"A typewriter is a
mechanical, electromechanical, or electronic device with a set of 'keys'
that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a document,
usually paper." Wikipedia.org
'Typewriter' was also the name by which early users of typewriters were
known until confusion led to the alternative term, typist.
A typewriter has a keyboard with keys that form character impressions on
paper, but actual methods by which typewriter keyboards create these
impressions has varied dramatically since the typewriter was invented in
the early 1800s. Some typewriters had circular keyboards; other
had two keyboards, one for lower case characters, the other for capital
characters or upper case.
Most early typewriters operated with ink ribbons forcing characters on
paper behind the ribbon, sometimes carbon paper was placed between
multiple sheets of paper, creating multiple copies behind the first
blank page on which colour-free impressions were formed.
* Typists using early typewriters often had to retype documents
from scratch to correct mistakes and poor copies caused from damaged or
dry typewriter ribbons.
* It wasn't until the middle 1900s that substances like Tippex and
Snowpake arrived to ease the burden on early typists and meant that
mistakes could be obliterated by white paint and the original document
returned to the typewriter for corrections to be made over the paint.
* No matter how skilled the typist, however, typewritten documents
were often flawed, due to typist error, or problems from typewriter or
typewriter ribbon.
* Most early typewriters had a bell which would sound to warn
typists that they were nearing the edge of the paper and would have to
begin a new line or manually hyphenate any part-typed words. Long
levers at the side of the typewriter were used to perform a carriage
return which moved the paper into position for a new line of typing to
commence.
* Early typewriter ribbons came in different colours, all black,
all blue, for example, or red and black horizontally across the ribbon
so typists could change between black and red type to highlight various
parts of their work.
* The QWERTY system was designed in 1874 for Sholes and Glidden
typewriters. The layout was the result of copious testing and
provided the best possible layout for busy fingers moving quickly across
a keyboard. This universal feature of the typewriter keyboard was
also the basis on which all typists and students of the art of
typewriting were trained.
* Some older typewriters do not possess separate keys for the
numerals 1 and zero so typists became adept at using uppercase O for
zero and the lowercase letter l for the number one.
* Older typewriters lacked choice of fonts types and sizes such as
computer users know today and Courier was the prevailing option.
* In the Eastern Bloc typewriters were controlled by the secret
police and their owners' names kept on files. In Russia the KGB
was particularly guarded against anyone using a typewriter, those who
did were often investigated as dissidents and political authors.
* Like fingerprints, every typewriter had its own individual
pattern of type and required a specialist forensic branch of police
charged with locating actual typewriters used in blackmail and other
criminal acts.
* As of 2005 Barbara Blackburn was the world's fastest typist
(Guinness Book of Records) and using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard she
can type 150 words a minute for 50 minutes and 170 words a minute over
shorter periods. She has a recorded speed of 212 words per
minute, despite the fact she actually failed her typewriting exams at
school.