Typewriter
Typewriter
Admiral Biscuit
for ROBCakeran53
Manehattan always had the feel of an older Earth city—maybe turn-of-the-century London or New York—and many of the businesses were only marked by a small sign out front. If they had display windows, they'd often showcase their wares, but even that didn't seem universally necessary for the ponies.
Or else I just hadn't figured out what they felt needed to be displayed and what didn't.
I was a few blocks from my hotel, and I came across a small store that had a shingle with a typewriter on it out front. I had no need of a typewriter or any sort of typewriter related services, and I passed by the store without a second thought and was all the way to the end of the block when I started to get curious about how a pony typewriter would even work. Since I didn't have anything else to do, I figured I might as well take a look.
Somehow, I'd been imagining it was going to look like an Apple store inside, but of course it didn't. If anything, it was closer to a mad scientist's laboratory, with bits and pieces of typewriters strewn all around. In the center of the chaos, bent over with a screwdriver in his mouth, was the proprietor. He was a heavyset stallion with an orange-sherbert colored coat and a white mane and tail, and he had a friendly if somewhat deranged mien. His name was Tachigraph, and unsurprisingly he was an expert in all things typewriter.
“Hate unicorn typewriters,” he told me. “All spells and crystals. There's nothing to fix in them. When they break, they can't be fixed unless they're re-bespelled. Now this—” he lovingly patted a bulky iron monstrosity “—is made the proper way. All levers and springs and pivots.”
I nodded politely, and I was about to take my leave when I noticed a strange contraption over on a shelf. It was a kind of hemisphere, with typewriter keys stuck in it. I thought that maybe it was some way of storing the keys, but the longer I looked at it, the more deliberate it seemed. Nothing else in the room was well-organized (at least not to my eye; to him, it probably made perfect sense), so I asked him about it.
“Ah, yes, the writing ball.” He glanced at his desk for a moment, and then looked earnestly at me. “I have a little museum—perhaps you'd like to see it? I have a complete writing ball back there.”
That sounded somewhat more interesting, so I agreed, and he led me through his cluttered workplace to an unremarkable door.
Inside it was slightly more organized, but only slightly. Things weren't piled one on top of the other, at least.
As promised, right at the entrance was a complete writing ball. If I'd been confused by the two-key typewriter, this one really took the biscuit. My grandfather had had an IBM Selectric typewriter with the writing ball, and this was basically the reverse of the idea.
Besides the odd key arrangement, the paper was curved underneath it on a complicated cradle, with little clips on the corners holding it in place.
“Go ahead and try it,” he said. “The letters are plain to see.”
And indeed they were. I wasn't that good at writing in Equestrian, although I could speak it and read it well enough, but I managed to type out a short sentence watching in amazement as the entire paper carrier moved under the typehead.
“It's not very fast,” he admitted, “but it's good for a novice who doesn't type too much and who doesn't want to memorize key combinations.”
“This,” he said, pointing to the next typewriter, “is a telegraph typewriter, and one of the first that was produced.” It looked like the one on his sign; it had two hoof-sized buttons and a long spacebar; other than that, it was arranged like an old-fashioned typewriter, with a roller that the paper went into.
“What use is only having two keys?”
“Well, the messages came in telegraph code, which is long and short beeps,” he said. “Dah and Dit. Or dots and dashes, if you prefer. This key is the dah key, and that one is the dit key. So a telegraph transcriber just types out what he hears, and then re-writes it or typesets it later.” He moved down to the next machine. “Of course, somepony decided to improve it and tie it right into the telegraph line.”
That machine would have been right at home in a steampunk convention. Rather than being built into an integrated case, the original typewriter had been modified to have an apparatus above it which could push the keys down automatically.
“Other ponies got to thinking that if you could put the letters right on the paper—like a self-inking typesetting machine—that would be convenient for everypony, and pretty soon somepony had invented the first spell-powered typewriter.”
This was an ornate box, with an exposed roller and a vial for ink, and a small brass spike on one corner. There were no buttons.
“How did that work?”
“Somepony just thinks what she wants to write, and it comes out on the paper. She focuses her energy on the antenna, and it types for her.” He snorted. “Useless. Not only were the mechanical components cheap and badly-designed, the spellwork was terrible, too. Look, I have some letters that were written with one.” He reached under the shelf and pulled out a mouthful of papers. “Lots of unicorns bring them to me because they think that their typewriter is broken when really it’s doing just what the spell intends for it to do.”
