Tuesday, 30 August 2011

On This Day in Typewriter History (CI)



  1. Fascinating. How did you track all this stuff down? You have given us a glimpse into the very deliberate process of industrial design and into the thinking of some of its finest practitioners in the typewriter world. Your selection includes some of my favorites: Plana, Remington 5, SG1, Lexikon 80. I was under the misapprehension that Nizzoli had designed the Lexikon 80 -- I wasn't even aware of Giuseppe Beccio.

    As for the Diaspron .... the less said, the better.

  2. Thanks, Richard. It started with a date and the Plana design just popped up. Given the year, it took me a few minutes to work out which typewriter it was. Design patents, sadly, are a little more difficult to track, because of the letter in front of the numbering. But it just led from there, through references. I didn't know where it was going to end! Fortunately it eventually went full circle. I think Nizzoli did have something to do with the Lexikon 80, as Beccio did with the Lettera 22, although outside Italy the credit has been given individually in each case. Beccio seems to have worked a lot on calculators etc.
    I just serviced a Diaspron for a local lady, whose 14-year-old daughter wanted to learn to touch type on it. I thought it a bad choice, but it was working very nicely when it left here. I take you don't like them?

  3. What tipped me into the Plana were those holes in the front inside of the frame, each side of the spacebar. Until then, I was almost calling you for help again!

  4. I does help in the more modern (post 40s) era that designs are referenced. Referencing also helped with a later post, about the Simplex and Livermore typewriters. The 1863 Livermore patent was referenced in several 21st century patents for an alphanumerical font. I think it's fabulous that such things live on in this way.

  5. Hello,

    Thank you for referencing our work on the ELIA Frames Font. I'm the Andrew Chepaitis, you mention in your blog. I would note that I was unaware of the Livermore typewriters before I read your post today. I think the USPTO or my lawyer included a reference to Livermore as prior art, because it is a stylized font for a specific use case. But it wouldn't be accurate to say that Livermore influenced our work, or that we even knew about it. It can be said that Livermore was created prior to our work and for the purposes of patents, because it came before, the USPTO said that we couldn't patent an innovation that would have been obvious in light of Livermore.

    I hope this helps.

    On a personal note, right now I'm working next to a beautiful Royal typewriter that I have on my shelf as a thing of beauty.

    All the best,



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