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mwichary's profile
Marcin Wichary
Marcin Wichary
Marcin Wichary
@mwichary

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Marcin Wichary

@mwichary

Writing a book about the history of keyboards: http://aresluna.org/shift-happens  · Design manager @figmadesign · Typographer · Occasional speaker · He/him

San Francisco, Calif.
Joined October 2009

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    1. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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      And so, some typewriters started offering changeable or mutil-faceted typebars, but that would only get you a bunch of new characters… not nearly enough. (Dial-A-Type™ is such a great name, though.)pic.twitter.com/Pg06eYJLWF

      2 replies 0 retweets 28 likes
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    2. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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      Others allows you to buy a new key and a matching typebar. But usually, only a few designated keys were swappable.pic.twitter.com/LbMsNcUGgz

      2 replies 0 retweets 23 likes
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    3. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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      Other typewriters – this is not a joke – offered twin models that effectively joined two typewriters together, but that was ridiculously expensive, and only extended your runway via 40 or so new characters.pic.twitter.com/Tz4rg5Ssqx

      3 replies 5 retweets 33 likes
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    4. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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      The most popular solution in this space was a Selectric, a typewriter with an interchangeable type ball, introduced by IBM in 1961.pic.twitter.com/y1ttaIVyQN

      3 replies 4 retweets 47 likes
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    5. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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      The “golf balls” proved immensely popular, were copied by many other typewriter companies, and in time morphed into daisy wheels.pic.twitter.com/EmFPzpG7J0

      1 reply 0 retweets 26 likes
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    6. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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      But while there were many balls with various fonts, there weren’t that very many with symbols.pic.twitter.com/1AlmbNo0Z2

      1 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
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    7. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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      Besides, that solution was pretty tough – you had to swap the entire ball, and then press exactly the right key (and your key cap wouldn’t match the symbol at all).pic.twitter.com/iC6nyRhDEx

      1 reply 0 retweets 17 likes
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    8. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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      So imagine my delight when I recently discovered an obscure third-party system for typewriters called Typit. It is very much the same idea as the Mac OS panel we looked at atop, but realized in the world without pixels.pic.twitter.com/9GDRIoMcIr

      1 reply 6 retweets 30 likes
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    9. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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      Typit was pretty clever. First, you had to buy a physical add-on for your typewriter – a special adapter that you only had to install once, and that wouldn’t otherwise impede regular typing.pic.twitter.com/DDJPmZR8Wr

      2 replies 3 retweets 19 likes
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    10. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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      Then, you could purchase any extra characters you needed. And if you wanted to type one, you’d grab it, and mount it quickly in the adapter, in front of the typebar…pic.twitter.com/dsqyoQh1gT

      1 reply 3 retweets 27 likes
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      Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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      And then, you would press a regular typewriter key. The typebar would swing normally, but then hit the just-inserted character, then the ribbon, and then the paper. In a sense, Typit functioned almost like a parasite.pic.twitter.com/w0oJZJ8aXP

      11:45 PM - 21 Feb 2019
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        2. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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          (A rather momentary parasite. Typit creator promised printing any character should take only ~4 seconds, with the quality identical as the typewriter’s “native” text.)pic.twitter.com/CZHIPU4z6x

          1 reply 0 retweets 22 likes
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        3. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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          Some 1,500 characters were available, effectively creating the only “typewriter Unicode” I know of – math symbols, different alphabets, fractions, even keys your old typewriter might be missing (e.g. digit 1 or &). It seems each character would cost you about $10.pic.twitter.com/ZOurxR8Xxm

          1 reply 5 retweets 29 likes
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        4. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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          The system was in use in between 1950s and 1980s. I don’t think it was very popular, despite many ads in electronics, chemical, and other scientific periodicals – and despite some marketing gimmicks, like this one from 1970.pic.twitter.com/3vZbI9oiad

          1 reply 0 retweets 18 likes
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        5. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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          There was even Typit II, actually compatible with the Selectric ball typewriters, a font-swapping tech coexisting with a character-swapping one.pic.twitter.com/PRcuFZHlFw

          1 reply 0 retweets 19 likes
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        6. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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          Eventually both, and all the others, were undone by computers which allowed for 31 characters, then 63, then 127, then 255, and now god knows how many via Unicode. Early on, it happened did with Alt+numeric keypad combination (still works on Win – and Mac after enabling it)…pic.twitter.com/DjDExyDKXU

          3 replies 2 retweets 15 likes
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        7. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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          …and then via graphical user interfaces and touch screens. But that’s a whole different story.pic.twitter.com/alSDuedsAu

          2 replies 0 retweets 13 likes
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        8. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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          I love that Typit existed. It’s such a weird hack, and a clever way to solve a particular problem. It’s kind of like a Chrome extension or a Greasemonkey script for typewriters, once again blurring the lines. And speaking of which, I like it for one other reason:

          1 reply 2 retweets 47 likes
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        9. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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          It is a proof that “press any key to continue” existed in the world before computers.

          3 replies 6 retweets 49 likes
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        10. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 21 Feb 2019
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          (BTW this thread is dedicated to the hard work and inspiration that is @shadychars.)

          1 reply 0 retweets 17 likes
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        11. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 22 Feb 2019
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          (I realize now that I forgot to do the most important visual juxtaposition – and notice that even the sizes of both containers are rather similar!)pic.twitter.com/6ypL074Oyv

          1 reply 9 retweets 46 likes
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        12. End of conversation

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