What if,

Deleted Account
Deleted Account Posts: 739
in Type History
this had won the typewriter wars,
shttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansen_Writing_Ball
What would the personal computer look like?

Comments

  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,764
    image
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,301
    Fascinating, and new to me. Thanks.
    The 1870 version bears some similarity to Edison’s Phonograph, which came later, and the earlier Phonoautograph.
    I would guess this principle of recording on a cylinder is informed by the process of knurling on a lathe, and perhaps music box cylinders.
  • Alex Kaczun
    Alex Kaczun Posts: 164
    image
  • Jackson Showalter-Cavanaugh
    Jackson Showalter-Cavanaugh Posts: 539
    image
  • Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer
    Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer Posts: 157
    Max: This is how they made it in the first place. (SCNR)
  • Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer
    Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer Posts: 157
    Wait a minute, that's a keyboard for single-handed typing, right?
    Oh, the possibilities!
    (SCNR again)
  • Deleted Account
    Deleted Account Posts: 739
    But align the type ball properly in the Maltron, they can type each others keys, and you have a network!
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,527
    Or at least a telegraph repeater station.
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,764
    Whatever became of Doug Engelbart's chording keyboard? The idea was to use the mouse (also his invention) for the right hand and the chording keyboard with the left (or vice versa, I presume). With it, you could type with one hand.
  • Karl Stange
    Karl Stange Posts: 38
    The FrogPad is available for anyone needing to type with just one hand (left or right):

    http://www.frogpad.com/
  • Karl Stange
    Karl Stange Posts: 38
    Standard digital calculator designs won out over the far more interesting prospects offered by the hand grenade shaped Curta calculator:

    image
  • Deleted Account
    Deleted Account Posts: 739
    For the waiters near Wall Street to come by your table offering fresh-ground calculations?
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,301
    Mal Tron. He is one baaaaadass Decepticon MF.
    What does he look like transformed?

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