Electric and Electronic Typewriters

The first electric typewriters were invented by Thomas Edison in 1872, but this was in the form of a ticker tape machine that was used for reporting transactions.

The ticker tape machine I remember learning about these at school. It produced a certain amount of dots per second according to the speed but I suspect this is slightly different from Thomas Edison’s machine!

The first electric typewriter to be used in offices was produced around 1920. These obviously were a great advancement over manual typewriters as electric typewriters are powered by a motor that control the key strokes which ensures the letters print uniformly. The motor also controls the carriage return and line spacing. All this combined makes the document printed look more tidy and even, and of course the electric typewriter ensures a more fast and efficient operation.

Electronic typewriters have even more advantages over the electric typewriters. They contain circuit boards and micro-processors, similar to computers except the typewriters do not perform programs. They look similar to the electric typewriter but they have more keys which perform more functions i.e. underlining, centring, justifying, bold and word correction. Many electric typewriters have a little computer screen that shows what you have typed, enabling the typist to see any errors before the work is typed, and obviously correct them beforehand. Some typewriters have a dictionary in the memory and will alert the typist to any mis-spelt words, enabling them to be corrected before being printed on paper. The amount of memory the typewriter has depends on the amount of electronic components built into it, and thus this alters the cost of the machine. Some machines will only display a single word in the computer screen, and the more sophisticated ones will display a whole sentence. More expensive models can store several pages or more of text. Additionally the more sophisticated typewriters can store names and addresses, commonly used phrases and frequently used words which can be printed at the press of a button.

Because of these typewriters being in effect a word processor, and the typewriter being able to print several copies if needed, typists are relieved of using carbon copies and copying machines.

About The Author

This article was written by Catherine Bennett of Fingertips Typing, a UK based transcription services company. Catherine has many years of experience in digital transcription and medical transcription.