WRITING MACHINES. Machines and appliances of various kinds are in common use to facilitate the process of writing, and to produce copies of writings already made with the pen. Such facsimile writings are obtained by numerous devices, all of which, however, come under the heads (1) of manifolding, (2) of processes analogous in principle to lithography, and (3) of stencilling. The simplest form of manifold writing is by sheets of paper prepared with lamp-black being interleaved between the sheets of white paper on which the impressions are to be taken, and writing over the whole with a style or other sharp-pointed instrument. By this means a considerable number of copies can be made at one time, and the method is in general use among newspaper writers and telegraphists in the production of what is technically known as “flimsy,” where several copies of the same matter are required. Of processes analogous to lithography, the best known is the “hektograph” method, in which the writing is done in the first instance on paper with aniline ink, and then a transfer is made to a gelatine composition which gives off a considerable number of impressions. In principle the autocopyist is like the hektograph, but in this apparatus the writing is done with a special ink, which is transferred to a prepared and properly stretched sheet of parchment. From this parchment copies are obtained precisely as from a lithographic stone on which a transfer has been impressed. Of the apparatus worked in the stencil method, the cyclostyle has been most extensively adopted. This machine consists of a frame of sufficient size containing a plate of tin on which the paper from which the impression is to be taken is rested. The paper is prepared in a particular way, and the “pen” with which ...the writing is done consists of an ordinary wooden holder, at the end of which is fixed on a pivot a minute wheel. The edge of the wheel is studded with fine points, which, as it revolves and turns in the direction of the writing, pierce the paper, thus making a perfect stencil. The ink is passed over the top of this stencil by means of a roller, and the impression is left on a sheet of ordinary paper placed beneath.
The principal substitute for the pen, however, is the machine now generally known as the type-writer, which in its present form dates only from 1873, but it has within that time come into extensive use, especially in America, the country of its origin. Numerous attempts to produce type-writing machines had been previously made both in England and America. So long ago as 1714 one Henry Mill took out a patent for a machine which he described as “an artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters, singly or progressively, one after another as in writing, whereby all writings whatsoever may be engrossed in paper or parchment so neat and exact as not to be distinguished from print”; but his instrument is said to have been clumsy and useless, and led to no practical result. In 1867 the idea was taken up by Messrs C. Latham Sholes and Samuel W. Soulé, printers in Milwaukee, and Mr Carlos Glidden, and, after many experiments and failures, a practical working machine was elaborated in 1873, which, being originally made by Messrs E. Remington and Sons, of Ilion, N.Y., is known as the Remington standard type-writer. The success of this machine has induced many inventors to enter the field, and now three principal classes of type-writers are more or less in use. These are (1) type-bar machines, (2) cylinder machines, and (3) wheel machines. The Remington is the type and original of all type-bar machines, which are so called because the steel types are fixed at the extremity of a bar or rod of iron. These bars are in the Remington arranged in a circle around a common centre, and by striking the key of any particular letter, a lever is moved which raises the type-bar, and causes the type at its point to strike on an inked ribbon, and impresses the letter on the paper, which lies against an india-rubber roller. The type-bars are so hinged that all the types as they are struck hit precisely the same spot, so that were the paper to remain stationary the impressions of all the types struck would be superimposed on each other; but, by an automatic mechanism, the cylinder with the paper moves a space to the left after the impression of each type, and the depression of a wooden bar similarly moves the cylinder a space after each word without impressing any sign. In the recent forms of the Remington machine, each type bar carries two types, capital and lower case, or other duplicate signs, the one a little behind the other, and when a capital letter is to be printed the depression of a key shifts the position of the cylinder so as to bring the second type in contact with the ink ribbon. In this way from one set of keys two sets of type can be with facility acted upon. With practice, an average writing speed of forty words per minute can easily be attained on the Remington type-writer, and very expert writers have been able to keep up a speed of from sixty to seventy words for a short time. It is safe to say that type-writing can be ordinarily done at about three times the speed of ordinary handwriting. In the cylindrical machines the letters and signs are all upon a cylinder or “sleeve,” and the striking of a key produces a combined lateral and rotary motion for bringing the proper type to the common printing point. Thus, for every separate impression the entire cylinder has ordinarily to make two movements of variable length, and the instrument is noisy in operation, and does not possess the rapid direct action of the type-bar machines. On the other hand, it is a variable spacer, giving more space to such wide letters as m and w than to the narrow letters i, t, and 1, a distinct advantage over the type bar machines, where each letter, wide or narrow, occupies precisely the same space. Of such cylinder machines the newest form is the Crandall type-writer, an apparatus supplied with spare type cylinders or “sleeves,” which are easily separated and attached, so that many kinds of type can be brought into actual use. Of wheel machines the Columbia may be taken as one of the most recent examples. It is a simple and cheap apparatus in which the letters and signs are placed on the periphery of a wheel by the rotation of which any desired type is brought into position for printing. The machine is furnished with a dial index and pointer to indicate the type which is in position. The wheel machine has the advantages of variable spacing, and wheels with type of different character can readily be placed on it; on the other hand, it is not capable of being run with a rapidity nearly so great as can be secured with type-bar machines.
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