In 1876 these patterns were bought from Tehran to be used for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. These square kufic, and the ones at the bottom symbolize Ali, Muhammad and Ali. Each written four times.
More at kufic.info
The Linotype (1886) was one of the main printing techniques of the 20th century. With this machine, it was possible to produce metal lines to print, instead of doing it letter-by-letter. It didn’t use a qwerty keyboard, and there was no shift key. The keyboard was organized according to the popularity of the characters.
There is a movie about this machine, and there’s some clips from it here.
Dial telegraphy - yet another 19th century freshness. When you move the needle, the movements are sent wirelessly to the recipient, and reproduces the same movement.There is an online version and also check the releated mystery machine Spiritoscope.
Colonial blanket. National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) Smithsonian Institution, 19th century.
A more stylish interface for Morse Code: printing telegraphs! Each key represents a letter, and there is a shift key for capitalization.
This is Hughes telegraph (1866), which was the first telegraph that printed text on paper. Printing telegraphs were available earlier than that, often used for the stock market. Don’t fight the tape!
Ascii version of Lewis Carroll. “The Mouse’s Tale,” 1864 from David Palmer.
When Nietzsche started going blind, he needed some help. Luckily, the first commercial typewriter had just been developed in Denmark: the Hansen Writing Ball (1870). Nietzsche once said that our writing tools are also working on our thoughts. So naturally, he wrote some leet poetry:
The Writing Ball is a thing just like me: of iron
And yet easy to twist, especially on journeys.
Patience and tact one must richly possess
And fine little fingers to use us.
If you really want to get down n’ dirty with this, check out the book about the restoration of Nietzsche’s text ballz.
