myTypewriter.com - Your source of classic typewriters, supplies, accessories and information. Evenness of arrangement of printed letters on any given line. B Bail Rolls Rubber or composition rollers mounted upon a frame assembly that press lightly against upper surface of platen and hold paper down while being fed through typewriter. Base Rail The rail or track upon which carriage and its component carriage rail rest and ride upon carriage bearings. Bearing A surface in which a shaft or pivot rests and turns freely while being held from all other motion except rotation. C Carriage The section of the typewriter that rides back and forth on the base rail, providing movement for spacing and mounts for the platen and feed rolls. Carriage Bearings Spherical or cylindrical rollers held between the carriage and base rails upon which the carriage assembly moves forward and back. Carriage End Stops Final limits to the travel of the carriage, both left and right sides, if the carriage has bypassed the margins through use of the margin release. Carriage Rail The integrated part of the carriage that provides a trck for the movement of carriage bearings. Carriage Release A lever, mounted on either or both sides of the carriage, that disengages the escapement mechanism and allows carriage to roll freely from side to side.

D Drawband A cord that connects the carriage end to the mainspring assembly and pulls the carriage across rails. E Escapement A gear or wheel assembly that engages the teeth on the starwheel, and govern the letter spacing. F Feed Rolls Rubber rollers mounted under and pressing against the platen, serving the purpose of holding paper tightly in position while being fed through machine. Key Lever The stem upon which the key top is mounted. Key Top A part mounted on the key lever that show the symbol or letter being printed, while being struck by the finger of the typist. L Lateral Guide A movable tab mounted on the face of the paper table that aligns the leading edge of the paper with the front scale on the carriage. Line Gauge A device usually mounted on the platen that indicates available number of lines on paper. Line Space Control A lever or tab which when set to different positions adjusts the line-spacing pawl to one, two or three line-spacing. Link Spring that provides the source of power necessary to pull the carriage across the rails. Mainspring Drum/Cage The housing that contains the mainspring. Margins Movable stops that adjust the length of carriage travel to the width of the paper being used.

Margin Bail On machines using an automatic margin setting principle, this a bar, equal in legth to the amount of margin travel, that disengages margin from rack and allows freedom of movement for resetting. Margin Control Manual means by which margins are moved to desired positions. Margin Release A manually operated key or lever that moves the center post out of contact with the margin, so that typing may be continued past the preset stop. Margin Scale A repetition of the front carriage scale, indicating the number of spaces on the line of type. P Paper Release A manual operated lever that releases the tension holding the feed rolls in place and allows paper to be withdrawn from between the rollers. Paper Table A metal cover, carriage length, usually over the margins, that serves as a support for that parrot of a sheet of paper not being held by the platen and feed rolls. Pinion A small gear, mounted on the starwheel shaft, that meshes with the escapement rack and transmits movement from the starwheel to the carriage. Pitch A term used to denote the number of spaces to the inch. Platen Knob Knob at the end of the platen shaft used to rotate the platen manually.

Platen Shaft A numerically calibrated strip on the carriage that designates spacing positions. Segment Semicircular mount for type bars. Shadowing A hazy impression of a character bordering on one side of sharper printed image. Shift Lock A pawl that holds type bar section in upper-case position. Starwheel A large toothed wheel, with the pinion mounted upon its shaft, that engages and hold against escapement gear. T Tabulator A mechanical feature on the typewriter that allows operator to select stops positions for carriage whiling doing columnar work. Tab Blade The part of the tabulator mechanism that engages and holds the carriage by means of the tab stop. Tab Clear A lever that restores the tab stops to neutral position. Tab Set A lever that moves the tab stop into an engaging position. Tab Stop A metal limit, one of many on the tabulator rack, that engages tab blade and stops carriage at preset positions. Touch Control A feature on typewriters that allows operator to select the amount of tension on the key levers. Type Bar The medium for carrying the type slug to print position. Type Bar Link The connecting link between type bar and sub-lever.

Type Guide A slotted addition to the segment that controls the position of the type bars at the print point. Type Slug (Type Head) Printing agent, mounted on the type bar, that contacts the surface of paper and creates impression of symbol. U Universal Bar A hinged bar, mounted in back of the segment, that is pushed by the type bars and causes escapement to trip. V Variable The part that unlocks the platen ratchet and allows the operator to select odd spacing vertically. Variable Knob The platen knob that contains a variable release. Vibrator The mechanism that supports the ribbon and lifts it into print position. W Content Here Typewriters | Article about Typewriters by The Free Dictionary Typewriters | Article about Typewriters by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Dictionary , Thesaurus , Wikipedia . typewriter, instrument for producing by manual operation characters similar to those of printing. Corresponding to each key on the instrument's keyboard is a steel type. Activated through a series of levers or an electronic impulse when its key is pressed, the type strikes the paper in the machine through an inked ribbon; the carriage holding the paper then automatically moves, providing space for the next character.

The first recorded patent for a typewriter was taken out in England by Henry Mill in 1714. In the United States the typographer of William Austin Burt, patented in 1829, was the first practical writing machine. An improved French machine appeared in 1833. The early models were chiefly for the blind and produced embossed writing. A practical commercial machine invented in the United States in 1867 by Christopher Latham Sholes and his associates, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soulé, was manufactured by Philo Remington and placed on the market in 1874. This early model had only capital letters. A shift-key model, permitting change of case, appeared in 1878. The electric typewriter, which allowed greater speed with less effort than a manual machine, came into use c.1935.

