'Cos they credit a different guy with making the idea work. Y'know, I'd say "when it's steamboat time...." but his boat steamed rather early (1808!) and it steamed for love: he built the thing so his beautiful, blind girlfriend could write letters! It appears he also invented carbon paper -- instead of the typewriter ribbon.
Sadly, his machine did not survive, though letters written by means of it do; and that's how we know it was real. Can't seem to find images of them online, rather a pity.
--Among other things, this points up a better aspect of dating tech geeks. Just sayin'.
My wife has been known to mention the fact that she married tech support.
ReplyDeleteI've always been amused at the fact that Tom Edison invented the mimeograph machine, waxed paper, and the tattoo needle all at the exact same time. And none of those things are used in the way the original inventions were used.
ReplyDeleteVia a blog I suspect no longer exists ("Marmot's Hole" by a US guy ;ivimg in Korea) I found out something that really got to me. The Monitor was not the first all-iron warship. Seems that about 1588 (yes, Sixteenth Century) a Korean Admiral had six built: they were placed in an area an invading Japanese fleet had to pass, and were largely responsible for defeating the invaders. There is a replica of one of them at a park.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it was so far ahead of its time it was not done again...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_ship
ReplyDeleteI have a beautiful little portable typewriter that was owned by my grandfather. He so wanted to learn to type, but he never could master it.
ReplyDeleteThe really strange part is that, even as an old man, he wrote in perfectly beautiful script, the sort of stuff that the Declaration of Independence is written in, but he wanted to learn to type! I can type like the blitz, but my long-hand is pretty poor.