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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 16 Sep 2019
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      IBM was pretty good at screen trickery. IBM 3742 Dual Data Station was a data entry terminal meant for two people, and with two keyboards, but only a single screen. The screen was split into two “virtual screens” with a special prism. (A single-screen 3741 was also available.)pic.twitter.com/CJ4DUkA0Ho

      6 replies 14 retweets 126 likes
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    2. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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      IBM 5252 split a slightly bigger screen in a slightly different way.pic.twitter.com/pjb4fpdTyR

      3 replies 3 retweets 74 likes
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    3. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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      I don’t know much about this Inforex terminal, but I know that even on a screen so small, an error that says only ERROR is not an excuse.pic.twitter.com/KHcMKPChoG

      3 replies 9 retweets 113 likes
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    4. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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      Mohawk Data Sciences System 2400 (1973) had a very pretty green screen and if that keyboard is permanently slanted, I am in love.pic.twitter.com/vNxWKbr9ov

      2 replies 3 retweets 83 likes
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    5. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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      MicroOffice RoadRunner – “the five-pound computer aimed at the mobile professional” from 1983. Its display was 80 characters, but only 8 lines. (Love the cartridge indentations below the display.)pic.twitter.com/fg98h2itrj

      4 replies 3 retweets 79 likes
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    6. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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      VYDEC 2000 word processor! A glorious 12-line display (*)! (*) fine print: “4 lines of status and command areas”pic.twitter.com/DGEiBCnh6T

      1 reply 6 retweets 59 likes
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    7. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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      TI Insight Series 10 was introduced in 1981. It had 40×24 characters, on a 5½" “swivel” CRT screen.pic.twitter.com/KZsmPGuadL

      2 replies 8 retweets 69 likes
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    8. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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      The IBM 1015 Inquiry Display terminal was relatively similar spec-wise – a 5½" display of 40×30 characters – but much, much older. The screen still looked like a radar tube, betraying its origins. “Erasure time is 6 seconds.” (Be still, my heart.)pic.twitter.com/au8lX99xrb

      3 replies 10 retweets 87 likes
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    9. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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      Up until a point, there were so few characters in displays, that you could just brag about the number. This red Burroughs “SELF-SCAN” display is a “256-character display” (today, we would call it 32×8 instead).pic.twitter.com/7zyT6natx8

      3 replies 4 retweets 65 likes
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    10. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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      (At some point many years later, I saw a mention of a 1920-character display. I bet you can figure out what common text resolution this meant.)

      3 replies 2 retweets 38 likes
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      Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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      Or this Owens-Illinois terminal (on the right) made things even more complicated. It was advertised as a “64×256 lines at 33.3 lines per inch” – but it’s 40×6 characters, it seems.pic.twitter.com/f6d2LBJkjV

      10:33 PM - 16 Sep 2019
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      3 replies 3 retweets 56 likes
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        2. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          I feel the Osborne 1, Commodore SX 64, and IBM 5100 – all early portable machines with 5-inch displays – are relatively well-known, but should be included anyway.pic.twitter.com/IVWUzioFsJ

          8 replies 5 retweets 80 likes
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        3. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          A budget mid-1970s IMSAI computer had all the components you’d recognize from early microcomputers… but in very, very different proportions. As far as I understand, this screen could still display 40×24, or even 80×24 characters? (They’d just be incredibly tiny.)pic.twitter.com/JLjGCxI2sq

          2 replies 4 retweets 67 likes
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        4. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          Berthold Fototype TPE 6001 had a gorgeous screen (*) and kind of an amazing keyboard. Sometimes the most wonderful computers were hidden in specialized areas. Here: phototypesetting. (*) at least on the outside, of coursepic.twitter.com/KKsu86wixz

          2 replies 15 retweets 137 likes
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        5. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          Up to 10 lines! Up to 198 characters! The smallest Bunker Ramo financial terminals were so small QWERTY just walked away from the whole deal.pic.twitter.com/WMAZPoSAOd

          2 replies 3 retweets 66 likes
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        6. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          (Although some more fancy ones came with two screens for some reason?)pic.twitter.com/0CdkgPib3X

          2 replies 1 retweet 44 likes
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        7. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          This SCM Cogito 240 calculator had a 64-digit display. There were many more like it, but this one had – once more – a beautiful big bezel tricking you into seeing a much bigger display.pic.twitter.com/rxHN65nfQk

          1 reply 5 retweets 50 likes
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        8. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          Some computers couldn’t decide whether they want to pretend the screen is bigger, or just own the small size. Either way, this Culler-Fried System from 1960s had a fantastic keyboard-to-screen ratio.pic.twitter.com/mVtPvhKvBu