The Selectric, introduced by International Business Machines (IBM) in 1961, replaced the usual type bars with a metal globe that moved across the surface of a stationary paper holder, replacing the moving carriage of the traditional typewriter; interchangeable globes provided a variety of typefaces and special symbols, allowing a single typewriter to be utilized for scientific writing, foreign languages, or other uses. The globe was later replaced by the daisy wheel, which spins the proper type into position. These innovations have allowed typewriters to become versatile printing instruments, capable of storing entire documents before printing, identifying and correcting errors as they arise, and connecting to computers. Nonetheless, the typewriter was almost completely superseded by personal computers personal computer (PC), small but powerful computer primarily used in an office or home without the need to be connected to a larger computer. PCs evolved after the development of the microprocessor made possible the hobby-computer movement of the late 1970s, when some computers ..... Click the link for more information. using word-processing word processing, use of a computer program or a dedicated hardware and software package to write, edit, format, and print a document.

Text is most commonly entered using a keyboard similar to a typewriter's, although handwritten input (see pen-based computer) and audio input (as ..... Click the link for more information. software and printers by the mid-1990s; the machines are still used for specialized printing functions. Other forms of typewriters included the stock ticker, which recorded its message on a narrow strip of paper, and the teletypewriter, which transmitted typing over an electric circuit such as the telephone or telegraph. Typewriter a device for printing texts by making standard representations of symbols such as letters and numbers. In most typewriters, the printed character is produced when the paper is struck through an inked ribbon by a type-bar or spherical or cylindrical head covered with raised (convex) characters. The maximum typing speed, which is limited by human physical capabilities, ranges from seven to ten characters per second. Typewriters are classified as office machines. There are several kinds of typewriters, categorized according to their purpose: travel, portable, office, composing, and special typewriters. Used primarily by journalists, travel typewriters are small and lightweight. Portable typewriters, which are larger than travel typewriters, are designed for general use.

Office typewriters are used for high-volume, professional typing of texts and tables. Unlike office typewriters, composing typewriters have a typeface that resembles print, and they are equipped with variable spacing and with a mechanism that widens or compresses the spaces between letters. Composing typewriters are used to prepare texts for duplication by small-job printing equipment. Special typewriters include machines with several typefaces—single-keyboard machines with changeable typefaces (for example, the Russian, Latin, or Greek alphabet) and double-keyboard machines with basic and supplementary (interchangeable) typefaces. Also among the special typewriters are flat-bed machines for printing characters on drawings or texts in already bound documents. In addition, there are typewriters for printing special symbols—for example, stylized typefaces for computers, musical symbols, and the raised or embossed characters of the Braille alphabet for the blind. Stenographic machines are also classified as special typewriters. The principal components of the typewriter are the printing mechanism and the keyboard. Depending on how they are powered, typewriters are classified as manual (mechanical) or electric.

The printing mechanism is operated by means of a keyboard equipped with keys for letters, numbers, punctuation marks, mathematical symbols (+, %, =), and auxiliary characters (brackets, fractions, and hyphen, for example), as well as keys that control the register (the shift key), the tabulator, and the shifting of the carriage (left and right). The most frequently used keys are usually placed in the center of the keyboard. The number of keys and the kind of characters depend on the purpose of the machine. Thus, a typewriter for Braille includes six to ten characters; a Russian- or Latin-alphabet typewriter, 42–46 characters; and a Japanese or Chinese typewriter, several thousand ideographs. The typewriter has a carriage with a roller (platen) to set and secure the paper, a spacing mechanism to shift the carriage or printing head the width of a single character, a mechanism for shifting from lowercase to uppercase (and vice versa), and a mechanism for moving the ribbon. The tabulator, which makes it possible to move the carriage automatically to certain points relative to the printing mechanism, is useful in typing tables. As early as the 16th century, there were attempts to mechanize writing.

The first patent for a writing machine was issued to the English inventor H. Mill in 1714, but the first writing machine was built in 1867 by C. L. Sholes, S. W. Soule, and C. Glidden (USA). On the basis of this machine, the Remington Company (USA) began the batch production of typewriters in 1873. In 1903 the Underwood Company (USA) developed a typewriter that was highly convenient for production and use— the prototype of the modern typewriter. The first Soviet typewriters, the Ianalif’s, went into batch production in 1928.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s several hundred models of manual and electric typewriters of various brands were in production all over the world: in the USSR, the Moskva, Ukraina, Bashkiriia, Gorizont, and MPK-1; in the German Democratic Republic, the Optima, Optima-electrik, and Erika; in Czechoslovakia, the Konsul; in Bulgaria, the Maritsa; in the USA, Remington, Underwood, IBM, and Smith-Corona; in Italy, Olivetti; in Switzerland, Facit; and in the Federal Republic of Germany, Olympia, Adler, and Triumph. Automatic typewriters were developed in the 1950’s. Improvements in typewriters, which were stimulated primarily by a desire to increase the labor productivity of typists and improve the quality of typing, took a new direction with the development of computer technology. Many electronic computers are equipped with data input and output devices based on typewriters. World production of typewriters is growing steadily, with a trend toward the manufacture of an increasing proportion of electric typewriters.

