If you can’t imagine writing a letter on a typewriter and putting it in a mailbox, then you take computers for granted. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. More niche applications begat niche machines, and a number of them are on display in this film that the Computer History Archives Project released last month. Aside from the File-o-matic Desk, the Addressograph, or the Sound Scriber, there a number of other devices that give us a peek into a bygone era.
One machine that’s still around, although in a much computerized form, is the stenograph. Not so popular these days is the convenient stenograph carrier, allowing a patient’s statement to be recorded bedside in the hospital immediately after a car accident. Wire recorders were all the rage in 1947, as were floppy disks (for audio, not data). Both media were used to time-shift dictation. Typing champions like Stella Pajunas could transcribe your letters and memos at 140 WPM using an electric typewriter, outpacing dot matrix printers but a snail’s pace compared to a laser jet.
Typing Ten Feet Wide
Before the IBM Selectric and its changeable font balls, there was the Varityper. It was a sophisticated typewriter supporting multiple fonts and proportional spacing. An unusual one is shown here, used for typing notes on engineering drawings and maps up to ten feet wide, in various fonts and sizes.
Chinese Typewriter is Innovative but Flops
Next we have the IBM electronic Chinese typewriter, the invention of IBM Rochester engineer [Kao Chung-Chin] (US patent 2,412,777, Dec 1946). In his design, [Kao]’s solution to handling thousands of ..
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