retro futurism, gizmodo, laptops, technology, typewriters, valleywag

A Laptop From 1893

The next time you're feeling all smug and twenty-first century commuting into the office while using your laptop to catch up on emails or prep for a presentation, consider the following. Back in 1893, a publication called The Manufacturer and Builder hyped a new portable typewriter that could "readily be used on the lap, on the desk, on the train—in short, anywhere"—and showed a forward-thinking commuter doing just that. Click through for a closer look at the world's first laptop.

Measuring 12 inches long by 6-1/2 inches wide by 2 inches deep, and weighing a mere 3 pounds, the World typewriter was roughly the same size as many of today's laptop computers. Instead of a keyboard, however, the World used a dial; users chose a character with the right hand, then used the left to operate a lever that pressed it into the paper. Yet another lever was used to make spaces between words. Even so, the World typewriter was said to be

. . . readily mastered, so that after a month or two of practice any one of ordinary intelligence, by application, can acquire a speed of forty words per minute, or about twice the number that a rapid penman will write with the pen.

Of course, a fast typist on a QWERTY keyboard could reach speeds of 100 words per minute or more—a fact that may have helped contribute to the World typewriter's fade into oblivion.

1:20 PM on Mon Apr 14 2008
By Lynn Peril
28,879 views
17 comments

Comments

bitgod at 01:35 PM on 04/14/08
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I hate it when my laptop typewriter gets too hot to sit on my lap, I should sue someone!
92BuickLeSabre at 01:37 PM on 04/14/08
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Connectedness Index: 558

...not to mention the need to bend over and ask the kindly gentleman across from you to move his foot so you can retrieve your work, at the end of every page.
DSTRYA at 01:41 PM on 04/14/08
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is there any more material on this thing you can post? from where did you get the pics & etc?
Grey_Area at 01:47 PM on 04/14/08
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Of course, y'know why it really failed--not enough stained wood & brass trim.
Lynn Peril at 01:52 PM on 04/14/08
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@DSTRYA: The Manufacturer and Builder, February 1893, p. 34. Accessible via the fabulous "Making of America" project at Cornell University.
Jango at 01:58 PM on 04/14/08
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The chick behind him is the first shoulder-surfer, too.
str88f at 02:22 PM on 04/14/08
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Comes in two colors: black and white, integrated graphics (a sheet of paper). Boom! Sooo much better than a Microsoft fountain pen! Next: check out the iWaxCilinder! Up to ten seconds of eerie singing! Boom again!
DSTRYA at 02:27 PM on 04/14/08
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@Lynn Peril: killa! thanks for the citation.
qbrad at 03:22 PM on 04/14/08
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And what about the Dvorak keyboard layout? Now that we don't have hammers getting bound up, how fast can we get on dvorak?
youngfiles at 03:25 PM on 04/14/08
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-longer battery life
-won't explode
-light as...air
-cleared for use during takeoff, landing, and refilling the boiler.
comp_wiz101 at 03:56 PM on 04/14/08
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Basically a label maker on steroids... nice 19th Century engineering though.
Valicious at 04:58 PM on 04/14/08
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@youngfiles: any e-ink gadget does that without a keyboard tho yet , (but the bulky amazon thingmabob), 8000 page turns on sony reader (years o' battery if you don't ever turn pages).
Vlad1v0st0K at 05:11 PM on 04/14/08
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I'm wondering about how the ink was applied....must have been hell on a good pair of trousers.
Killa_Charlie at 06:30 PM on 04/14/08
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Its actually quite beautiful.
Defendant at 07:46 PM on 04/14/08
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@Grey_Area: It failed because it wasn't a Mac.
thedarkharlequin at 11:34 PM on 04/14/08
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Now I want a PC peripheral with an input style like this. I bet if you did it with part hardware, part software, it could be similar to the old arkanoid NES controller.
kevinjwoods at 07:40 AM on 04/15/08
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Actually I can top that. in the story Other Worlds by Cyrano de Bergerac in about 1650 there is this description:

When I opened a box, I found inside something made of metal, somewhat like our clocks, full of an endless number of little springs and tiny machines. It was indeed a book, but it was a miraculous one that had no pages or printed letters. It was a book to be read not with eyes but with ears. When anyone wants to read, he winds up the machine with a large number of keys of all kinds. Then he turns the indicator to the chapter he wants to listen to. As though from the mouth of a person or a musical instrument come all the distinct and different sounds that the upper-class Moon-beings use in their language.

When I thought about this marvelous way of making books, I was no longer surprised that the young people of that country know more at the age of sixteen or eighteen than the greybeards of our world. They can read as soon as they can talk and are never at a loss for reading material. In their rooms, on walks, in town, during voyages, on foot or on horseback, they can have thirty books in their pockets or hanging on the pommels of their saddles. They need only wind a spring to hear one or more chapters or a whole book, if they wish. Thus you always have with you all the great men, both living and dead, who speak to you in their own voices.

The gifts occupied me for more than an hour. Finally I attached the books to my ears as pendants and went for a walk in town

thus making it a very early podcast/ipod/walkman.