REFERENCES Typewriter Platens, Feed Rollers, Bail Rollers and Finger Rollers - Platen, Typewriter Platen, Office Equipment Platen, Typewriter Roller, Typewriter Platen Repair, Typewriter Platen Restoration, Typewriter Feed Roller, Bail Roller, Finger Roller, Ames Supply, Corona, Smith Corona, Hermes, Underwood, IBM Selectric, IBM Wheelwriter, Xerox Memorywriter, LC Smith, Olivetti, Oliver Typewriter, Royal, Blickensderfer, Adler Tippa, Alpina AMC, Electomatic/IBM Power Rollers Typewriter Platens, Feed Rollers, Bail Rollers, Finger Rollers and Power Rollers **** NEW SERVICE ON POWER ROLLERS ( click here ) **** Strange as it may sound the recoating of typewriter platens and related office equipment platens and rollers has become a new service for J.J. Short Associates, Inc. In May of 2012, Ames Supply Company, who serviced the typewriter and office equipment industry for over 100 years abruptly closed its doors.

Soon after our email inbox filled and our phones rang with inquiries from typewriter users, repair shops and restoration buffs, asking is we might recoat their aged and worn platens and feed rollers. Our immediate reaction was of course we could help. Being a small family owned custom manufacturer of rubber products including rubber rollers, we generally deal with lower volume custom work. However, over our history we had had inquires for recoating platens and generally our pricing could not compete with that of Ames Supply, so our familiarity with typewriter platens was limited. We had those customers willing to have us give it a try, send us their platens and feed rollers to evaluate. With some learning trial and errors we were successful in our initial recoating of platens to the outright joy of our initial group of customers who thought they would no longer have a source, let alone an American ccompany, to restore their typewriter platens and feed, bail and finger rollers.

Since then we have learned that there is a larger than expected and dedicated group not only in the United States but worldwide who have not let the typewriter go the way of the buggy-whip, and we are pleased to offer our services in recoating their typewriter platens and restoring their feed rollers, bail rollers, finger rollers and power rollers. . Over time rubber will become hardened and brittle through use, sanding efforts to rejuvenate the rubber, contact with solvents and fluids, storage and temperature fluctuations. For a typewriter platen and related feed rollers this results in poor paper feeding and holding the paper in place. Also, repeated key striking will also impact the platen coating over time and print quality and ribbon longevity can suffer. For a power roller, a hard surface means lack of grip for the cams rendering the machine useless. We have found the right compounds and hardnesses for both the older model ribbon typewriters as well as the later model electric typewriters and the power rollers. After stripping off the old coating, we apply a new rubber covering and precision grind the face of the rubber surface to your required specifications. The result is a ï¿½like-newï¿½ roller ready for years of additional service to its typist!

A selection of makes models we have serviced to date includes: Remington Whether an individual or a repair shop please contact us with your typewriter platens and feed roller repair needs. Platens are priced by the tube size (ID, OD and length of the rubber) and multiple platen repairs using a similar sized tube will receive discounted pricing! Currently feed rollers, bail rollers, finger rollers and power rollers are quoted after we evaluate the particular rollers. For shops that can aggregate repairs of similar type feed rollers, bail rollers and finger rollers it works to everyoneï¿½s advantage in bringing costs per unit down. Please contact us or at 1-800-641-3511 to discuss your specific needs. We accept major credit cards and can ship US Priority Mail, UPS or Fedex based on your preference. Typical turnaround time is 2 weeks or less after receipt of your platens and rollers. If itï¿½s made from rubber, contact us !

A Brief History of Typewriters presents The concept of a typewriter dates back at least to 1714, when Englishman Henry Mill filed a vaguely-worded patent for "an artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another." But the first typewriter proven to have worked was built by the Italian Pellegrino Turri in 1808 for his blind friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano; unfortunately, we do not know what the machine looked like, but we do have specimens of letters written by the Countess on it. (For details, see Michael Adler's excellent 1973 book The Writing Machine . Carey Wallace's 2010 novel The Blind Contessa's New Machine is based on the relationship between the Countess and Turri.) Numerous inventors in Europe and the U.S. worked on typewriters in the 19th century, but successful commercial production began only with the "writing ball" of Danish pastor Rasmus Malling-Hansen (1870). This well-engineered device looked rather like a pincushion. Nietzsche's mother and sister once gave him one for Christmas.

He hated it. Much more influential, in the long run, was the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer , which began production in late 1873 and appeared on the American market in 1874. Christopher L. Sholes, a Milwaukee newspaperman, poet, and part-time inventor, was the main creator of this machine. The Sholes & Glidden typed only in capital letters, and it introduced the QWERTY keyboard, which is very much with us today. The keyboard was probably designed to separate frequently-used pairs of typebars so that the typebars would not clash and get stuck at the printing point. The S&G was a decorative machine, boasting painted flowers and decals. It looked rather like a sewing machine, as it was manufactured by the sewing machine department of the Remington arms company. For an in-depth look at this historic device, visit Darryl Rehr's Web site "The First Typewriter." The Sholes & Glidden had limited success, but its successor, the Remington, soon became a dominant presence in the industry.

The Sholes & Glidden, like many early typewriters, is an understroke or "blind" writer: the typebars are arranged in a circular basket under the platen (the printing surface) and type on the bottom of the platen. This means that the typist (confusingly called a "typewriter" herself in the early days) has to lift up the carriage to see her work. Another example of an understroke typebar machine is the Caligraph of 1880, the second typewriter to appear on the American market. This Caligraph has a "full" keyboard -- separate keys for lower- and upper-case letters. Click here to read more about the Caligraph. The Smith Premier (1890) is another example of a full-keyboard understroke typewriter which was very popular in its day. Click here to read more and see the machine. The QWERTY keyboard came to be called the "Universal" keyboard, as the alternative keyboards fought a losing battle against the QWERTY momentum.

