I photographed this typewriter in a thrift store in Belleville. Absolutely gorgeous mechanical details on the machine.
Lyman Cornelius Smith and his brother Wilbert operated a gun factory in Syracuse, New York. There, an employee, Alexander Brown, invented a typewriter. Apparently, typewriter parts are very similar to those used on a shotgun, so in 1886 LC and now three other brothers formed the Smith Premier Typewriter Company. Their machine was the first to use both upper and lower case letters. They became Smith-Corona in 1926.
Typewriter. Interesting. What operating system came with that thing? Neat how they integrated the keyboard into the machine like that, but unfortunate that it didn't come with the numeric keypad. I assume that you hooked it up to one of those black and white TV's?
ReplyDeleteThe operating system was, well, the operator. Visual display was via an infinitely renewable medium (theoretically, at least) referred to as "paper." Resolution was impressive, actually equal to the human visual system. A keypad wasn't necessary, as arithmetical functions were carried out via a stand-alone peripheral, logically enough called a "calculator" (as opposed to the term "computer" illogically applied to similar devices today.)
ReplyDeleteAmazing we could develop as a society with such archaic technology!
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