page_title: Typewriter
section_title: Keyboard layouts
hierarchical_section_title: Typewriter / Legacy / Keyboard layouts
caption_attribution_description: English: Typewriter keyboard which also shows the QWERTY layout.
context_page_description: A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters similar to those produced by a printer's movable type. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on the paper, by means of a ribbon with dried ink struck against the paper by a type element similar to the sorts used in movable type letterpress printing. On some typewriters, a separate type element corresponds to each key; others use a single type element with a different portion of it used for each character. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term typewriter was also applied to a person who used a typing machine.
  The first commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874, but did not become common in offices until after the mid-1880s. The typewriter quickly became an indispensable tool for practically all writing other than personal handwritten correspondence. It was widely used by professional writers, in offices, and for business correspondence in private homes.
  Typewriters were a standard fixture in most offices up to the 1980s. Thereafter, they began to be largely supplanted by computers.
caption: The "QWERTY" layout of typewriter keys became a de facto standard and continues to be used long after the reasons for its adoption (including reduction of key/lever entanglements) have ceased to apply.
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