Ford Typewriter Ford Typewriter The Ford typewriter was an early prototype typewriter introduced in 1895 by Eugene A. Ford, who later became chief development engineer at IBM (no relation to Henry Ford who founded the Ford Motor Company). It was a commercial failure and only a few were manufactured. Unlike many competing typewriters of this time, it was a forward-striking machine, meaning the hammer struck forward against the paper which was held against the platen roller, instead of up from underneath. This allowed the typist to see the text as it was typed, which was not possible in most other typewriters of
Typewriter in the Sky into the front rank of science fiction writers of the late 1940s." Writing in "Dream makers: The Uncommon Men and Women Who Write Science Fiction" (1983), Charles Platt called the book, "one of Hubbard's most well-known and playful pieces". The "St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture" (2000) described "Typewriter in the Sky" and "Fear" as Hubbard's "most famous stories" in the genre of science fiction. "The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography" (2003) in its biographical entry on L. Ron Hubbard characterized "Typewriter in the Sky" and "Slaves of Sleep" among classics in science fiction, as did "The Riverside Dictionary of