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
Blickensderfer typewriter compared to the 2,500 parts of a standard typewriter. It was much smaller, lighter and cheaper than others. Some of the first aluminum typewriters, marketed as the Blickensderfer 6 and the Blick Featherweight, were made by Blickensderfer, as was the world's first fully electric typewriter, the Blickensderfer Electric. Instead of the common mechanism with letters on the end of individual type bars connected to the keys, the first Blickensderfer prototype used a cylindrical typewheel with four rows of characters; lower case, upper case, italics and short words embossed on it. It was later modified to three rows of characters: lower