The first typing devices were designed and patented in the 1700’s, and they were first manufactured in the 1870’s. These machines had a “blind typing” technology. This means that the letters, or characters were printed on upside-down pages the couldn’t be seen until completion.
Since this time there have been many updates in design, layout, function, and technology that makes them more efficient and user-friendly. The typewriter for instance has changed shape drastically. Over the years, it became electronic and then practically obsolete with the rise of computers and the birth of the keyboard.
In the beginning the first manufactured typewriters looked like sewing machines. This is not unusual since Remington, who made the typewriters also manufactured sewing machines at the same time. Created by Sholes, Glidden, and Soule, the first Remington typewriters came with a foot pedal (like the sewing machine) to control carriage returns.
In 1714 the first patent on a typing machine was issued in London, England to Henry Mill. There is no evidence that the machine was ever made but it is know that it was meant to prepare legal documents so they would be neat, legible and in standardized format. Moving forward to 1808 another patent was issued to Pellegrino Torri in Italy. This machine was meant to help the blind to write. Turri’s device also had the first “carbon copy”, which has had a lasting impact in the modern office. The “typowriter” was created in 1829 by William Austin Bort. Instead of keys, this device used dials to print characters. This process was very slow but was a way to print legible, uniform text. The typowriter was also intended for use with the blind. None of these machines gained too much public interest, or c...
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...ame permanent. Even though the Dvorak doesn’t have the popularity as the QWERTY layout it is compatible with almost all modern computer models, including Mac OS X, microsoft windows, Linux, and BSD-UNIX.
The third most popular keyboard layout would be the Colemak layout. It hasn’t become quite as popular as the first two but has some recognition. Only 17 keys differ from the QWERTY layout and could possibly be easy to relearn. Colemak is named after its creator Shai Coleman and is the most recent introduced. Of the three layouts, QWERTY, Dvorak, and Colemak other options of keyboard layouts basically don’t have a chance to succeed, but who knows what the future of keyboards holds.
Keyboards come in all shapes, sizes, and colors nowadays. But if it wasn’t for the first typewriters or the original, simple mechanical keyboards from IBM we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Since the first person heard the wind whistle through the trees or the sea in a seashell humans have been drawn to sound. Being the oppressive and ingenious species that we are we felt the need to capture these sounds and any others that we could to keep for our own. Eventually people like Pythagoras and gods such as Apollo found that by stretching materials and picking/plucking them that they would produce sounds and that the tighter you stretched these strings the higher the sound would go. These were the early beginnings of the pianoforte.
Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the movable type printing press changed the world. It changed religion, literature, and geography. He used molds instead of having scribes handwrite books. It helped produce written works at a much faster rate than previously. This made them cheaper, and more affordable to the less fortunate. This increased the literacy rate. Gutenberg’s original printing press was invented in Germany, but quickly spread throughout Europe (Document 2). Gutenberg’s creation is no doubt one of the most useful things we have in today’s world.
Derry, T. K., and Trevor Williams. A Short History of Technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961.
Gottfried Silbermann, a German keyboard builder who was already famous for his accomplished work on the clavichord, took Cristofori’s design and improved it. Although Silbermann and Cristofori were both keyboard makers, Silbermann had further knowledge of mechanical systems which allowed him to advance Cristofori’s design. Silbermann was friends with J. S. Bach, who would deliver critiques on the newest mechanical tests Silbermann was working on at the time. Bach thought that the keys were too heavy to the touch, and that the high notes were too quiet (Sartorius). Piano designs up until this point resembled the harpsichord which are now called grand pianos. Later mechanical improvements fixed the sensitivity of the keys and the tonality of the higher notes. Accordingly the work on the piano continued well past Gottfried Silbermann’s time and ended up blossoming in
When it comes to classic musical instrument, piano is definitely one of the names that pop up in your mind. Indeed, after its first appearance around the year of 1700, piano has never left the stage of high culture and top class performance. Till today, three hundred years have past since it was first invented. Surely, a lot of changes have been made during this long period of evolution, the designers learnt to utilize better materials but the basic inner mechanism have stayed the same. However, the outside appearance of piano did changed a few times throughout the course of time. The first piano borrowed quite a bit of its look and design from the harpsichord because it was invented by Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori, an Italian harpsichord maker. (Powers, W. 2008) Namely, a noticeable amount of improvements have been made during the evolution of the instrument base on the demand of the time and arena. In this essay, stringed instruments with keyboard which are in the
In 500 B.C. the abacus was first used by the Babylonians as an aid to simple arithmetic. In 1623 Wihelm Schickard (1592 - 1635) invented a "Calculating Clock". This mechanical machine could add and subtract up to 6 digit numbers, and warned of an overflow by ringing a bell. J. H. Mueller comes up with the idea of the "difference engine", in 1786. This calculator could tabulate values of a polynomial. Muellers attempt to raise funds fails and the project was forgotten. Scheutz and his son Edward produced a 3rd order difference engine with a printer in 1843 and their government agreed to fund their next project.
