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 Brown may have drawn from Hubbard's tale. Umberto Rossi asserted in a book on writer Philip K. Dick that "Typewriter in the Sky" likely influenced Dick's first published short story "Beyond Lies the Wub" (1951), in addition to his novel "The Cosmic Puppets" (1957). Harlan Ellison compared it to the 1989 film "The Purple Rose of Cairo". Gary Westfahl likened the "Typewriter in the Sky" to the 2006 film "Stranger than Fiction", going so far as to suggest the two had virtually an identical narrative. The story begins in Greenwich Village, New York. The main character, Mike de Wolf, is