I think it’s entirely possible, however, that the /? key already existed by the time Electromatic got there. Would require sifting through 1900–1920 typewriters carefully.
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Replying to @mwichary
The other thing that would really help would be a clearer picture of the 1930 pre-stencil Electromatic. It *looks* like ? is already paired with / there, which would argue against the uniform-velocity motivationpic.twitter.com/84JmTL6Kfg
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Marcin Wichary Retweeted Marcin Wichary
Not sure what you mean by “pre-stencil” and how it connects. Is that a different machine than this?https://twitter.com/mwichary/status/1037571972291391489 …
Marcin Wichary added,
Marcin Wichary @mwicharyReplying to @mwichary @ElCoopacabra @rupees1hundredA few decades later, a small company called Electromatic worked on an electric typewriter. An electric typewriter helps you in swinging the typebars – you need to touch the key gently, and the electrically-powered rolling bar does the rest of the work. pic.twitter.com/ZUx9o4SrxG1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
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Replying to @mwichary
Yes. What I mean is that there were two versions of the Electromatic. The July, 1930 model had "manual" pairing, with " and ' over 2 and 8. The October, 1931 model introduced "electric" pairing. These are in the documents that I lent you that you scanned for me.
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Replying to @enf
Ah, got it. Yeah. It’s possible moving ? away could have been motivated by just keeping , and . the same whether they’re shifted or unshifted.
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Which makes it even better – in that scenario, Electromatic chose to keep the convention that helped shifting in manual typewriters, and which was moot even by then, since Electromatic solved it by electrifying its shifting.
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Replying to @mwichary
I don't understand why the case-neutral period and comma are better specifically with manual shifting. Isn't the motivation for it so you can type entire sentences with shift-lock turned on?
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Replying to @enf
That’s a valid argument. I don’t know how many people used Shift Lock and how many held Shift in place.
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(I like that all these theories are Shift-related either way.)
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