Blickensderfer typewriter
Encyclopedia
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
s, but ended up being known for its portability. Blickensderfer's typewriter contained only 250 parts compared to the 2,500 parts of a standard typewriter. It was much smaller, lighter, and cheaper than other typewriters. It also featured a type wheel that was easily removed to change the typeface
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
.
Another feature of the Blickensderfer Typewriter was its modified keyboard layout
Keyboard layout
A keyboard layout is any specific mechanical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key–meaning associations of a computer, typewriter, or other typographic keyboard....
. The bottom row of keys contained the most commonly used letters
ETAOIN SHRDLU
ETAOIN SHRDLU is a nonsense phrase that sometimes appeared in print in the days of "hot type" publishing because of a custom of Linotype machine operators. It appeared frequently enough that it became part of the lore of newspapers...
, DHIATENSOR, to increase efficiency, a keyboard layout originally devised by James Bartlett Hammond to avoid the problems of typebars jamming that had caused Christopher Sholes
Christopher Sholes
Christopher Latham Sholes was an American inventor who invented the first practical typewriter and the QWERTY keyboard still in use today...
to invent the QWERTY
QWERTY
QWERTY is the most common modern-day keyboard layout. The name comes from the first six letters appearing in the topleft letter row of the keyboard, read left to right: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to Remington in the...
layout.
The first known aluminum typewriter (marketed as the Blickensderfer 6 or the "Featherweight Blick") was made by Blickensderfer as was the first electric typewriter. The company's manufacturing plant was located in Stamford, Connecticut
Stamford, Connecticut
Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...
, and the typewriters were distributed worldwide.
Model 4
The model 4 was a capitals-only brother of the model 5, probably intended for use by telegraphers. It used a two-row typewheel and a single shift (for figures).Today it is very rare.
Model 5
The first widely successful production model was the Blickensderfer 5, introduced at the 1893 World's Columbian ExpositionWorld's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
. Production of the 5 did not get seriously underway until 1895-96. The 5 was one of the first truly portable typewriters with a full keyboard; it came with the DHIATENSOR keyboard as standard, with a QWERTY keyboard available on request. A sample of the earliest Blick 5s were sold in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
as the Dactyle.
Model 6
In 1906 Blickensderfer introduced the Blickensderfer 6, which was in fact a Blick 5 with an aluminum frame. The aluminum version also appeared as the Blick Featherweight and as a regular Blickensderfer 5.Model 6 imageModel 7
The Model 7, first offered in 1897, became the deluxe version of the basic design. Some were assembled in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
for sale there.
Blickensderfer Electric
The Blick Electric was a revolutionary machine when it was first introduced in 1902. It had all the familiar characteristics of the manual models, plus a QWERTY keyboard as standard and all the advantages of later electric typewriters including a light key touch, even typing and automatic carriage return and line spacing. The machine was powered by an EmersonEmerson Electric Company
Emerson Electric Company is a major multinational corporation headquartered in Ferguson, Missouri, United States. This Fortune 500 company manufactures products and provides engineering services for a wide range of industrial, commercial, and consumer markets.Emerson is one of the largest...
electric motor mounted on the rear and switched on by turning a Yale key
Pin tumbler lock
The pin tumbler lock is a lock mechanism that uses pins of varying lengths to prevent the lock from opening without the correct key...
on the side.http://www.typewritermuseum.org/collection/index.php3?machine=blickel&cat=ks The motor ran on 104 Volt 60hz AC electric current http://www.stamfordhistory.org/bl_elec.htm which was not yet widely standard at the time. (See War of Currents
War of Currents
In the "War of Currents" era in the late 1880s, George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of direct current for electric power distribution over alternating current advocated by several European companies and Westinghouse Electric based out of Pittsburgh,...
)
The machine is not believed to have been widely marketed and only three are known to survive. http://www.stamfordhistory.org/bl_elec.htm
Model 8
The Blickensderfer 8 of 1908 was the first Blick to boast a tabulatorTabulator
Not to be confused with Tabulating machine.The Tabulator is a generic data browser and editor. Using outline and table modes, it provides a way to browse RDF/Linked Data on the web. RDF is the standard for inter-application data exchange....
system, even though tabulators had been around for some time. The tabulator used large nickel-plated levers placed on top of the machine, making it easy to operate. The typewheel head had also been altered, and was now made from two castings instead of one, which allowed easier access for repair and adjusting of the mechanism.
Technology
The type cylinder, like the later typeball of the IBM Selectric typewriterIBM Selectric typewriter
The IBM Selectric typewriter was a highly successful model line of electric typewriters introduced by IBM on July 31, 1961.Instead of the "basket" of individual typebars that swung up to strike the ribbon and page in a traditional typewriter, the Selectric had a type element that rotated and...
, was easily removed, allowing users to select among fonts. Striking a key turned the cylinder to the appropriate orientation while inking the type as it tipped downward to strike the paper. Holding the Cap or Fig keys shifted the cylinder along its axis to use either the middle row, for capital letters, or the upper row, for special characters.
Layouts
The DHIATENSOR layout is shown below (with alphanumeric characters only):
There were at least two layouts for the non-alphanumeric symbolshttp://objectlessons.org.uk/img_hr/VIC000XE4977.jpghttp://www.rutherfordjournal.org/images/writer7.jpg. There were also versions with the QWERTY layouthttp://www.officemuseum.com/IMagesWWW/1897_Blickensderfer_No._7_OM.JPG and other layouts http://www.typewritermuseum.org/collection/index.php3?machine=blick8&cat=kshttp://staff.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters/blick5.jpg.
The Dvorak
Dvorak Simplified Keyboard
The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard is a keyboard layout patented in 1936 by Dr. August Dvorak and his brother-in-law, Dr. William Dealey. Over the years several slight variations were designed by the team led by Dvorak or by ANSI...
letter layout has most of the consonants of its home row in DHIATENSOR order:
D H T N S. The Dvorak R is in the neighboring far row, between T and N.
Literary References
DHIATENSOR keyboards were mentioned briefly in the 1998 novel Distraction by Bruce SterlingBruce Sterling
Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...
, as a logical evolution of a QWERTY
QWERTY
QWERTY is the most common modern-day keyboard layout. The name comes from the first six letters appearing in the topleft letter row of the keyboard, read left to right: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to Remington in the...
based tech culture.