21,319
Speaker 1: that we were entrenched in that form factor. You know,

756
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 1: It wasn't that this is what we're all used to

757
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 1: we'll just keep going. This is the way we've done

758
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 1: it forever, so we're going to keep doing it this way.

759
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 1: But people were pointing out they said, well, if in

760
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:34,280
Speaker 1: fact the Corty keyboard was designed to either slow people

761
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:39,800
Speaker 1: down or to put common letters far apart, so that um,

762
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 1: so that they you avoid this this jamming issue. And

763
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:45,720
Speaker 1: we now no longer have to worry about the jamming issue,

764
00:42:46,239 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: why don't we revisit the type the typewriter's keyboard layout

765
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:53,399
Speaker 1: and see if we can create a better one. No

766
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:57,760
Speaker 1: change is scary. Yeah, Well, early in the twentieth century

767
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:01,759
Speaker 1: we had Dr Auguste Devora who was looking into this,

768
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: and he came up with the Divorat keyboard. You've probably

769
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 1: heard about that, and in fact you may use one.

770
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:10,840
Speaker 1: There are people who use the Vorat keyboards. And the

771
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,760
Speaker 1: idea was to reduce the amount of movement that fingers

772
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 1: would typically need to make when typing. The idea being

773
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:18,839
Speaker 1: that if you have to type a lot, let's say

774
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 1: that your job is a typist, that after a while

775
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 1: you could really you know, end up straining your your

776
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: hands and hurting your fingers trying to use this antiquated,

777
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: ridiculous system. That is inefficient on purpose. At least that

778
00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: was what the popular belief was, and so he laid

779
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:39,399
Speaker 1: out the keyboard in a totally different way to put

780
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 1: the most common letters in the home row. That's the

781
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 1: row where your fingers rest, so all the vowels except

782
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 1: for why we're in the home row for the left hand. Oh,

783
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:52,800
Speaker 1: this was another interesting thing. So the quirty keyboard, according

784
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:57,799
Speaker 1: to Divorax extensive studies, favors the left hand over the right.

785
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:01,200
Speaker 1: That the most popular letters in the English language are

786
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: located on the left side of the keyboard and the

787
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: less popular ones on the right. So right handers, which

788
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 1: that's most of the population, we're having to work harder

789
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:15,000
Speaker 1: to try and type. Well, we left handers finally caught

790
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:19,760
Speaker 1: a darn break. Although once you get in the computer age,

791
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 1: if we're mousing a lot with the right, then your

792
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 1: left is freed up to do that typing a little

793
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:25,759
Speaker 1: bit more. Yeah, but that just means that I can't

794
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:29,320
Speaker 1: click on field for us right. Yeah, yeah, when you

795
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 1: get to when you get to the point where the

796
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:33,760
Speaker 1: mouse is involved, and then you get into first person shooters,

797
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:38,439
Speaker 1: I am left way behind. But the Devora keyboard tried

798
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 1: to put those common letter combinations closer together to make

799
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 1: it much easier to type, and DeVore did some really

800
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: extensive studies. He said that if you look at a

801
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: typical typing, you know, like you're to type out a

802
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:53,879
Speaker 1: typical amount of words on a piece of paper. Of all,

803
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:57,480
Speaker 1: typing would require keys on the top row, so the

804
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:00,480
Speaker 1: row above where your fingers are resting, thirty two percent

805
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 1: would be on the home row, and six percent would

806
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 1: be on the bottom row. Now, he thought of the

807
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:07,359
Speaker 1: bottom row as being the most difficult to reach because

808
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:09,640
Speaker 1: you have to curl your fingers in a little bit, right,

809
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: So he thought the best thing to do would be

810
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 1: to concentrate the letters that are most common in the

811
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: home row, um slightly fewer on the top row, and

812
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: then the fewest on the bottom row. So his approach,

813
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:22,439
Speaker 1: he claims, or claimed, I should say, he passed away

814
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 1: several years ago. He claimed that his approach meant that

815
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 1: you would type two on the top row, seventy percent

816
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: on the home row, and only eight percent on the

817
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:36,040
Speaker 1: bottom row, and that these would then favorite right handers

818
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:39,480
Speaker 1: instead of left handers, because why should I want to

819
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 1: type anything? Uh? Now, now, you can't really find a

820
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:47,240
Speaker 1: whole divorate keyboards out there, although a lot of operating

821
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 1: systems support Divorat keyboards and then and they have for years.

