1 - Duqie
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It's a Remington, but....
Hello! Newbie here.
I have the opportunity to buy a Remington Portabel, but I'm having some trouble indentifying it. Can someone help me ? Especially the keyboard. Over here we have azerty, but I've never seen this layout. The owner's doesn't know where her (deceased) father bought it and says it's the original layout. So help :-). The picture is of bad quality, but that's all I got from her
- Duqie
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Re: It's a Remington, but....
as a newbie, have to post at least 2 post before I can post a link...so...
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Thread Starter- Duqie
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Re: It's a Remington, but....
here it comes :-) : 
Last edited by Uwe (03-7-2016 15:57:48)
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Thread Starter- Uwe
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Re: It's a Remington, but....
More photos would help, but it looks to me like a Remington Portable #1, which were made between 1920-25. As for the bizarre keyboard, it's nothing I've seen before. The obvious guess would be it was for a specific language, but even then, I've never seen the letters arranged in that combination. The biggest clue would be what is written on the shift key, which you can't read in the photo.
It would be funny to find out that someone had replaced the paper for the keys and just messed up their order. 
Hopefully someone here has seen this layout before because I'd really like to know the history behind it too. I would contact the seller and ask for better photos. Actually, if it was me I would just buy it. They only want 35 EUR for it.
And welcome to TT! Let us know if you end up buying it.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- Duqie
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Re: It's a Remington, but....
Thanks Uwe.
In the meanime the deal is closed :-)
The paper of the keys isn't messed up, I've already asked her that. It was also my first guess that would be the cause. Anyway, when I have the machine here, I'll clean it, make some nice picture, and will try to find out from her were/when her father used it. Keep you posted :-)
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Thread Starter- Uwe
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Re: It's a Remington, but....
I'm looking forward to better photos. And congratulations, I think you bought a very interesting machine to say the least.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- Repartee
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Re: It's a Remington, but....
Searching for more info on AZERTY, aided by the miracle of never frozen posts and time freed up by procrastination before an unpleasant task, I found...
Uwe wrote:
More photos would help, but it looks to me like a Remington Portable #1, which were made between 1920-25. As for the bizarre keyboard, it's nothing I've seen before. The obvious guess would be it was for a specific language, but even then, I've never seen the letters arranged in that combination. The biggest clue would be what is written on the shift key, which you can't read in the photo.
Original low resolution photo...
Better photo of a Remington portable of that era...
What's written on the shift key is not completely clear in either photo but clearly the same, and what it must be is "majuscules" split on two lines. So the mystery machine seems to have started life or at least started its modified design from a standard machine for the French market.
The layout is just too bizarre to seem adapted to any natural language by the normal standards of typewriter design: there are number keys in amidst the letters and letters on the top line with the numbers! Whoever created this machine - believing for now that the legends on the keys match the type - must have been an iconoclast and the machine is most likely one of a kind. I am guessing it's either a radically new keyboard created by scientific principles known only to the designer, or a special modification done for an eccentric who was tired of people borrowing his typewriters. 
If you could learn to type on that thing you would have exclusive use.
And procrastination swings and.... grand slam! The wasted minute are rounding the bases. 
The original poster apparently never returned.
"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton".
- Parum
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Re: It's a Remington, but....
I am almost certain it's a spanish typewriter. The key arrangement is a mystery but the shift keys say "Mayus Culas" with is english for "Capital Letters".
- Parum
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Re: It's a Remington, but....
I am almost certain it's a spanish typewriter. The key arrangement is a mystery but the shift keys say "Mayus Culas" with is english for "Capital Letters".
No it's spanish for capital letters......... jeez.
- Repartee
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Re: It's a Remington, but....
MAYUSCULAS is very close to MAJUSCULES, but why would it have to be the Spanish rather than the French? I can see the hook of the J clearly on both shift keys in the top photo and on the left shift key in the bottom photo.
I noticed a pattern in the strangeness: all the vowels are grouped off to the left while the consonants are grouped to the right, and the vowels are surrounded by a ring of defensive ring of non-alphabetic symbols! So obviously the keyboard encodes a military plan - the vowels are the French, the consonants the Germans, and the symbols the Maginot Line.
"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton".
