- M. Höhne
- Key Master
Offline - From: Maine
- Registered: 14-3-2013
- Posts: 625
Re: Any typewriters with apostrophe not on a shift key?
Fleetwing wrote:
.... snip ....
As for the exclamation point, it seems to have appeared as the upper case pair with the numeral 1, and is much more common, especially with 1960s and later typewriters. (Olympia seems to have resisted having 1 as a separate character, even though the ! was common on their keyboards.)
uh, I have 10 Olympias (that I have bothered to photograph) that have the "1" character:
1974 SM8
1960 SM4 has + over the 1 and ! under the = (and another '60 SM4 with + over = at the left and ! over 3/4 at the right in the top row
1970 SG3
1970 SM8
1977 SM9
1964 SM7 has no exclamation because extra pharmaceutical symbols
1973 SG3
1971 SG3
... and electrics ...
198x Olympiette
198x CE-12
Most of those without numeral 1 have the exclamation over the 3/4.
Keep in mind that something is not necessarily weird simply because you have not encountered it before.
- Uwe
- Moderator
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- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 12-3-2013
- Posts: 4,408
Re: Any typewriters with apostrophe not on a shift key?
So it looks like so far, the only manuals that have been identified with this feature are Lettera 22s. Interesting, and maybe helps explain why they're popular today?
I don't think that has anything to do with the model's popularity. I'd be surprised if very many Lettera models you'll find have the lowercase apostrophe. The example that JoeV cited had a special fraction set, and the normal North American/British keyboard layout for the Lettera 22 had the apostrophe where it was often located, on the number 8 slug. Even the Lettera 22 I have with an international keyboard has the apostrophe where it's most often seen.
Olympia seems to have resisted having 1 as a separate character, even though the ! was common on their keyboards.
This might be more of a European thing than something particular to Olympia. It seemed more important to be able to differentiate between an uppercase O and the number 0 rather than a lowercase l and the number 1, and by not fussing with the number 1 other characters could be offered in its place. Personally, I'd rather have an extra character (whatever that might be) than the number 1 because a lowercase I works perfectly well.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- TypewriterKing
- Inactive Account
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- From: DeepInTheHeartO', Texas
- Registered: 17-2-2016
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Any typewriters with apostrophe not on a shift key?
I guess the same case could be made about the exclamation point. Some people also think that both the number one and the exclamation point are redundant, and could be made from different characters offered elsewhere on the keyboard. I would like a degree key, but again, you could make the degree just by cleverly turning the platen until a letter o could be typed slightly higher than the other letters, and behind a number. I've done this using a 1916 Royal 10, and it worked out just as well as if I had a pre-made key for the degree sign. Now, the plus and equal sign are both a little bit harder to properly replicate--although with the plus sign, some have used the hyphen and forward slash. The equal sign has been made using the underscore and hyphen keys. My practice with that wasn't very good tryping to replicate both. I imagine they could be understood as the + and the=, but they didn't look too hot though. I'm not sure just what character or characters would go best. I guess it would depend upon the subject matter one usually works on.
Underwood--Speeds the World's Bidness
