Re: International Typewriter Day (23 June)

 Ar an ceathrú lá is fiche de mí Meitheamh, scríobh Ross Clark:

 > I don't need to explain what a typewriter is, do I?
 >
 > Crystal's historical notes:
 >
 > 1714 - Henry Mill (English engineer) patents "an artificial machine or method
 > for impressing or transcribing of lettrs, one after another, as in writing,
 > whereby all writing whatsoever may be engrossed in paper or parchment to neat
 > and exact as not to be distinguished from print".
 >
 > "No trace of this exists, if it was ever produced." Sounds like a pipe dream.

Common thing in patents these days, to patent things you haven’t implemented.
(I attempted this once, software for phone and chat systems that warned the
user when time zone and calendar differences meant it was unlikely the other
party in the communication would be reachable, but other parties pre-dated me.)
Shouldn’t really be allowed, but hard to audit.

 > 23-6-1868 (Milwaukee) - A bunch of Americans, including Christopher Latham
 > Sholes and Carlos Glidden, patented a "type-writer", which became the first
 > commercially successful device.
 > (Remington started manufacturing it in 1873, with QWERTY keyboard layout.)
 >
 > He doesn't mention a date when the typewriter became obsolete.

I’ve never used one in anger, third level study and working life from 1998.
Different dates in different parts of the world of course.

 > The typewriter that came with my first office here had been customized by Bruce
 > Biggs to include a few phonetic symbols. I hung on to it well into the
 > office-computer age, because putting phonetic symbols into text via computer,
 > at first, was as cumbersome as drawing them by hand. Also I just liked
 > typewriters. I still own one, but haven't used it for years. Looking for a
 > buyer.

--
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How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
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