          1 reply 6 retweets 64 likes
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        9. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          Digisplay, a 1972 “flat-screen image sandwich” had 512 *tiny* characters.pic.twitter.com/Qb7kmUQCqD

          2 replies 2 retweets 43 likes
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        10. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          On the other hand – IBM 4700 financial system had a 5" display, but also a courtesy to come with a smaller keyboard to match it.pic.twitter.com/iEQkENKC7A

          1 reply 3 retweets 47 likes
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        11. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          (IBM 3604, its predecessor, did something similar.)pic.twitter.com/81SezJvGK7

          1 reply 2 retweets 47 likes
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        12. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          We’re getting smaller and smaller still. Philips PX1000/Text Lite PX1200 were portable terminals with just one line of text, and of course it makes sense! They’re so thin and tiny.pic.twitter.com/RYFrHkK7iP

          4 replies 6 retweets 84 likes
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        13. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          But if there’s one lesson we already learned in tech is that everything comes back: once-solved problems reappear as a headache for the next generation.

          1 reply 3 retweets 45 likes
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        14. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          And so, a few decades earlier, you could buy a really expensive CompuWriter typesetting machine – but that big space in front was for paper you were typing *from*. The display was a tiny sliver of one line, off to the side.pic.twitter.com/yuk6r0Rdsl

          6 replies 4 retweets 62 likes
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        15. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          Or, remember that Xerox 850/860 machine from that we started with? If you couldn’t afford even the half-page screen, there was another option: a little display of 16 green letters.pic.twitter.com/nhS5LrBwe6

          1 reply 0 retweets 45 likes
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        16. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          A Berthold typesetting machine came with a beautiful and unique keyboard – and in the periphery, a “screen” that felt more like a calculator display, with room for only *eight* last characters you typed.pic.twitter.com/hLy1ZSCxOz

          1 reply 4 retweets 60 likes
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        17. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          And if you’re thinking “at least the calculators are safe,” here is the abominable Royal Digital 3 with only *four* digits and a special key to scroll to the left or right.pic.twitter.com/MPj0pOijEr

          3 replies 3 retweets 75 likes
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        18. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          (I wrote about Royal Digital 3 in my newsletter last year. It not only has the worst display, but also a pretty awful “keyboard”: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift-happens/issues/the-worst-keyboard-ever-made-148939 …)

          1 reply 1 retweet 34 likes
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        19. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          But at last there *was* a display. Because we’re going to end one of the first computers ever, the otherwise glorious and memorable 1951’s UNIVAC, size of a room, its memory banks filled with mercury.pic.twitter.com/q8kHvTH2K4

          1 reply 9 retweets 58 likes
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        20. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          Where is its screen? *What* is its screen? Can you tell?

          2 replies 0 retweets 29 likes
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        21. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          There it is, in the middle of its blinking console, surrounded by a white frame – a “display” of sorts, a screen of an era where cathode ray tubes in computers were used for… memory, rather than display. (Yes!)pic.twitter.com/O2XMaMkoXV

          1 reply 9 retweets 72 likes
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        22. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          It’s pretty simple. Each character UNIVAC can share with you is accompanied by a simple lightbulb that would shine at the right moment.

          1 reply 1 retweet 34 likes
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        23. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          If it seems simplistic and inadequate, it was, even in 1951.

          1 reply 0 retweets 33 likes
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        24. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          Luckily at that time, and for a few decades later, people using computers who didn’t want to look at lightbulbs or spend a lot of $ for a flickering screen, had an alternative. At that time, and for a few decades later, the best computer display was still a nearby typewriter.pic.twitter.com/bAblFDLXv7

          2 replies 3 retweets 50 likes
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        25. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          In conclusion, if you’re interested in the history of displays, BUY MY BOOK ABOUT KEYBOARDS. But seriously, I found all of these in my research of keyboards, so I thought it’d be fun to share this parallel track!

          5 replies 1 retweet 65 likes
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        26. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          (It’s actually a bit sad how much of this relatively recent history is already gone – how many of those specialized computers survive today only in bad scans of old newspaper photos.)

          3 replies 2 retweets 44 likes
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        27. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary 16 Sep 2019
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          (And, if you’ve enjoyed it, you might enjoy the parallel thread called When Keyboards Were Desks: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift-happens/issues/when-keyboards-were-desks-190598 …)

          8 replies 3 retweets 61 likes
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        28. End of conversation

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