A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters.

Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different
single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively
against the paper with a type element. Thereby, the machine produces a legible
written document composed of ink and paper. By the end of the 19th century, a
person who used such a device was also referred to as a typewriter.[1]

The first commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874,[2] but did not become
common in offices in the United States until after the mid-1880s.[3] The typewriter
quickly became an indispensable tool for practically all writing other than
personal handwritten correspondence. It was widely used by professional writers, in
offices, in business correspondence in private homes, and by students preparing
written assignments.

Typewriters were a standard fixture in most offices up to the 1980s. After that,
they began to be largely supplanted by personal computers running word processing
software. Nevertheless, typewriters remain common in some parts of the world. For
example, typewriters are still used in many Indian cities and towns, especially in
roadside and legal offices, due to a lack of continuous, reliable electricity.[4]

The QWERTY keyboard layout, developed for typewriters in the 1870s, remains the de
facto standard for English-language computer keyboards. The origins of this layout
still need to be clarified.[5] Similar typewriter keyboards, with layouts optimised
for other languages and orthographies, emerged soon afterward, and their layouts
have also become standard for computer keyboards in their respective markets.

History

Peter Mitterhofer's typewriter prototype (1864)

The 1969 Olivetti Valentine typewriter, featured in the permanent collections of

the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Cooper Hewitt,
Smithsonian Design Museum in New York;[6][7] London's Design Museum and Victoria
and Albert Museum.[8][9]
Video of the Olivetti Valentine typewriter in use

An Elliott-Fisher book typewriter on display at the Historic Archive and Museum of

Mining in Pachuca, Mexico
Although many modern typewriters have one of several similar designs, their
invention was incremental, developed by numerous inventors working independently or
in competition with each other over a series of decades. As with the automobile,
the telephone, and telegraph, several people contributed insights and inventions
that eventually resulted in ever more commercially successful instruments.
Historians have estimated that some form of the typewriter was invented 52 times as
thinkers and tinkerers tried to come up with a workable design.[10]

Some early typing instruments include:

In 1575, an Italian printmaker, Francesco Rampazetto, invented the scrittura

tattile, a machine to impress letters in papers.[11]
In 1714, Henry Mill obtained a patent in Britain for a machine that, from the
patent, appears to have been similar to a typewriter. The patent shows that this
machine was created: "[he] hath by his great study and paines & expence invented
and brought to perfection an artificial machine or method for impressing or
transcribing of letters, one after another, as in writing, whereby all writing
whatsoever may be engrossed in paper or parchment so neat and exact as not to be
distinguished from print; that the said machine or method may be of great use in
settlements and public records, the impression being deeper and more lasting than
any other writing, and not to be erased or counterfeited without manifest
discovery."[12]
In 1802, Italian Agostino Fantoni developed a particular typewriter to enable his
blind sister to write.[13]
Between 1801 and 1808, Italian Pellegrino Turri invented a typewriter for his blind
friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano.[14]
In 1823, Italian Pietro Conti da Cilavegna invented a new model of the typewriter,
the tachigrafo, also known as tachitipo.[15]
In 1829, American William Austin Burt patented a machine called the "Typographer"
which, in common with many other early machines, is listed as the "first
typewriter". The London Science Museum describes it merely as "the first writing
mechanism whose invention was documented", but even that claim may be excessive
since Turri's invention pre-dates it.[16]
By the mid-19th century, the increasing pace of business communication had created
a need to mechanize the writing process. Stenographers and telegraphers could take
down information at rates up to 130 words per minute, whereas a writer with a pen
was limited to a maximum of 30 words per minute (the 1853 speed record).[17]

From 1829 to 1870, many printing or typing machines were patented by inventors in
Europe and America, but none went into commercial production.[18]

American Charles Thurber developed multiple patents, of which his first in 1843 was
created as an aid to blind people, such as the 1845 Chirographer.[19]
In 1855, the Italian Giuseppe Ravizza created a prototype typewriter called Cembalo
scrivano o macchina da scrivere a tasti ("Scribe harpsichord, or machine for
writing with keys"). It was an advanced machine that let the user see the writing
as it was typed.[20]
In 1861, Father Francisco João de Azevedo, a Brazilian priest, made his typewriter
with basic materials and tools, such as wood and knives. In that same year, the
Brazilian emperor D. Pedro II, presented a gold medal to Father Azevedo for this
invention. Many Brazilian people, as well as the Brazilian federal government
recognize Fr. Azevedo as the inventor of the typewriter, a claim that has been the
subject of some controversy.[21]
In 1865, John Pratt, of Centre, Alabama (US), built a machine called the Pterotype
which appeared in an 1867 Scientific American article[22] and inspired other
inventors.
Between 1864 and 1867, Peter Mitterhofer [de], a carpenter from South Tyrol (then
part of Austria) developed several models and a fully functioning prototype
typewriter in 1867.[23]
Hansen Writing Ball
Main article: Hansen Writing Ball

Hansen Writing Ball was the first typewriter manufactured commercially (1870)
In 1865, Rev. Rasmus Malling-Hansen of Denmark invented the Hansen Writing Ball,
which went into commercial production in 1870 and was the first commercially sold
typewriter. It was a success in Europe and was reported as being used in offices on
the European continent as late as 1909.[24][25]

Malling-Hansen used a solenoid escapement to return the carriage on some of his

models, which makes him a candidate for the title of inventor of the first
"electric" typewriter.[26]

The Hansen Writing Ball was produced with only upper-case characters. The Writing
Ball was a template for inventor Frank Haven Hall to create a derivative that would
produce letter prints cheaper and faster.[27][28][29]

Malling-Hansen developed his typewriter further through the 1870s and 1880s and
made many improvements, but the writing head remained the same. On the first model
of the writing ball from 1870, the paper was attached to a cylinder inside a wooden
box. In 1874, the cylinder was replaced by a carriage, moving beneath the writing
head. Then, in 1875, the well-known "tall model" was patented, which was the first
of the writing balls that worked without electricity. Malling-Hansen attended the
world exhibitions in Vienna in 1873 and Paris in 1878 and he received the first-
prize for his invention at both exhibitions.[30][31][32]

Sholes and Glidden typewriter

Main article: Sholes and Glidden typewriter

Prototype of the Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful
typewriter, and the first with a QWERTY keyboard (1873)
The first typewriter to be commercially successful was patented in 1868 by
Americans Christopher Latham Sholes, Frank Haven Hall, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W.
Soule in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,[33] although Sholes soon disowned the machine and
refused to use or even recommend it.[34] The working prototype was made by clock-
maker and machinist Matthias Schwalbach.[35] Hall, Glidden and Soule sold their
shares in the patent (US 79,265) to Sholes and James Densmore,[36] who made an
agreement with E. Remington and Sons (then famous as a manufacturer of sewing
machines) to commercialize the machine as the Sholes and Glidden Type-Writer.[35]
This was the origin of the term typewriter.

Remington began production of its first typewriter on March 1, 1873, in Ilion, New
York. It had a QWERTY keyboard layout, which, because of the machine's success, was
slowly adopted by other typewriter manufacturers. As with most other early
typewriters, because the typebars strike upwards, the typist could not see the
characters as they were typed.[36]