822
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,800
Speaker 1: I mean there were you know, the old Apple operating

823
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: system not even Mac, but the old Apple operating systems

824
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:59,879
Speaker 1: supported Dvorat keyboards. So you might be able to find

825
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 1: setting on your computer and depending what operating system you use,

826
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 1: you could switch it to a divorat keyboard and uh,

827
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: if you really wanted. You know, you don't necessarily have

828
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: to go out and buy a new keyboard, but you

829
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,359
Speaker 1: might want to buy some stickers so that you can

830
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: write the new letters and stick them on top of

831
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:18,479
Speaker 1: the letters that exist, and then give it a try,

832
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 1: supposedly after a few you know, it takes several hours

833
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:25,040
Speaker 1: of practice for you to get used to the new layout,

834
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:29,799
Speaker 1: but once you do. I've heard, and this is truly anecdotal,

835
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:33,760
Speaker 1: that people have doubled their typing speed as a result.

836
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:36,760
Speaker 1: Someone claimed to have been to have gone from fifty

837
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,600
Speaker 1: words per minute to a hundred words per minute. Um,

838
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 1: just because it was so much easier and more efficient

839
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 1: to type this way. UM. I have never mucked around

840
00:46:45,600 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: with one. Neither have I. I have never used a

841
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 1: divorate keyboard. I type pretty quickly. I think I'm right

842
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:55,279
Speaker 1: around a hundred words per minute, So I, for the

843
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: sake of humanity, I don't want to type faster. The

844
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 1: smoke and stuff. Yeah, you don't car You never know.

845
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 1: I could summon Cathulu. It's one of those things. So

846
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,440
Speaker 1: this was a fun topic to look at. I mean,

847
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to look back at the development of

848
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:13,320
Speaker 1: the typewriter. Less less controversial, I would say than the

849
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:15,399
Speaker 1: sewing machine. Yeah, you don't get a lot of good

850
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:17,840
Speaker 1: stories about people getting punched in the face. No, there's

851
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 1: there's that one competition thing with Underwood, but it seems

852
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 1: like it was all handled in a fairly gentlemanly kind

853
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 1: of way. Yeah. Yeah, there were no pistols at dawn.

854
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 1: There's no throwing anyone down the steps like there was,

855
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 1: right right, and also the uh I remember reading some

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00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:38,279
Speaker 1: of these where. Don't get me wrong, typewriter enthusiasts can

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00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 1: also get a little a little raucous, because there was

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00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 1: there was one I was reading that was talking about

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00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:47,800
Speaker 1: how the Brits like to talk about how they developed

860
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 1: typewritera typewriters. Because you look at this patent from seventeen fourteen,

861
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:53,239
Speaker 1: but no one ever made one of those. Typewriters are

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00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:56,279
Speaker 1: an American thing because in America we didn't have enough

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00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:59,439
Speaker 1: people to have cheap labor. We were forced to work

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00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:02,400
Speaker 1: for ourselves, which is why we've built labor saving devices.

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00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 1: And uh, as to the the truth of that, I

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00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:09,240
Speaker 1: cannot say, but this was a fun one to look at. Holly,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me again for this episode.

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00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:16,240
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. My pleasure, My pleasure. Where can folks find

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00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:19,240
Speaker 1: your stuff? They can visit us at mist in history

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00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 1: dot com or on Facebook dot com slash mist in history,

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00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:26,880
Speaker 1: on Twitter at most in history. Uh, we're at pinterest

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00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 1: dot com slash mist in history pretty much any iteration

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00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: of social media. If you magically put in mist in

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00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 1: history will somehow pop up. I hope you enjoyed that

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00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: classic episode of tech Stuff as we talked about typewriters,

876
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 1: a story that I've covered a couple of times in

877
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 1: a couple of different ways, so it was interesting to

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00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 1: go back to this one. Obviously, the show of alls

879
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:51,239
Speaker 1: over time and occasionally revisit topics and that partly it's

880
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 1: because I think I can do a better job now

881
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:55,839
Speaker 1: than I did back then, and part of the time

882
00:48:55,880 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 1: it's because I've done, according to our publishing for them.

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00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: There are more than six d episodes of tech Stuff total,

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00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:10,400
Speaker 1: so sometimes I repeat myself. Hey, did you know sinister

885
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: means left handed? Anyway, Uh, we're going to wrap up

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00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: this classic episode. If you have suggestions for future topics

887
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:20,279
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, let me know. Reach out to me

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00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 1: on Twitter. The handle for the show is tech Stuff

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00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 1: hs W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Y.

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00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:35,799
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more

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00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:39,280
Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,

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00:49:39,400 --> 00:49:42,560
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.