(For more on QWERTY and to learn why "QWERTY is cool," visit Darryl Rehr's site The QWERTY Connection .) But not all early typewriters used the QWERTY system, and many did not even type with typebars. Case in point: the ingenious Hammond , introduced in 1884. The Hammond came on the scene with its own keyboard, the two-row, curved "Ideal" keyboard -- although Universal Hammonds were also soon made available. The Hammond prints from a type shuttle -- a C-shaped piece of vulcanized rubber. The shuttle can easily be exchanged when you want to use a different typeface. There is no cylindrical platen as on typebar typewriters; the paper is hit against the shuttle by a hammer. The Hammond gained a solid base of loyal customers. These well-engineered machines lasted, with a name change to Varityper and electrification, right up to the beginning of the word-processor era. Other machines typing from a single type element rather than typebars included the gorgeous Crandall (1881) ... ... and the practical Blickensderfer.

The effort to create a visible rather than "blind" machine led to many ingenious ways of getting the typebars to the platen. Examples of early visible writers include the Williams and the Oliver . The Daugherty Visible of 1891 was the first frontstroke typewriter to go into production: the typebars rest below the platen and hit the front of it. With the Underwood of 1895, this style of typewriter began to gain ascendancy. The most popular model of early Underwoods, the #5, was produced by the millions. By the 1920s, virtually all typewriters were "look-alikes": frontstroke, QWERTY, typebar machines printing through a ribbon, using one shift key and four banks of keys. (Some diehards lingered on. The huge Burroughs Moon-Hopkins typewriter and accounting machine was a blind writer that was manufactured, amazingly enough, until the late 1940s.) Let's return for a moment to the 19th century. The standard price for a typewriter was $100 -- several times the value of a good personal computer today, when we adjust for inflation.

There were many efforts to produce cheaper typewriters. Most of these were index machines: the typist first points at a letter on some sort of index, then performs another motion to print the letter. Obviously, these were not heavy-duty office machines; they were meant for people of limited means who needed to do some occasional typing. An example is the " American " index typewriter, which sold for $5. Index typewriters survived into the 20th century as children's toys; one commonly found example is the "Dial" typewriter made by Marx Toys in the 1920s and 30s. Much more could be said about the hundreds of makes of early typewriters -- and I do in Chapter 2 of my book . To get some different perspectives, try looking through my collection list or my wish list . For further reading, check out the typewriter-collecting resources . How does a typewriter work? - Explain that Stuff Tweet by Chris Woodford . Last updated: November 22, 2016. If I said "QWERTYUIOP", would you know what I was talking about?

Well, if you've ever used a typewriter, or looked closely at your computer, you'll recognize this weird word as the top string of letters running from left to right across the keyboard. The reason why virtually all western keyboards are laid out in such a strangely haphazard way, instead of in simple alphabetical order, is a historical one that's all to do with how typewriters work. So how do they work? Let's lift the lid and look inside! Photo: My first ever, portable, manual typewriter dating from about 1980. Note the keys running QWERTYUIOP. Virtually every typewriter and computer keyboard ever made has used this strange sequence of keys. What is a typewriter? If you're under the age of 30, it's quite likely you've never even seen a typewriter, let alone used one. Before personal computers became popular in the 1980s, virtually every office on the planet (and many homes) had one of these mechanical letter-writing machines. It's called a typewriter because it lets you write on the page with pieces of type: slugs of metal, with raised letters on them, that make neat, printed marks on the paper.

The raised letters are molded in reverse so they print correctly on the page (just like a toy printing kit or a potato print). What happens when you press a key? Here's the typewriter with the top cover removed. The keyboard is at the front. The paper moves from right to left on the carriage at the back. In between, is a complex arrangement of levers and springs. A typewriter like this is completely mechanical: powered entirely by your fingertips, it has no electrical or electronic parts. There's not a microchip in sight! So how do you use it? The basic idea is simple: you press a key (1) and a lever attached to it (2) swings another lever called a type hammer (3) up toward the paper. The type hammer has the slug of metal type on the end of it. Just as the type is about to hit the page, a spool of inked cloth called a ribbon (4) lifts up and sandwiches itself between the type and the paper (5), so the type makes a printed impression as it hits the page. When you release the key, a spring makes the type hammer fall back down to its original position.

At the same time, the carriage (6) (the roller mechanism holding the paper) moves one space to the left, so when you hit the next key it doesn't obliterate the mark you've just made. The carriage continues to advance as you type, until you get to the right edge of the paper. Then a bell sounds and you have to press the carriage return lever (7). This turns the paper up and moves the carriage back to the start of the next line. Photo: Two more views of the type hammers in a typewriter. Left: Looking down from the top of the machine with the keyboard on the left. Each hammer has two characters on it. Normally, the lower character (a lowercase letter, number, or symbol) strikes the page. if you press the shift key, the carriage tips up and back so the upper character (an uppercase letter or symbol) hits the paper instead. Notice the rows of levers that swing the type hammers toward the page when you press a key. Right: A close-up of the type hammers. On this photo, you can also just about see the springs that make the type hammers return to position when they're released (in between the silver-colored legs of the type hammers).

Manual and electric typewriters Photo: A typical electric typewriter. This model dates from the late 1990s. The first typewriters (and most portable typewriters, like the orange one shown in our first few pictures) were completely mechanical. A mechanical typewriter is a machine : everything is operated by finger power. The force of your fingers is what makes the ink appear on the page. That's why mechanical typewriters often produce rather erratic, uneven print quality—because it's hard to press keys with the same force all the time. When electric , semi-electric, and electronic typewriters became popular in the mid-20th century, they automated many of the things a typist previously had to do by hand. Most electric typewriters do away with the system of levers and typehammers. In some models, the type is mounted on the surface of a rotating wheel called a golfball. Other models use a daisywheel, which looks like a small flower, with the type radiating out from the end like petals. The keys on the keyboard are effectively electrical switches that make the golfball or daisywheel rotate to the right position and then press the ribbon against the page.