I took one from the center, figuring that it probably had the least amount of drool on it, and started reading.
Dear Spark, I most enjoyed your visitflanks last coat like blueberry muffind weekend I should what was that noise to get back no not back your house your sister no why we could a picnic would be nice wait what are stupid Luna-curssed typewriter just st
“Turns out nopony is all that focused when they type,” Tachigraph told me. “The improved models have normal buttons to push for words that you want to write down, and it's not much faster than a normal typewriter.”
He moved on to another normal-looking pony typewriter. “This one was a big innovation. It's called the Perotype, and it uses rolling keys.” He expertly slipped a piece of paper into it and demonstrated it for me.
The movement was mesmerizing. Both of the large hoof-sized keys tilted forward and back and to both sides, and were pushed down to type the letter. “You have to set the left one first, then the right,” he explained. “It was the first compact typewriter that had all the important letters, so that you could write something in plain Equestrian.”
Next to it was a similar-looking typewriter. “This one is called the Chirographer, and it uses sliding keys instead of rolling keys, but otherwise it uses the same principle of operation. The left key sets the register, and then the right one types the letter.”
“Which is better?”
Tachigraph shrugged. “The Perotype is a little bit faster—the rolling movement of the keys is more natural. But it's mechanically more complicated, and if you type carelessly, you can jam it more easily.”
“With both of these, you'd have to memorize the key combinations,” I observed. True, the letters were printed on the keys, but it was an unholy mess, since each position struck multiple letters depending on where the other key was placed.
“And that's why the Typographer was invented,” he said, leading me along to another machine. Rather than have two keys, it only had one. Then, at the front of the machine was a dial with letters printed on it. “You turn the dial to the letter you want to type, and then strike the key.”
It reminded me of the label maker that my grandfather had which embossed text on a sticky plastic ribbon. I'd used it a few times as a kid to label my possessions, but it was really slow.
“It isn't a quick machine,” he said, “but it's simple and easy to understand. No professional would use it, but for somepony who needs to only occasionally type something, it's cheap, and it's really reliable, too.”
I couldn't argue with that; instead of the complicated arrangement of springs and levers that I'd seen on the other typewriters, this only had one.
“It's also nice for traveling ponies, because it's considerably lighter and more compact than all the other models. I know a few journalists who use them, and some of them are really quick with it. I've had to replace the index wheel on Quick Lede's machine several times—she wears out the mechanical indents.”
We'd reached the back of his little museum, and there was only one more typewriter to examine. This one actually looked much like a human typewriter, although it had far more keys. A quick scan revealed that lowercase letters and capital letters each had their own key.
“The Cutter,” he said. “It was originally designed as a stencil-cutter, and then somepony got the idea to shrink down the mechanism and use it as a typewriter. It's practical for unicorns, because they can strike the keys with their fields, and just like the Typographer it can easily be used by anypony without training, but it's really bulky.
“Some print shops use them, because the font can be changed.” He pulled out a drawer on the bottom of the typewriter that looked for all the world like a cash drawer. Inside were neatly arranged collections of keycaps, some of which were quite ornate.
“How many different kinds of typewriter are there?”
He frowned. “You know, I honestly have no idea. These are the most common that I've seen, at least in terms of concept. Minotaur typewriters are a lot like the Cutter, although without as many keys—they usually have a shifting carriage and use two letters per key. Lots of Earth ponies have invented new arrangements, or improvements to existing models. I've fixed treadle powered machines before, and—“
“Treadle powered?” I shouldn't have interrupted him, but I really wanted to know what that was.
“To make it easier to hit the keys. There's a lot of mechanical parts to move, you know.” He folded the cover up on the Cutter to let me examine the arrangement of springs and levers that made it work. “It's a little more complex to power it, but it lets it strike the letters more firmly, and is easier on the hooves. Unicorns especially like them, because it's hard to push firmly with their magic.”
“Interesting.” I'd never really thought about that aspect of magic. It seemed so effortless for the unicorns to lift and carry things, but I suppose that there must have been some effort involved, or else everything in Equestria could be powered forever by a couple of unicorns turning a giant flywheel or something like that.
We probably could have kept talking for quite some time, except that we both heard the jingling of the bell above his door, and both of us simultaneously remembered that he was running a business rather than a museum.
