discovering typewriter history!

DiscoveringTYPEWRITER HISTORY!

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Piano Lessons Captain QWERTY learned to play the

piano when he was only six years old. He remembers a song that started with the left thumb on middle C.

The song he learned to play was in the John W. Thompson piano method book. It went something like this:


On Our Old Typewriter I just love to peck the keys On our old typewriter! I can type my name with ease On our old typewriter!


Typewriter Keys Adults who used the old typewriter

(with a ribbon for the ink) also remember how the key hammers (which worked like the inside of a piano) would get stuck if they typed the letters too fast.


Strike the Keys Many adults today remember the

manual typewriter. The keys were so hard to press that they used to “strike” the keys. Now we simply press them.


So, where did the typewriter get its name?

Before the typewriter was invented the people who worked at the printing press (to print newspapers and books) had to select the letters from two boxes, or cases. This was called setting the type.


Upper Case and Lower Case It was tedious work and took a lot of

time and effort just to print a single page. Newspaper printers in the 1800’s had two boxes to choose from.

One box was the upper case, holding the capital letters. As you may have guessed the other box was the lower case. Press the space bar to continue.

Shift Keys It is so much easier for us to use Shift

and Caps Lock to make our lower case into upper case or Capital letters!

Have you ever wondered what the inventor of the typewriter was thinking when he designed the layout of the keyboard in 1868?


The Inventor of the Keyboard

Christopher Sholes was a newspaper editor and printer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

We can read more about him on the Internet at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Latham_Sholes #Inventing_the_typewriter

Historians claim that Mr. Sholes, when he designed the keyboard layout, was merely trying to slow down those who used the typewriter to 20 words per minute so that the keys didn’t jam.Press the space bar to continue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Latham_Sholes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Latham_Sholes

Patterns on the Keyboard We cannot turn the clock back to

1868 to personally ask the inventor what he was thinking, but we can look at some of the clues that he left behind.

Just like detectives, we can analyze the patterns on the keyboard.


Clue #1 For example, look for the

letters to spell TYPEWRITER. Where did you find them?

They are all on the top row of letters. Sales reps in the 1800s used these letters to

demonstrate their new type setting machine.


Clue #2 Here’s another clue to what the inventor

was thinking: Look for three letters in

alphabetical order on the keyboard. Yes, F, G & H are in order on the home

row. Also, J, K, & L are in order on the home

row. By the way, H is at the center of the

home row.Press the space bar to continue.

also of interest

C, D, and E are left hand letters in alphabetical order from the bottom row to the top row.

Press the space bar to end the presentation.

Clue #4 Here is another clue:Look for sets of two letters in alphabetical order.

M & N are neighbors on the bottom row. O & P are neighbors on the top row. But, P and Q are at opposite ends of the

top row.


Clue #5 All of the vowels except for A

can be found on the top row. Looking across the top row of letters,

from left to right, we see the letters that spell QWERTY. That is how the QWERTY keyboard got

it’s name.


Clue #6 If you were to look closely

at the number row of an old typewriter, you would notice that some of the numbers are missing.

The lower case letter l was used for number one.

The upper case letter O was used for zero.

Patterns on the Keyboard We call it a word processor because

we can process or edit our words before we print them out on paper.

While handwriting is great for taking notes in class, if you want lots of people to read what you have written then you need to learn word processing.


Now we know! Now that we know some of the

patterns on the QWERTY keyboard, it will help us to find the letters that we need to build the words to help process our thoughts!

Our next goal is to work on speed and accuracy. This is commonly known as touch typing (without looking at the keyboard).Press the space bar to continue.

Why Touch Typing? Think about it … what happens to the

letters when you put your fingers on them? They get covered up.

So, for us to find a letter before we type it, we either need to move our fingers while we look, or else memorize which fingers type each letter! Press the space bar to continue.

Just like piano lessons! Think of how it slows piano players

down when they have to look for keys on the piano keyboard.

It is the same way with computer keyboards.

We have to practice without looking at our hands to get faster.

Press the Esc to discontinue.

Have you ever wondered … Why are Capital letters, aka Upper

Case letters used on the keyboard? We don’t type in all caps very often. Wouldn’t it make sense to cover the keys with lower case letters?

These questions will be addressed in other lessons.

discovering typewriter history!

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