Because the type is hammered under electrical control, every letter hits the page with equal force—so a big advantage of electric typewriters is their much sharper, neater and more even print quality. Photo: A daisywheel from an electric typewriter (small photo, inset right) is about as big as the palm of your hand. You can just about make out the raised letters, in reverse, in the close-up photo on the left. Each character is on a separate "petal" of the wheel. The upper- and lower-case versions of each letter are on separate petals too (unlike in a mechanical typewriter, where the upper- and lower-case letters are on the same type hammer). There's another big difference from manual typewriters too. In a manual typewriter, the type hammer mechanism stays still while the paper (wrapped around a rubber roller on the carriage known as the platen) gradually moves to the left. In an electric typewriter, the paper and the carriage stay still while the golfball or daisywheel gradually move to the right. When you reach the end of the line, you press the carriage return key.

The golfball or daisyweel whizzes back to the extreme left position and the paper turns up a line. Making mistakes Typing mistakes are one of the biggest problems with mechanical typewriters. If you hit the wrong key, it's already too late: you've made a permanent mark on the page. Similarly, if you change your mind about what you wanted to write, you can't easily erase what you've written. There are three ways around this difficulty. One is to use a special eraser to remove the type marks. It works just like a pencil eraser, but it rubs ink away instead of pencil. Another option is to use a correction fluid like Liquid Paper or Tippex (effectively a quick-drying white paint that covers up your mistakes). When electric typewriters appeared, they offered a much more convenient, third option: many of them had an auto-correction feature. This is a second ribbon, made of plastic and with white ink imprinted onto it. If you hit the autocorrect button on an advanced electric typewriter, the print mechanism moves back one space and automatically overtypes the last key you printed using the white ribbon.

So if you typed H by mistake and hit autocorrect, the machine would go back one character, and type a white H on top of the black one—effectively removing it from the page. You could then type a different character on top. Electronic typewriters made typing mistakes a thing of the past. They're effectively a halfway-house between typewriters and computers: they look like typewriters, but they have completely electric keyboards and work like computers. They often have a little LCD display screen and the letters you type appear on there first. You can easily correct your mistakes on the display before printing anything out. Some electronic typewriters (like the popular Canon Starwriter series) have a large internal memory and a screen big enough to show about eight or ten lines of text. You can type several pages of text into the memory and play around with the formatting, just as you can on a computer. When you're finally satisfied with what you've written, you can print out the text or save it on a floppy disk. Photo: The Canon Starwriter: a typical electronic typewriter. This model dates from the mid-1990s. There's no ribbon in this one.

Behind the LCD display, there's a modern inkjet printer . Many more people have computers these days and hardly anyone uses mechanical typewriters. Indeed, now voice recognition is so advanced, some people don't even use keyboards! But typewriters were crucially important to the development of personal computers. The whole idea of a personal computer (a machine into which you type "input" and wait for written "output" to appear on the screen) is essentially based on a typewriter. You sit at a keyboard and peck away, one letter at a time. If you're using a word processor, what you see on the screen—letters slowly appearing and moving toward the right of the page as you type—is exactly what you would have seen on the paper in a typewriter. Why do keyboards have that strange QWERTY layout? So, back to the mystery we started with: why are the keys on a typewriter or computer keyboard arranged in such a strange way? Why not in a much more sensible fashion? If you've ever typed quickly on a mechanical typewriter, you'll know the reason: the type hammers move up and down so quickly that they can collide and jam together.

Then you have to reach into the guts of the machine to disentangle them, getting ink and oil all over yourself in the process. To reduce the risk of that happening, the designer of the first popular typewriter, Christopher Latham Sholes (1819–1890), rearranged the keyboard so letters often-used were spaced widely apart. For example, if you type the word P-R-O-B-A-B-L-Y very quickly, your fingers have to keep leaping from one side of the keyboard to the other as you go from one key to the next. That gives each type hammer time to fall back down and get out of the way of the next hammer that's about to rise up, reducing the risk of a jam. Now computer keyboards are entirely electronic, there's no reason at all to keep the QWERTY keyboard layout. We keep it because most people know it—and for no other reason. It's a charming quirk of history—and long may it remain so! Artwork: Modern typewriters are recognizably descended from the typewriter patented by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1896.

You can see the keys at the front, the typehammers arranged in a circle underneath the carriage, and the spools of ribbon on the extreme left and right. Artwork from US Patent 559,756: Type-writing machine by Christopher Latham Sholes courtesy of US Patent and Trademark Office. Where can I download a typewriter font for my computer? You'd be surprised how many people want their multi-thousand dollar laser printers to produce grubby, shoddy, typewritten print that resembles an antique typewriter: How do you do it? Simple! You just need to install a typewriter font on your machine. That means buying a font (a fairly small file, often with filename .TTF, which stands for True Type font) and installing it on your computer (in Windows, you do this just by clicking on the file). Where can you download a typewriter font? Nip over to the Open Font Library and download GNUTypewriter ; alternatively, search for "typewriter" on commercial sites such as MyFonts.com and FontShop.com and you'll find dozens more to choose from.