“Just a moment,” he called out in the direction of the doorway, then turned back to me. “It's been real interesting talking to you, Joe. You're the first human who's had any interest in my little collection.”
“Thank you,” I said, sticking out a hand. “I never realized that there was such an interesting variety of typewriters.”
He chuckled. “Feel free to come back any time.”
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And today we learned about typewriters.
This was a really nice chapter. It's interesting to see how a different species might come up with different machinery when the technology is still in its infancy. A kind of "Throw everything against the wall and see what sticks" approach to engineering.
Then the pony wanting to control a concert pipe organ sees one of these things and goes, that strikes a chord.
And promptly trashes it by trying to enter a 6 letter word all at the same time.
How? How are we even supposed to pronounce that?
8669730
Alcohol, brain damage, and seven shades of mental illness.
Chirographer,?
8669316
Not exactly, although ironically, the concept is what I'd originally meant for Silver Glow's Journal.
8669332
Hopefully it was fun and interesting!
8669368
The interesting thing is that humans actually invented the typewriter at least 52 times, including Hansen's Writing Ball and the indexing typewriter, so we're as guilty of that as the ponies.
8669448
I legit found pictures when I was researching of piano keyboards attached to computers, and while I assume that they were for music, there's no reason you couldn't use one as a letter input device.
Besides, Sholes and company did use a lot of piano parts in their early typewriter.
8669730 8669744 8669772
Woulda helped if I'd spelled it right, wouldn't it have? (Although there's something deliciously ironic about mistyping the name of a typewriter.)
It's supposed to be Chirographer.
period instead of comma at the end there.
8669885
That's what I thought at first, but then I saw you repeated the same name later, so I figured that maybe it was the name and that you'd explain it to me and that I would end up going to bed smarter.
Beautiful in how much sense it makes. Thank you for it. I'll definitely jeed to appropriate some of these designs should the need arise.
Never heard that one before.
Just wait till the information age when some pony invents this monster:
This is the coolest study of horse typewriters that I've ever seen. Neat!
I'm kinda disappointed that more human type writers weren't brought up. Here we have a type writer enthusiast with a human-who have decidedly different ways of operating than most Equestrians-and yet humans aren't brought up at all. I was kinda hoping for a bit of an exchange here. I mean, humans can type fairly quicky, and compared to non-unicorn typewriters, ours would be nearly inoperable to pegusi and earth ponies, but would also offer up fairly fast word count.
Something like that would have really tied off this chapter-to see ponies and human interaction, rather than just pony talking at human with no real exchange between both.
Kind of disappointed he doesn't have a Baby Dragon AssistantTM in stock, I understand those are the latest model, and come with their own telegraphic functions as well.
8670359
Correction made; thank you!
8670362
I did? If I used the name twice, I can't find it.
I can tell you that Perotype and Chirographer are real historical typewriter names.
8671379
Thanks!
Feel free to steal any of these ideas.
In fact, another one that came up in comments on the blog post was the possibility that they have indexing typewriters where the two big hoof keys are left and right (to choose the letter), and the 'spacebar' is to type that letter. That was one I didn't think of for this story.
8671567
Really? It's a Britishism, formerly along the lines of 'really takes the cake.' (apparently nowadays the kids just say it when things suck)
8672121
I bet the pony one would work better. Especially if they did lots of experimentation with rolling and sliding keys on mechanical typewriters.
That is something a pony could use pretty easily, though.
8673358
Thank you!
8675294
I suppose I could have done more with human typewriters. although I'm not sure it would have really fit well in this particular setting. These stories are generally meant to be Joe learning little bits of Equestrian culture here and there, and not so much human culture being taught to the ponies--at least, that's the general vision I've had for this story.
Maybe I ought to do a full-bore blogpost on typewriters. I wonder if that's something people would enjoy?
8675705
Well, Tachigraph isn't that much of a fan of unicorn machines. A Baby Dragon AssistantTM is all well and good when it's working, but when it malfunctions, what's he gonna be able to do to fix it?
8676082 All you need to do to get it working properly again is a sapphire, an issue of Power Ponies, and a hug.
8676092
I'm glad you said that, because I was thinking banging it upside the head with a wrench was the way to go.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/8/3/690030__safe_artist-colon-lumyia_oc_oc+only_oc-colon-tool+kit_derp_green+hair_mechanic_red+eyes_wrench.png
8676125 You only need to do that if your typewriter wanders out of your house and starts stalking one of your friends.
8676174
Mine's had a threesome with ROBCakeran53 (and myself).
