Typewriter facts for kids
A typewriter is a machine that is for typing on a piece of paper instead of writing by hand. It has keys for typing letters, numerals, and symbols one at a time. Typewriters were created in 1829. Typewriters were originally invented to make writing faster and printing. The earliest typing was done on stone, clay, or metal sheets by inscribing them.
A typewriter does not have computer memory. As with writing with a pen, it is difficult to correct mistakes. One advantage is that many of them are not electrical, so you do not need to plug them in. Hackers cannot see what you have typed. On many typewriters, a separate type element (called a typebar) corresponds to each key. The first commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874. They did not become common in offices until after the mid-1880s.
Typewriters quickly became a necessary tool for almost all writing other than personal handwritten letters. They were used a lot by professional writers, in offices, and for business correspondence in private homes. Typewriters were common in most offices up to the 1980s. After that, computers often replaced them. Nevertheless, typewriters are still common in some parts of the world. They are needed for a few specific applications, and they are popular in certain subcultures. Early typewriters, and later cheap ones, were "manual" typewriters. This means they were powered completely by the user. After the mid-20th century, electric typewriters with a motor became most common.
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Images for kids
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Mechanical desktop typewriters, such as this Touchmaster Five, were long-time standards of government agencies, newsrooms and offices
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Peter Mitterhofer's typewriter prototype (1864)
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Typewriter "Adler", owned by Dimitar Peshev.
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Hansen Writing Ball was the first typewriter manufactured commercially (1870)
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Prototype of the Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful typewriter, and the first with a QWERTY keyboard (1873)
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A Mignon Model 4 index typewriter from 1924
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Comparison of full-keyboard, single-shift, and double-shift typewriters in 1911
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IBM Selectric II (dual Latin/Hebrew typeball and keyboard)
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Replaceable IBM typeballs with clip
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Composer output showing Roman, Bold and Italic fonts available by changing the type ball
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Triumph typewriter eraser (1960)
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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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This typed page uses a number of typographic conventions stemming from the mechanical limitations of the typewriter: two hyphens in place of an em dash, double sentence spacing, straight quotation marks, tab indents for paragraphs, and double carriage returns between paragraphs
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Humorous "Get out! Can't you see I'm busy" postcard (1900s)
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William Faulkner's Underwood Universal Portable sits in his office at Rowan Oak, which is now maintained by the University of Mississippi in Oxford as a museum.
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A portable typewriter owned by Ernest Hemingway
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Electronic typewriter – the final stage in typewriter development. A 1989 Canon Typestar 110
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The Brother WP1, an electronic typewriter complete with a small screen and a floppy disk reader
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Peter Mitterhofer 1864 typewriter
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Hansen Writing Ball, invented in 1865 (1870 model)
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1868 patent drawing for the Sholes, Glidden, and Soule typewriter
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Hammond 1B typewriter, invented 1870s, manufactured 1881
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Hammond 1B, as used by a newspaper office in Saskatoon around 1910
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U.S. Army Quartermaster soldiers in typewriter repair shop, Tours, France, 1919
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Typebars in a 1920s typewriter
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Chinese typewriter produced by Shuangge, with 2,450 characters
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Japanese typewriter SH-280, a small machine with 2,268 characters
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1920s Underwood typewriter with Swedish layout
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Chinese typewriter at Deutsches Technikmuseum
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typewriter robotron S 1001 from VEB Robotron-Elektronik at the GDR, this sample is owned by the MEK
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Personal typewriter of Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, the fifth Qajar king of Persia (Iran), made in late 19th century
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See also
In Spanish: Máquina de escribir para niños