Smith, Bruce. "Definition of an Ergonomic Keyboard | eHow." eHow. Demand Media, 4 Aug. 2010. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. .
Most of the major changes pianos went through were during the 1700s and early 1800s. No one knows exactly when, but somewhere around the year 1700 Bartolomeo Cristofori DI Francesco invented the piano by striking the strings with a hammer which produced a much more pronounced and sustained sound. Pianos were made after the organ, clavichord, and harpsichord, “but
It all began in ancient times with the creation of the psalterion, a dulcimer-like instrument. It consisted of a box shape with wire strings tuned to play a scale across it. Wooden hammers held in the hands were used to strike the strings to create music. Next came the clavichord. The clavichord had a keyboard added which was used to strike the strings by means of small copper plates. The clavietherium, coming next, used gut strings instead of wire, and they were played upon by leather hammers attached to keys. The virginal was also a keyed instrument, but in this case it used quills attached to the ends of the keys or levers to vibrate metallic strings. Composers such as Palestrina, and Byrd used the Virginal in the Renaissance. Even Queen Elizabeth herself played the Virginal. Next came the Spinet, which, similarly to the Virginal, used quills to vibrate the strings. The idea of a square pianoforte was likely to have been come from the Spinet, The Harpsichord, which was of a slightly similar shape to the modern grand piano, came after the Spinet. It used crow-quills connected to a key by means of a “jack” to play the strings. It had two keyboards; with one an octave higher than the other. A...
Another example of the change in our technology over the last century is the change in the computer. In 1946, the first electronic computer called the ENIAC took up the space of a large room. Instead of using transistors and IC chips, the ENIAC used vacuum tubes. Compared to many computers now, the ENIAC is about as powerful as a small calculator. That may not be much, but it is a milestone because there would not be computers today if it were not for the ENIAC. As the years passed, the computer became smaller and more powerful. Today, more than half of the American population has a computer in their home. The personal computers today are thousands of times more powerful than the most powerful computers fifty years ago.
pen, the practical light bulb, the kinetographic camera, and others such as the phonograph, the
First was the invention of movable type and the printing press. Johannes Gutenberg and Johann Fust, German goldsmith, invented movable type in 1446. Then, Gutenberg invented the printing press to produce the world’s first printed book, the Bible.
The controversy started with the invention of the printing press. When the printing press was invented in the mid 15th century by Johannes Gutenburg, it became possible to create copies of written and drawn works with less time and one of the earliest patents known in history came with it. This patent was a five year monopoly given to him in 1469 by the Venetian Republic2.
While taking a typing course in high school, the hardest part was remembering where each key was. I could never figure out why the typewriter keys were set up in the order they were, but once I learned the various keystrokes, it became second nature to type. Although, I still have trouble with some of the keys on the top row, such as numbers and symbols. This is probably because they aren't used as much as the others. Another difficult part was remembering to hit the return key when I wanted to go to the next line. Setting the tabs and margins properly could also be quite trying. Never in my wildest imagination could I have envisioned a typewriter that could wrap-around to the next line, automatically set margins, and even tell you when words are misspelled or used improperly. Now I know that there is no limit to what computers will be able to accomplish in the future. It will only take imagination and determination to make them do whatever we want them to do.
The “invention and manufacture of standard movable type allowed the beginning of the printing industry” (Thompson 210). “The first printed encyclopedia, the Catholica, appeared in 1460 and the following year a Strasbourg printer, Johan Mentelin, produced a Bible for laymen” (Johnson 18). The invention of printing made a large amount of material cheaply available (Thompson 210).