Last week, the world media reported that the last typewriter factory in India was closing and the last few hundred machines were being put up for sale. This news caused a wave of nostalgia among people, although there appear to be several smaller factories in Asia that make typewriters. However, it is no secret that typewriters have now almost completely given way to computers, and soon the only place where you will be able to meet them will be museums and antiques stores (well, or the basements of your crazy collector uncle). But although typewriters are practically a thing of the past, let's remember the times when they had a tremendous impact on the life of any office.
1. In the early and mid-nineteenth century, some inventors tried to implement the construction of mechanical writing machines. The breakthrough came in 1870 when Danish inventor, Rasmus Malling-Hansen, received a patent for what would become the world's first commercially produced typewriter, the Malling-Hansen typeball.
2. This is a printed drawing of the “Typewriter” invented by Christopher L. Scholes, Carlos Glidden, and J.W. Soul. Their idea, which they patented in 1867, bore fruit a few years later in the form of the world's first commercially successful typewriter.
3. This is what Sholes and Glidden's typewriter looked like. Not only was it the first commercially successful typewriter, it was also the first to have a QWERTY keyboard. Not much will change in the basic design over the next 100 years.
4. Engraving depicting the Hammond typewriter, invented by James Bartlett Hammond in the 1870s and manufactured by the Hammond Typewriter Company.
5. Remington typewriter, made around 1875. The Remington Typewriter Company donated this model to the Smithsonian Institution, describing it as "one of the first typewriter designs." After the Civil War, Remington, which was the main supplier of weapons, began producing a variety of office equipment.
6. The typewriter also became a predictor of social change, as there was a demand for people who could do office work - thus, at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th, female typists appeared.
7. The Blickensderfer typewriter was invented by George S. Blickensderfer in 1891. It was manufactured by the Blickensderfer Typewriter Company. It was one of the first truly portable machines. Instead of a QWERTY keyboard, it had a DHIATENSOR keyboard.
8. Remington Noiseless Typewriter 6, first manufactured in 1925 by Remington Typewriter.
9. In 1933, IBM bought what was left of Electromatic Typewriters, Inc. from Rochester, New York. Then there was a change in the design of the Electromatic typewriter, and by 1935 the 01 IBM Electric Typewriter was introduced.
10. This typewriter was used by many during college: the IBM Selectric typewriter. It first went on sale in 1961, and remained on the shelves until the 1980s.
11. The product that ruined all the fun. Not many people realized it at the time, but the debut of the IBM PC signaled the end of the era of the typewriter. The first personal computer to gain widespread acceptance in the business world, the IBM PC, soon overshadowed the typewriter. Everyone knows how it all ended. Any sane company in its right mind soon stopped ordering typewriters as budgets allowed for the switch to computers. Some of us still remember what it’s like to change the ribbon in a typewriter. For the rest, we invite you to think about how quickly any technology used in a modern office is now becoming obsolete.
