TYPEWRITER - Your keyboard and you

I am a native English speaker, and did not get the point, either.

I read at breakfast every morning, have for years. It's a toss up between Air Classics and The Smithsonian Magazine. This morning The Smithsonian won and I thought I would share. Catchy.

Wow, no I got it! The wird Typewriter has all its letters in the top row of keys even on the soft keyboard of my phone! Funny, and the Smithsonian story behind is funny too..

I instead heard another story, was during my 8th grade typing class in 1967.

To slow down the fingers to prevent jamming the keys, typing pattern made most use of all fingers in an alternative pattern way. (In other words, was to slow the fingers down to match the inertia of the manual typewriters.)

Other keyboard layouts were developed when the IBM Selectric Typewriter came out that made typing faster and more efficient on the IBM, (we had 4 IBM's in class but rest were manual, not electric). The Selectric had some basic temporary storage logic where it could store keystrokes ahead of time, can't remember exactly how many, think it was around 20 or so. The other more efficient keystroke pattern layout patterns were more efficient and faster with the IBM, but they have not really ever caught on for any length of time. (I think DVORAC or something like that is still available.)  

That is a thing about standards, they are obsolete when published. However, they being standards make adoption easier.

Remember the ISO Open Standard network protocols of the 1980's? While at Douglas, I pushed for our minicomputers to be networked to workstations using the old but proven IEEE 802.3 TCP/IP. Nearly all computer manufacturers supported that, but not the newer standards.

However, the flight simulator engineers won out, we got a Pen-net (Perkin-Elmer) token ring network. However after I left, nearly all got laid off several years later, Douglas became a Boeing company, today TCP/IP still reigns.

But back then, who'd think I'd be texting on a QWERTY touch keyboard on a cellphone today?

This thread originates from this article in The Smithsonian.




Remington and I go back a long way some 76 years.  My first .22 was a Remington model 550, I still have it along with dozens of others.  Long time member of the Remington Collectors Society.

The Model 8.  A favorite. "Auto-loading" available in four different calibers and three different stock styles.  Mechanically interesting to disassemble.  

I also read the SAME snippet in this month's Smithsonian. - over breakfast, a few days ago....

and did not want to give the 'trivia contest' question away

AWESOME!

cstatman wrote:I also read the SAME snippet in this month's Smithsonian. -  over breakfast, a few days ago....

and did not want to give the 'trivia contest' question away

AWESOME!

We think alike Charles. Dangerous for you perhaps...

I just finished boxing up the last twelve issues to send to my grandson. It would be cheaper if I just got him a subscription but he eats history up and it saves me from storing them. When we moved up here from Florida I threw out all my American Riflemans, Car & Drivers, Road & Tracks, etc. etc. The trash collector was not happy.

I still have my Oliveti daisywheel typewriter with aftermarket Centronics parallel print cable interface. I bought the interface in the late 1980's, converted the typewriter to a letter quality computer printer. Mounted it inside with a slot cut through the typewriter case side for connector access.

Used it for a while, but computer graphics embedded with text obsoleted it. Of course, now supplies are nonexistent.

At the time though, it was a cost effective solution for quality printing during a time that dot matrix printers were crude and nice ones too expensive.

Shoot, they were still marketing thermal dot matrix using 40 column text width on 4 to 6 inch wide thermal paper, tore it off like a cash register receipt.

That was the affordable technology of the day. Business class printers were expensive (over $1K US).