Common Typewriter Issues Common Typewriter Issues Common Typewriter Issues This page covers some common issues that often plague vintage typewriters and their users. Some issues can be repaired with simple tools and minimal mechanical inclination. Others will need professional service. Problem: Paper won't feed into the typewriter. Causes: Paper release is engaged Flat spots on feed rollers Platen/feed rollers hard and unable to grip paper Platen slipping - has become separated from the inner core. Solutions: Check that the paper release is not engaged. The paper release is a lever (usually found on the right end of the carriage) that releases the pressure of the feed rollers from the platen. This is so you can straighten paper before typing since it oftentimes gets loaded slightly askew. Flat spots require replacement or recovering of the feed rollers. The platen also may need to be replaced if it is hard to the point of being brittle/chipped. Medium-hard platens were the standard platen sold on typewriters. A soft platen didn't allow a hard enough surface for carbon copies or stenciling. Soft platens are mainly found on machines purchased for personal use only.

If the platen is cosmetically good, it may only need to be cleaned and reconditioned. If it's chipped, cracked or slipping, it will need to be replaced prior to use. You should also always use two sheets of 24 lb paper when typing. This will provide the best copy and protect the type face and platen from damage. Problem: Carriage doesn't move when typing. Escapement damaged/frozen/out of adjustment Solutions: The carriage lock may be hard to locate or be of a design that is nearly impossible to figure out on your own. Refer to your owner's manual if you have one. Underwood portables have a simple carriage catch on the left side right below the carriage. Move the carriage to the right a few inches to disengage. Remington portables have two systems. Early portables require the sliding out of the platen shaft/knob on the right end of the carriage. The lock lever is located on the left end of the carriage and is spooned against the left side carriage release lever. Newer Remington's(Model 5/Streamliner/Deluxe) have a small lever on the left end of the carriage located in the same spot as the earlier models.

There is a little ball on top of the lever. Push the lever to the rear to disengage the lock. I always mark the release lever with green tape prior to shipping. Always check your margin stops! This is another way to lock a carriage for transport. The margins are located on the top rear of the carriage. There are several different methods but the principle is the same. Most early portable margins are set by pushing down on the margin stop and then sliding it to the desired position. If they are set to center, move them toward the ends of the carriage. If the drawstring/drawband is broken, you might be able to replace it yourself with some 60 lb fishing line or shoe lace and patience. I like fishing line because it won't stretch (if you use the heavier weight) and is impervious to oil. To replace the drawstring, you will need to remove the broken string (take notes/pictures of how it's attached both at the end of the carriage and the mainspring!) and attach the new line. Manually wind the mainspring drum (surgical gloves come in handy here for grip) approximately 5 full turns or until it can't be turned anymore.

If you max out the mainspring, back it off one full turn. If the drum slips through your fingers, it will likely give you a nasty cut. Attempt this repair at your own risk. Most shops - those that are still in business - will charge less than $40 for this service. Mainspring repair/replacement is costly and must be performed by a professional in most cases. Problem: Keys stick or jam. Segment type bar wire is rusted Type guide is misaligned Typing too fast Solutions: If only a few keys are sticking, then it's likely the type bars have been bent. Slowly press the key and look at the center point as the type bar rises. The forked chrome piece in the middle (right in front of the ribbon) is the type bar guide. It helps align the type bar during the last second before striking. If one key is sticking, it is likely hitting one side of the guide. See which side it's hitting and VERY gently push/bend the type bar in the opposite direction. Type bars are easy to bend and you might break one off if you apply too much pressure. Once you get the bar back in proper position, it will no longer stick.

If type bars are sticking in various positions during the striking phase, the segment (slotted curved aluminum piece below the strike point) is usually dirty. Many people say "just add some oil" but that is a bad idea. The oil will bind with the gunk and your typewriter will get worse in a short period of time. You need to try to remove as much dirt and debris as possible BEFORE adding any oil. This can be accomplished in many ways with many items; Q-tips, art brushes, test tube brushes, etc. A small flashlight will also be useful. Once the dirt has been removed, apply generous amounts of WD-40 or machine oil. Type a full line of each character working the oil into the segment slots. After all parts are moving smoothly, remove any excess oil using the same methods as removing the dirt/debris. This service can be performed for less than $100 at most shops. This is not a full refurbish but a simple cleaning/servicing. When multiple type bars jam at the printing point, you're typing too fast. You have to allow each type bar to almost return to the resting position before you strike the next key.

When you type too fast, the type bars collide in the middle and jam. You may also see characters overlapping each other without the keys jamming (and skipping of the carriage). You're typing just slow enough for the type bars to miss each other but too fast for the carriage to move to the next space and lock before the next character hits. You're basically hitting the platen while it's moving. Manual typewriters are a precision instrument as well as a work of art. There is a rhythm that must be found to type fast and accurately. It takes practice so don't give up! If all the type bars stick at the printing point, then the type guide or segment is misaligned or the type bar wire is rusted. This adjustment/replacement should be performed by a professional repairman. The cost will vary greatly from shop to shop. Prices as high as $400 have been reported for this service. Run from those places! Problem: Ribbon is not printing. Causes: Ribbon is old and dry Ribbon vibrator set to "white" Ribbon spool isn't rotating while typing Type bar/face angle or segment misaligned Solutions: Replace the ribbon with a new one. Avoid large retail store ribbons.

