Blog Post #7 - EOTO Technology

One of the EOTO technology presentations that I found to be the most interesting was learning about the typewriter. The typewriter was completed in September of 1876. The first typewriter was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes. The first commercial model was produced in 1873 and was mounted on a sewing machine stand. On all typewriters, the printing was done through inked ribbon, which was fitted on spools and travels with the operation of the machine and reverses automatically when one spool becomes completely unwounded. Once the typewriter was invented, it started off as a better improvement in the direction of communication. People did not have phones to connect with each other like we do today, but people were able to print things on paper instead of writing. The first typewriter was very beneficial at the time, but there were some downsides to it. There was no backspace button on the typewriter so if there were mistakes that were made, you were not able to go back and change them. A benefit of not being able to go back and change your mistakes, gave people the advantage to think harder and improve the quality of their writing. The first typewriter had no shift-key mechanism, it wrote in all capital letters only. The problem with printing both capital and smaller letters without increasing the number of keys was solved by placing two types, a capital and lowercase of the same letter on each bar, in combination with a cylinder-shifting mechanism. The typewriter was closely aligned with the invention of the telephone in the later years. With the invention of the typewriter and the telephone, this started to spark more people's interest. Technology is still growing very rapidly today. Communication between people is always improving and still growing today. Typewriters are still a common tool that people use for communication.