Typewriter Talk / Atypical QWERTY?

**Posted by robmck** 02-5-2024 17:27:37

Saw this Splendid 66 pop up today: (2) Olympia Splendid 66 Typewriter Auction (liveauctioneers.com).

It has a QWERTY keyboard with Ä, Ö, Ü, ß, and a `/´ dead key.

Is this a German QWERTZ that someone swapped the Z and Y, or some other keyboard layout? (I don't see it in the NOMDA book on the TWDB).

**Posted by M. Höhne** 03-5-2024 06:01:39

robmck wrote:
.... snip .... It has a QWERTY keyboard with Ä, Ö, Ü, ß, and a `/´ dead key. .... snip ....

Hmmmm, slightly interesting. What would be the point of a dead "/" key? And what is the other character on it?

**Posted by robmck** 03-5-2024 09:30:31

Sorry. It's not a / dead key but a dead key with ` and ´ on it. I assume it's for diacritics for other letters like é and è. I used the / just to differentiate the two diacritics, but that was a poor choice.

**Posted by M. Höhne** 03-5-2024 10:10:05

O boy, did I misread that! Sure they're accents grave and acute. I took them for single quotes and I should have been tipped off by the fact that they're opening and closing, very unlikely on a typewriter, though in my defense I'm looking at a computer font here. Modern life is so complicated.

**Posted by Laurenz van Gaalen** 04-5-2024 09:09:54

robmck wrote:
Is this a German QWERTZ that someone swapped the Z and Y, or some other keyboard layout? (I don't see it in the NOMDA book on the TWDB).

The keyboard looks like a standard Olympia German keyboard to me, except or the swapped Z and Y. I base my answer on SF's currently listed on the German eBay site:

https://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_nkw=splendid+schreibmaschine&_trksid=p2334524.m4084.l1313&_odkw=olympia+schreibmaschine&_osacat=0

**Posted by beak** 11-4-2025 02:30:59

I have an SM9 with the same layout; qwertY but with added French and German characters. I guess it is logical for English language users who wish to include German and French words. Why not.