Head canon of pony typewriters. · 9:13pm Jan 7th, 2014
Now if they don't use Morse code and have our same alphabet I figured they would work like this:
The left key selects letters through symbols, A-Z, 0-9, all grammatical symbols (commas, periods and such). If you depress it down only lightly it selects an "A" or if you push it down halfway it'll give you an "X" (Since numbers and symbols are also counted it wouldn't be halfway through the alphabet, probably wouldn't be at "X" either but it's an example). After pushing down to the letter/number/symbol you want you hit the right key, which types the selected letter/number/symbol.
This system would be complex to type with until you've gotten used to it, but it is a possible design for a two-key typewriter. I imagine such a system would use a "typeball" rather than separate striking arms (Unlike what is seen in the show).
A typeball works by rotating and/or raising/lowering to the selected letter/number/symbol before striking the paper. Such designs are complex, so I imagine pony typewriters are fairly expensive.
... Dafuq you smokin', Steams? I want some!
Kidding. I never put much thought as to how pony typewriters actually work, so kudos to you.
1693050 I'm smoking English tobacco from an English pipe.
Like a sir.
1693062
... Truth be told, I've always wanted an English pipe.
1693104 Everyone does.
Because they're so damn
coolepicawesomesophisticated.That makes sense to me, although I must admit I had not thought about the subject before.
1693248 Explain, ALL the ponies stuff!
I had the idea that they used two different writing systems, one that works well for unicorns (cursive) and one that's easr to write with hooves.
Now, as we have serf and sans serif, the pony script has two styles as well.
Sans font.
Seirf font.
Please note that these are showing french characters. Also, there are no lowercase. And the B with lines in it refers to bits. Like $.
Now, the serif font has the property that all the characters are made up of at most 2 X's and +'s.
These are the two keys on the keyboard, and the typist can shift the key around into 6 different positions and have two in the same space for more characters.
1718818 That can work too, though I don't see anything on the machine that would allow the striker to be moved around.
1718867 Well, is there anywhere for the type ball to be rotated?
1718871 Well typeballs are rotated mechanically via internal components. I think the correct question would be "Is there a typeball" as one is currently not there.
Like I said in the blog, the left key rotates the ball, the father you push it down the more the ball revolves, giving you different letters with a single key, the right key is the striking key to get the ball to hit the paper and imprint the letter.
And the spacebar is still a spacebar, because space has bars.
1718880 We don't really see any sort of mechanisms, so the keys and the striker could be connected due to magic.
Also, there are two strikers. And they don't push both keys at once.
1718891 I can see this, here let me go back to the blog post since you seemed to miss it.
I came up with this system if they were using the English alphabet, since 90% of HiE where the ponies speak English also has the human able to read their written word it would have to be in English.
The only way for a two key typewriter to get all the letters, numbers, and symbols used in English is with the system I came up with.
Your systems works if they're not using English, otherwise it doesn't work.
As for not seeing the mechanisms, that's because it's a cartoon and most, if not all, cartoons never put that much detail into background objects.
1718906 The English alphabet is a subset of the french.
1718909 You know very well I meant the characters used, as in A-Z lower and upper case, along with 0-9 and all the symbols.
1718951 All the English characters map onto the french ones without overlap.
I don't see the problem.
1718965 Again, like I said before, 90% of HiE stories that have the ponies speak English also have the person able to pick up a book and read it. Obviously if they weren't in English (Because these are Americans, expecting them to know anything but is asking too much.
) then the people wouldn't be able to read them.
Like I ALSO said that yes, yours does work as well. So does mine.
If you want to use that system go ahead. My system works fine so I'll be using it. You seem to be acting like I'm saying yours is wrong when so far I've said it works in both comments pertaining to your system.
^-- This one I should've said letters or characters, but you get the point.
1718992 The reason why french in the system devised was because it was a crossover with Code: Lyoko, which takes place in France.
1719001 I'll stick with Morse code if I want non-English letters. (Which I mentioned in the original blog
seeing as Morse code would work perfectly fine with a two key typewriter.)