I can prove it with a pic, too.
camo.derpicdn.net/cc546d58952f837dbd02005d9a223b95389d36c4?url=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FUsws9om.jpg
8676184
Jeeze, put a warning up before posting steamy pics!
8676216
lol sorry.
More sweet worldbuilding! And steampunk mechanisms!
I'm having a hard time picturing how the Equestrian writing ball works. I looked up some pictures of the Hansen and it looks pretty amazing, but I can't see how you'd design a hoof-operable one.
i.pinimg.com/originals/59/f6/bc/59f6bc3931e4d4792e96b332273b814b.jpg
Dear aunt let's set so double the killer delete select all.
It'd be only usable by unicorns, wouldn't it?
8676069
I don't get out much, apparently
8676059
Ah, no, you did not. My bad.
What you did though, is use
in the paragraphe about the cutter. It confused me
8676474
Man, I just suck at typing.
Ironic, given the subject matter.
8676439
Heh, no worries. I read a lot of British lit, so I picked up a fair number of British phrases.
8676479
Maybe it's just your typographer's spell work that is malfunctioning, you should consult Tachigraph, he might help you
8676234
Basically the same thing, but the keys would extend further out, making them further apart, and therefore hoof operable. It would potentially be somewhat unwieldy, to be honest.
Seriously, a typewriter that magically recorded your every thought would be terrible.
Practically, yes, unless it were the size of a pipe organ (which the non-downsized version would have been). I mean, a not-unicorn could presumably hold a pencil or something in her mouth and poke at the keys that way, but it wouldn't be terribly fast.
8676485
True story, one of the keys on my very expensive and only one year old Das Keyboard is malfunctioning. Luckily, it's the down arrow, and I don't use that a whole lot.
A million keystrokes my rump.
8676079
Well, it's just that most exchanges are rarely one sided, and to me it feels distinctly off that a typewriter enthusiast doesn't once ask a human about their typewriters. You wouldn't need to focus on it for long-the focus is on Equestria after all-but in this particular scenario, it felt off to me that the pony and human depart effectively without the pony learning one single thing about humans in this story.
8676841
Technology in Equestria is inconsistent as hell. They get conquered by spear wielding brutes, but also have x ray machines and primitive computers and can manipulate the weather to such an extent that humanity cannot begin to approach their capabilities with our best efforts
Frankly, I don't think Equestria has technology as much as it has themes. The writers give it the tech required for a particular scenario, and then ignore any contradictory tech from previous episodes.
So yeah, the spaniards conquering Equestria. You could say that. You could also say Celestia would launch into the sun. Or the Equestrian military would shrug, and send out a few paralysis spell 32b capable unicorns and send them out to disable the entire force in about five minutes or less, while shield capable unicorns protect them and pegusi provide lightning support from above to keep them pinned. Or they'd be so charmed by ponies they'd give up their thieving murdering ways. I mean, the writers of the series clearly don't care about establishing consistent technology, so when it comes to fanfiction, write whatever.
This was nice, I liked it. Very in depth. Now I need to actually try to build those different typewriters.
Now I have the mental image of a Minotaur typewriter as weighing half a ton and made mostly out of cast iron.
8677050
Joe isn't particularly an enthusiast, although I suppose he'd know a thing or two about them--he's probably old enough anyways.
But I suppose even if he's not--even if he's never used anything but a computer keyboard--he could tell Tachygraph things about how a human keyboard is laid out, and guess from that how a typewriter is.
8677741
That would be interesting to try. I don't know how hellishly complex they'd actually be.
Having said that, you could actually buy a Hansen's writing ball if you had enough money.
8689761
So about the same as a real typewriter.
I could see them building the things like the proverbial brick s
house.
I would like to see Joe--such an average name, I hate it--show Tachigraph--now that's a name--some type-writer's from Earth. He'd probably equate them to the Minotour's models, but would probably be fascinated to see Joe--that name again--using it.
8742689
He's an ordinary Joe, that's for sure.
I hadn't really planned to have much in the way of back-and-forth between Joe and the ponies (at least when it comes to tech and stuff), because that's not really what kind of story this is. It's mostly just a place to put out some of my weirder headcanon in a form that will either give people a chuckle, or will inspire them to greatness of some kind or another.
I do think that a common human typewriter is probably very similar to what the minotaurs use.