Blog Post 7 - The Typewriter

When I was in elementary school, my grandma worked in an office and every now and then my mom would drop me and my brother to hang out with her for a little while. At that time, I was really into writing, so the typewriter fascinated me and kept me busy. I didn't know how to formulate words on a typewriter or keyboard yet, so I mostly just typed random letters, but I had a great time doing it. 

In class today, group one presented on the typewriter’s history and advantages and disadvantages. I learned a lot about the typewriter that I did not know before. For example, the first typewriter was created by Christopher Shores, then was sold to a gun manufacturer in 1873. At this time, no two typewriters were the same and the keyboard was purposefully spaced out to prevent jams. 

At this time in history, the typewriter was a great and useful invention, but does not compare or outdo any of the newer technologies that we have today. The disadvantages seem to outweigh the advantages of the typewriter when compared to the technology we have today such as laptops. The main advantage is that they are distraction free because their only use is to type rather than searching on the internet, email, etc. Another advantage is that they do not need electricity to work, so they can be used at any time. 

One disadvantage is that when typing, if you make a mistake you can't backspace like on a laptop. Instead, the user had to use white out and let it dry then type over it. Another disadvantage is that they have no memory, so if you lose your papers after typing something then your creation is not stored anywhere. Instead, the user would have to type it again. 

After learning about the typewriter in class, I was interested in getting more details. Throughout this webpage article, I was able to broaden my knowledge of the typewriter. I learned that the QWERTY keyboard we still use to this day originated from the first typewriter. I find it very interesting that the typewriter was sold to the Remington gun company which you can read more about in this article as well. 

Typewriters were a great invention in the past, but they are hard to come by these days. If you see one while out antiquing you might want to get it now as it could be very valuable in the future. Or it could just be a fun pastime way of writing!