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The Oldest Typewriters

Before computers, the typewriter was perhaps the most convenient everyday writing tool. The typewriter's design cannot be credited to any single person, although the concept for a machine reminiscent of the typewriter has been traced back to 1714, from a patent filed by British inventor Henry Mill. The first working typewriter was built in 1808 by Pellegrino Turri, the inventor of carbon paper; however, no further records about the machine have survived.

Typographer
- The typographer, built in 1829 by American inventor William Burt, was the first documented predecessor to the typewriter. The operator used a single dial instead of individual keys to select characters. This machine, considered a type of index typewriter, was able to print both uppercase and lowercase letters. However, because of the slow and awkward method of typing, even writing in longhand was far more efficient, and the typographer was never commercially produced.
Hansen Writing Ball
- Among the proto-typewriters, the Hansen writing ball might be the most aesthetically appealing. It was invented in 1870 by Danish pastor Malling Hansen, director of a Copenhagen institute for the deaf and dumb. He wished to enable his students to communicate through typing. It was efficient and well-engineered, with a pincushion-like semisphere riddled with radial pistons. This was the first commercially successful typewriter design. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is known to have been given one.
Sholes and Glidden Typewriter
- The patent for the Sholes &Glidden was filed in 1868. Mass production for this machine then began as early as 1873, although it wasn't released to the American public until 1874. Invented by Christopher Sholes with his colleagues Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule, this typewriter introduced the QWERTY keyboard, designed to prevent the jamming of frequently used typebars. Designed to print only uppercase letters, the Sholes &Glidden resembled a highly decorative sewing machine, and it even used a treadle to operate the carriage return. About 5,000 units of this machine were sold.
Other Early Typewriters
- After the Sholes &Glidden, typewriters began to be manufactured in earnest, with each release improving upon the design of its predecessors. The Caligraph, built and released to the American market in 1880, featured a "full" keyboard, later adding separate keys for lowercase letters. The Hammond, introduced in 1884, deviated from the QWERTY keyboard standard and used its own two-row, curved "Ideal" keyboard. Other popular early typewriters included the Crandall (1881), the Smith Premium (1890), and the portable Blickensderfer (1893).

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