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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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      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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    2. 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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    3. 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

      3 replies 3 retweets 56 likes
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    4. 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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    5. 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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    6. 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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    7. 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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    8. The Level of Discourse‏ @UlyssesPascal Jan 11
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      Replying to @mwichary

      Hi I'm researching bunker-ramo / nasdaq and I was wondering why these terminals were not qwerty. One advertisement I read suggested their terminal was good for people "who don't type too well"?pic.twitter.com/hckboNuX17

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    9. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary Jan 11
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      Replying to @UlyssesPascal

      A few thoughts: 1. What you just said. Before microcomputers, touch typing (and QWERTY) were more feminine activities, so perhaps if those were operated by men, this was meant to help.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    10. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary Jan 11
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      Replying to @mwichary @UlyssesPascal

      2. Form factor. QWERTY doesn’t go vertical and you often see alphabetic layouts where keyboards are tall (see: new parking meters).

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary Jan 11
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      Replying to @mwichary @UlyssesPascal

      3. It might be that a competitor (Quotron?) started this layout and Bunker-Ramo just wanted to follow? Not sure about the timelines of those things.

      5:35 PM - 11 Jan 2021
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        1. Marcin Wichary‏ @mwichary Jan 11
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          Replying to @mwichary @UlyssesPascal

          DM me your email and I can send you the relevant part of my database!

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