- Fleetwing
- Typewriter Talk Vet
Offline - From: Hartford, CT USA
- Registered: 30-6-2015
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Fractions
Uwe wrote:
I still think they're a waste of key space...
Maybe to you, a typewriter buyer in the 21st century, but you have to put yourself in the shoes of a buyer forty years ago who had specific requirements - like fitting numbers in a finite area of a pre-printed form. Things have changed, dramatically, in terms of how we produce documents, and you can't apply current standards when discussing the reasoning behind certain features of a machine that were once popular generations ago. If fraction keys were as superfluous then as they seem to be for you today they wouldn't have been the common keyboard element they were for so many decades.
This leads me to the question of how many fractions were typically needed for a typewriter -- 1/2, 1/4, 3/4, 3/8; others? Were some business-oriented machines set up with more fractions keys? I mentioned the SM9 I have that has a key for 1/3 and 2/3 (though the slug is actually for 1/4 and 1/2) -- I guess there was a need for thirds often enough? How about eighths and sixteenths?
- TypewriterKing
- Inactive Account
Offline
- From: DeepInTheHeartO', Texas
- Registered: 17-2-2016
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Fractions
I wouldn't think it would be common, but my somewhat educated guess would have it that you could custom order what characters you would want on your typewriter. I'm not sure just how much more expensive it would be to do that, but I know that it could run into money--especially if you had a business that required some thirty or more machines in a pool to be so equipped. I also know that typically, for early American typewriters, I have seen 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 (above the period) characters. My 1916 Royal 10 is so equipped. But then I had a 1937 Royal KHM had the keyboard most identifiable with post-war machines, as was its typeface. I thought it was weird, but maybe it was reconditioned that way. Anything's possible--especially whenever they could take a product durable such as a typewriter and remanufacture it where it's slightly different, but still very useable. Anyway, that's my two cents.
Underwood--Speeds the World's Bidness
- TypewriterKing
- Inactive Account
Offline
- From: DeepInTheHeartO', Texas
- Registered: 17-2-2016
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Fractions
Gonna put in about five more cents. Here goes: Any typewriter can be (and most likely some were) retrofitted with more fraction characters, or fewer fraction characters, depending on the needs of the end user. Also, like the once ubiquitous IBM Selectrics, the typefaces can be easily changed. Some typewriters like Smith-Corona portables had changeable typeslugs, so you could have any combination on your typewriter you wanted--four characters at a time. Typebar IBMs (yes, typebar IBMs) had removable typebars (the two on the righthand side. I have two machines so equipped--a '56 standard and a '62 Executive). Again, any combination you wanted, four characters at a time. Of course even these machines could also be retrofitted to accomodate more detachable slugs or whole typebars. There are few things that have never been done in the name of customizing a typewriter to a specific type of written work.
Underwood--Speeds the World's Bidness
- KatLondon
- Key Master
Offline
- From: London
- Registered: 11-10-2014
- Posts: 995
Re: Fractions
And a question about fractions: why do English typewriters or typewriters intended for the British market have such an overwhelming number of fractions compared to other keyboard layouts?
Nation of shopkeepers... an Empire built on trade. Decimalisation may have changed the way money was expressed but invoices measure all sorts of quantity. 1/4 yd for example. If you're typing up fractions all day long it would be very worth your while to do it with one keystroke instead of three.
But US keyboards I've seen are also plastered with the things. Obvs they are not so useful to us now as everything is decimal - and God knows I prefer a European keyboard with lots of accent keys and other useful things, but I'm a writer not a clerk. And you can hardly resent something that is, in effect, an antique for having met the needs of its day.
- KatLondon
- Key Master
Offline
- From: London
- Registered: 11-10-2014
- Posts: 995
Re: Fractions
And of course /16s were useful, as that's the number of ounces in a pound. But really, what do we know about it. Can yu imagine having had to do all that all day for a living.It's funny, I can remember my teacher when I was 12 telling us that decimalisation was going to make life so much easier, and - even though the changeover is still incomplete - it did.
- Fleetwing
- Typewriter Talk Vet
Offline
- From: Hartford, CT USA
- Registered: 30-6-2015
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Fractions
Just looking at my laptop -- not a fraction to be found anywhere. A sign of the changes.
And maybe the coolest single typeslug on my SG3 and SG1 -- the superscript "th." Is it redundant to type 1/4th, for example? Discuss!
- Uwe
- Moderator
Offline
- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 12-3-2013
- Posts: 4,410
Re: Fractions
Just looking at my laptop -- not a fraction to be found anywhere. A sign of the changes.
It's really not much of a change. Your laptop, as with any computer, can type fractions too, you just don't need a dedicated key for them like you used to. And even though they might only be the more common fractions, they're not surprisingly the exact same ones that you see most often on a typewriter: ¼ - ½ - ¾.
And maybe the coolest single typeslug on my SG3 and SG1 -- the superscript "th." Is it redundant to type 1/4th, for example?
I always assumed that the Olympia th character represented thousands, not the ordinal indicator for numbers that don't end in a 1, 2, or 3. After all, why would you have a slug that would enable you to type 4th but not 1st, 2nd, or 3rd?
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- Fleetwing
- Typewriter Talk Vet
Offline
- From: Hartford, CT USA
- Registered: 30-6-2015
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Fractions
Just looking at my laptop -- not a fraction to be found anywhere. A sign of the changes.
It's really not much of a change. Your laptop, as with any computer, can type fractions too, you just don't need a dedicated key for them like you used to. And even though they might only be the more common fractions, they're not surprisingly the exact same ones that you see most often on a typewriter: ¼ - ½ - ¾.
And maybe the coolest single typeslug on my SG3 and SG1 -- the superscript "th." Is it redundant to type 1/4th, for example?
I always assumed that the Olympia th character represented thousands, not the ordinal indicator for numbers that don't end in a 1, 2, or 3. After all, why would you have a slug that would enable you to type 4th but not 1st, 2nd, or 3rd?
I have never seen a superscript "th" used to represent "thousands," but maybe that's in common usage in certain lines of work that I'm not familiar with. Typically I see "M" used as a shorthand for "thousands." As for not having a "st," "nd" or "rd" slug, the vast majority of ordinal numbers in English are formed with the "th," so I can see Olympia as having made this compromise choice.
- TypewriterKing
- Inactive Account
Offline
- From: DeepInTheHeartO', Texas
- Registered: 17-2-2016
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Fractions
I've seen the "th" on my '56 Olympia. I took it to mean something like 5th, or 6th, or something like that. I can see where that character would come in handy.
Underwood--Speeds the World's Bidness
- KatLondon
- Key Master
Offline
- From: London
- Registered: 11-10-2014
- Posts: 995
Re: Fractions
Geez. I've had lots of Olympias and have never seen this key. I wonder if it's a US thing. I have had UK ones and German ones.
