In my keyboard research, one of the most amazing and constant features is how *early* some of the ideas appeared. Often, the things that seem to only make sense in the computer universe, existed much earlier, in the physical world.
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Take this, for example. It’s a panel you might recognize from your Mac, or Android phone, or any other device – a simple way for anyone who’s not a typesetter to access special characters unavailable from the keyboard.pic.twitter.com/IbpAqXZCbI
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That’s easy for computers that can hide things inside, but what about typewriters? From their very first year, it has always been an issue of what to do when you needed to print a character that your keyboard didn’t have.
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Overtyping could only get you so far, and pencilling or penning things in after typing was cumbersome and unprofessional.pic.twitter.com/9EYMDQEb6g
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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
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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
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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
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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
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