Sometimes they have been on the shelf for years. You should also avoid Ko-Rec-Type brand ribbons. They went out of business December of 2008 and I bought all of their inventory. Anyone selling Ko-Rec-Type today is selling really old product. New ribbon should not cost more than $9 per ribbon including shipping to Lower 48 US addresses. Many sellers charge $12 - $17 per ribbon including shipping. They will also list ribbons for $2.99 but charge $6 or $7 for shipping. I sell 2 ribbons for $18.95 or 6 ribbons for $40.95. Those prices include free USPS Priority shipping to Lower 48 US addresses. The ribbon vibrator is the part that moves the ribbon up and down while typing. There are usually three settings on a typewriter: Red - for typing on the lower 1/2 of the ribbon when using a black/red ribbon Black(blue dot) - for typing on the upper half of the ribbon White - for disengaging the vibrator. The white setting was used for stenciling. It's now used for realigning the page after a correction. These settings can get changed during shipping.

Move the lever back to "blue" to engage the vibrator. P.S. - There was no white ribbon ;-) The ribbon spool is rotated by a gear system. There could be several issues (loose gears, broken gear teeth, missing/broken springs, missing parts), all of which need a professional to adjust/repair. Adjusting the type bar/face angles or segment should be performed by a professional. Typing too fast or too hard(jarring machine) Solutions: Usually a random skipping carriage(when the carriage skips a space while typing (T hank you for the flowe rs) means you're typing too fast or hard. You may also be bumping the space bar with the key levers or vibration from the force of your stroke is advancing the carriage. Proper posture and hand position is key to successful typing. Unlike using a computer, your fingers need to be arched so that you have a clean downward stroke. You really can't type the same way on a typewriter as on a computer. Again, practice is important. Luckily, it doesn't take long to become a great typist ;-) Let's test for the other causes. Type one character 24 times in a row.

If the skips are at the same space each time, then one or more of the teeth on the escapement wheel are broken off. Here's an example; HHHHH(skip)HHHHH(skip)HHHHH(skip)HHHHH(skip). One space means one tooth, double space means two. This is a major issue and will cost hundreds to have repaired. You now own a parts machine. If the skipping occurs only in one place; Now is the time for al l go od me n to come to the aide of their party. O ne n ation un der God, indivisible, with libe rty and j us tice for all. then the rack bar teeth are worn. That's not major surgery, but you'll need an exact replacement from the same make and model for most repairs. It will also need to be the same font size as the one being repaired. Expect $150+ to repair. If the carriage is loose, it will also sometimes skip. There are several issues related to a loose carriage and, again, it will be costly to repair. These are all fairly common problems with "as is" typewriters.

If you have the special tools and knowledge to fix them, then it's just another day at the office :-) oz.Typewriter: HOW THE TYPEWRITER GOT ITS PLATEN Friday, 20 January 2012 HOW THE TYPEWRITER GOT ITS PLATEN “Hey Robert, what’s a typewriter roller called?” a sub-editing colleague called from across four pods of typewriterless desks on the editorial floor of The Canberra Times. “A platen,” I answered. “Thank you, of course,” he said. “Six letters, starts with 'P'”. “Why, as a matter of interest, do you ask?” “It’s Clue 49 Across in the Quick Crossword at the back of Times2 in today’s paper.” To my utter astonishment, I subsequently found very few people in this modern newspaper office - and that includes printers - knew what a "typewriter roller" was properly called. If my friend, during the idle moments he had found between treating news copy, had been reading my column at the opposite end of Times2 in that Friday edition of The Canberra Times - instead of doing a crossword puzzle - he might have never needed to ask.

Indeed, he lives in Queanbeyan, a town just outside Canberra which is home to The Print Museum. There are plenty of platens in that building, and only a few of them are on typewriters. Beyond our small worldwide army of typewriter aficionados, “roller” (or occasionally “cylinder”) is today often used to describe a typewriter platen, especially by eBay sellers of vintage machinery. Similarly, there is a tendency to call typebars “hammers”, though this is not a modern thing. In many cases, however, components of typewriters are referred to in printing-related terms, such as “platen”, “typebars”, “typeslugs” and the “typebasket”, and that has been the situation for well over a century now. It is hardly surprising. The word “platen” (or platyne) was first used in the English language in connection with printing in 1541. It is a 15th century word which comes from the late Middle English plateyne, or plateine, a chalice cover, which in turn emerges from the Middle French platine, a metal plate.

The origins of the word are in the French plat, or flat, as in plate. Platen came to be used in relation to printing as a means of describing an integral part of the methods introduced by Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (1398-1468), above, the global inventor of the printing press. Gutenberg, a German printer and publisher, introduced modern book printing. His 1439 invention of mechanical movable type printing started the Printing Revolution. Therein lies a broad clue regarding the use of the word “platen” for a typewriter “roller”. So much of the key terminology relating to typewriters stems from the printing industry. And that’s little wonder. After all, early typewriter inventors such as John Jonathan Pratt, Christopher Latham Sholes and John Jones were involved in printing, Pratt and Sholes as newspaper owners-publishers-editors and Jones as a printer. But the use of the word “platen” in connection with the typewriter comfortably predates the inventions of these three.

Michael Adler in The Writing Machine: A History of the Typewriter (1973) listed Frenchman Gustave Jean-Emile Bidet (Bidet means a “small horse” in French, by the way) as the first person to add a platen to the typewriter – in 1837. On July 19 of that year, Bidet, a watchmaker of 117 Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, was issued with a five-year patent for a “mechanical typesetter”. Bidet’s typewriter, like so many others of that that time, did not take off, and apparently in about 1840 Bidet had the patent taken from him by royal decree. Perhaps in disgust, he took his watchmaking business to Valognes, Normandy, where he continued to be an active public figure. Metal platen, Noiseless portable typewriter Of course, Bidet did not refer to the cylinder in his typewriter as a platen. He was, after all, involved in watchmaking, not printing.

