The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-02-08
THE TYPEWRITER

1t has been said that about every man or
woman has some time in his life taught
school. In the present day, too, it is pretty
safe to assert that every person has at some
time tackled the typewriter Considering
the short time that such mach ne as the
typewriter has been in existence, it is
really wonderful how popular it aas be-
come. The first writing machine, the
Remington, was invented 10y G. W. Yost,
just fourteen years ago. 1t took mighty
hard work to make people "oelieve" in the
machine. "a machine 30 write with -
bahn' And so it was years before people
would have faith in such a thing.
1t took much longer, however, for the in
ventor to carry out his own lGeas To his
credit, be it said, almost every important
feature of the most recent typewriter, was
IN Yost's head when he built his first ma
chine; he only required years to develop
them, and never once did Mir. Yosl give up
his ideals. For instance, he recognized
from the b ming, that a typewriter
should be built on the principles OF print
ing press-the type first mixing itself and
then coming in direct con act with the
paper. Long he tugged at this aim-but ne
could not devise plan. So, as temporary
makesnift, he inserted a rlUpon between
| type and paper. His next struggle was to
get sufficient keys fo.' capitals, small letters
and numerals within small circle or 81 as
ket," that would not be too dig. No one
wanted typewriter the size of a tue. Yet
to make the bars heavy enough, required
too big "a circle. As another eXpedienJ TOR
the time being, he put two type on eacu
key, and then used shift key" to change
| from one to the other. 1t was ''mere
SHIFT" however, and at the earliest moment
he discarded it. In 1850 he invented the
Caligraph, in which capitals and snail let
ters all had separate keys, the rickety
'.shlft-key'' was abandoned and part Of the
problem was solved. But tnaj rIooon was
still there, woe be unto it! Besides, the
Calgraph was about as heavy and clumsy
as the Remington. Still such boon was a
writing machine that these two grew rap
idly in use and Importance, spite of their
imperfections. Yost pounded away eight
years more, trying to do away with that
measly dirty ribbon. But another fault
had arisen in the mean time that
put the ribbon IDLE into the
shade - after the typewriters were
used little their bars got bent or became
wobbly. Consequently, they wouldn't all
strike the same center, and the result was
an uneven, up and down line Typewrit-
ing was always distinguishable by this
problem home, too. In 1883 he accom-
lplished his task, and realized his ideals.
This perfected machine he called after him
self, The Yost. 1t used no ribbon, it had
no shift key it wrote straight as book
print, 1t was only about half as large and
weighed half as much as his other ma
chimes, and like 1.-The deacon's one boss
shay' it was made to stay. In the two
years it has been in use its sales have been
larger than those of any other machine
during the same period. In Salt Lake
alone, over hundred machines are in use
The prosperity of the machine is pretty
well evinced by its removal of headquarter:
from an obscure Office on second floor, tt
the finest location in Salt Lake, the from
Office on the ground floor of the Opers
House block The past week seven Yosts
were placed in Salt Lake, besides the ship
ments to outside points in Utah. The Ri,
Grande Western, ID. & r. g., and Colorado
Midland have all adopted it as their stand
ard typewriter. Word has recently beef
received that Mr.. Yost and his daughte
will visit Salt Lake next summer. 1t ha
already been suggested that the stenogra
pliers of the city unite in giving recep
! ton to the pioneer inventor of the type
writer.