It should be borne in mind that Scientific American editor Ely Beach (above, in connection with Pratt’s machine in 1867) and James Densmore (in relation to Sholes’s machine in 1868) were the first to put the words “type” and “writing” or “writer” together. Until then, none of the inventions we refer to today as “typewriters” – dating back to Henry Mill in 1714 and including those of Burt, Thurber, Thomas, Francis, Jones and Pratt et al - were called typewriters. It is a mere convenience on the part of historians that we now do call them “typewriters”. Much more common words to describe these inventions at the time were “typographer” or “typographic machine”. Burt’s machine was a “typographer” or a “Family Letter Press”, Thurber’s was a “machine for printing” and those of both Jones and Pratt were “mechanical typographers”.

Thurber’s patent application described a means “for Printing by Hand by Pressing Upon Keys Which Contain the Type, called ‘Thurber’s Patent Printer’.” This use of “typography” in relation to most of these inventions points to a close alignment with printing. Indeed, most early “typewriter" inventions, it could be said, were seen to be for machines that might potentially be produced as “small printing presses”. Thus the use of printing terms came to be incorporated into “typewriter” designs. The first use of the word “platen” in relation to a typewriter came from an American pistol manufacturer, in 1843. This was Charles Thurber (born East Brookfield, Massachusetts, January 2, 1803; died Nashua, New Hampshire, November 7, 1886). At the time of his August 26, 1843, typewriter patent, Thurber was living in Worcester, Massachusetts. Thurber used to word “platen” throughout his patent applications. His original concept was, indeed, to use a “platen” in its original sense, as a flat printing surface.

Like Bidet before him, Thurber also attempted to incorporate differential spacing in his machine. A later Thurber model introduced a cylindrical platen – and, as with Bidet, the printing was done around the cylinder rather than along its length. From that point onwards, the typewriter platen was there to stay. When Christopher Latham Sholes came to use the word “platen” to describe the cylindrical printing surface on his typewriter, it was far from new to him. As a publisher-editor-printer, Sholes would have been most familiar with the word. And even when he gave up all that newspaper work to move to Milwaukee to be a port duties collector in 1863, he still couldn’t escape it. Cork covered platen In Milwaukee, at Carl [Anglicised to Charles] Kleinsteuber’s machine shop, where Sholes continued to tinker with his various ideas, Sholes met Samuel Willard Soulé, a draughtsman and civil engineer. Soulé was to set Sholes on his path to inventing, patenting and having his inventions manufactured. Typewriter histories credit Soulé with “aiding” Sholes to design and build a machine for addressing newspapers to customers subscribing by mail.

The truth is, Soulé had already patented that invention three years before Sholes had even arrived in Milwaukee. And in his patent application, Soulé had used the word “platen” frequently. Soulé, born at Pompey, Onondaga Country, New York, on January 25, 1830, had first patented an invention in 1855, when he was living in Oswago. This was for an excavator, which he improved on two years later while living in St Louis. On October 2, 1860, Soulé, by now in Milwaukee, was issued with a patent for his address printing machine (above). He then did join forces with Sholes, who had begun working on a numbering machine, and in 1864 the pair patented a paging machine (assigned to Sholes). They followed this in 1866 with a page numbering machine.

It is widely accepted that Sholes was working on the numbering machine at Kleinsteuber’s workshop when in 1867 friend Carlos Glidden brought to his attention a copy of Beach’s Scientific American, showing the work Pratt had done on his typewriter and suggesting Sholes give up the numbering machine to work on a word writing machine. The rest, as they say, is history ... Soulé continued to work on printing devices after he abandoned the Sholes typewriter project, and in 1872 patented a hand press while living back in New York. He was issued with a patent for a paper cutting machine in 1874. Soulé died of cancer in Brooklyn on July 12, 1875. While working concurrently on his typewriter, Sholes continued to patent designs for page numbering machines. These were issued in 1867 and 1869, both in his name alone. His last patent for the numbering machine, assigned to James Densmore, was issued in 1871, just before the first of his typewriters was made by a team under Densmore and Kleinsteuber artisan Matthias Schwalbach in an old mill in Milwaukee.

The word “platen” was used in all these Soulé and Sholes page numbering machine patent applications, and also in those for the Sholes typewriter, dating from the first two issued in 1868 (which included Soulé’s name along with that of Glidden). This is Sholes' 1869 "axle" design, in which his cylindrical typewriter platen is clearly seen for the first time. Below is the rather large platen as it eventually appeared on the Sholes & Glidden typewriter: By the time Remington mechanical engineers William McKendree Jenne and Jefferson Moody Clough took over the re-designing the Sholes & Glidden typewriter at Ilion in New York in 1875, they too were describing the printing surface as a “platen”. And “platen” it has remained ever since. TEARJERKER FOOTNOTE: There is a rather sad story told about Soulé’s childhood. Apparently his mother died when he was 12 and the family was broken up. Samuel's father was teaching in Michigan, and Soulé set out on foot to find his dad.

“It was a long and wearisome journey and he was often exhausted and faint for want of food. Sometimes he was overtaken by some farmer returning from market who gave him a ride. Sometimes he found passage on a canal-boat. Having reached nearly the end of his journey, he was directed to cross a field by a path to shorten the way to the house where his father was said to be boarding; but utterly worn out and discouraged he sat down upon a log and began to cry. Then a person came along and asked the cause of his sorrow, and looking up, he saw the face of his father. From that day, and as long as his father lived, they shared each other's fortune.”

Question: The cylindrical roller in a traditional typewriter is a?
Answer: Platen