Antique Copy Machines

Offices need more than one copy of a document in a number of situations. Typically they need a copy of outgoing correspondence for their records. Sometimes they want to circulate copies of documents they create to several interested parties. They may need hundreds of copies of circulars and form letters. During the final quarter of the 19th century a host of competing technologies were introduced to meet such needs. Indeed, one article at the time was entitled “Still Another Letter-Copying Process.” (Manufacturer and Builder, Feb. 1880.) The technologies that were most commonly used in 1895 to make copies of outgoing letters and of circulars and form letters are identified in an 1895 description of the New York Business College's course program: "All important letters or documents are copied in a letter-book or carbon copies [are] made, and instruction is also given in the use of the mimeograph and other labor-saving office devices." (The Stenographer, July 1895, p. 6) At other times offices want to make duplicates of incoming or old documents. Until the 20th century pen and ink, and eventually the typewriter, remained the only technologies for copying most incoming documents. In the late 20th century, all these needs were met by photocopying machines and by electronic storage, transmission and scanning.

In the nineteenth century, correspondence was principally by hand with pen and ink. Indeed, heavy reliance on calligraphy continued in offices for decades after the first practical typewriter was marketed by Remington in 1874. Until the late 18th century, if an office wanted to keep a copy of an outgoing letter, a clerk had to write out the copy by hand. This technology continued to be important through most of the nineteenth century. Offices employed copy clerks, also known as copyists, scribes, and scriveners, men who typically stood, or sat on high stools, while working at tall slant-top desks. Charles Dickens immortalized one such clerk, Bob Cratchit: “The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal." (A Christmas, 1843. Image of this scene to the right is from 1893.) Herman Melville's story Bartleby (1853) concerns a lawyer in New York City who employed three male scriveners to copy testimony and other documents. Yates reports that "the Du Pont Company continued to use hand copy books through at least 1857." (JoAnne Yates, Control through Communications, 1989, p. 206.)

History of the Chalkboard

Walk into just about any classroom and you will find one: A dark green board on the wall, lined with pieces of chalk and felt erasers. Chalkboards, also commonly known as blackboards, have long been a part of daily classroom life, but just what is the history of the chalkboard?The earliest blackboards cannot properly be called chalkboards, as there was no chalk involved. They were simply small pieces of slate, and instead of chalk children would use another, smaller piece of slate to write on the board. Marks would be erased with a simple rag in order for the student to move onto the next problem.

The earliest blackboards cannot properly be called chalkboards, as there was no chalk involved. They were simply small pieces of slate, and instead of chalk children would use another, smaller piece of slate to write on the board. Marks would be erased with a simple rag in order for the student to move onto the next problem.

In the late 18th and early 19th century, such "slateboards" were commonly used in schools in the United States and other countries. These small pieces of slate would be bound in a wooden frame to help strengthen the board and keep them from cracking. In those days paper was expensive and hard to come by, so these mini slate blackboards provided a good substitute.

In the past couple of decades, many schools are beginning to phase out use of chalkboards for whiteboards over fears of the hazardous effects of chalk dust. The principle, however, remains the same, and blackboards will continue to be used in schools for many years to come.

Protractor

In geometry, a protractor is a circular or semicircular tool for measuring and angle or a cirlce. The units of measurment utalized are usually degrees. Some protractors are simple half-discs; these have existed since ancient times. More advanced protractors, such as the Bevel Protractor have one or two swinging arms, which can be used to help measure the angle.

Pens

Hand-held implement for writing. Pens have existed since ancient Egyptian times. Quill pens were developed by the Romans, and the technology remained unchanged until the 18th-century development of the steel nib. The fountain pen, which ensured a steady supply of ink, was invented in the 1880s. Today the dominant types of pen are the ballpoint, which became widespread in the 1940s and 1950s, and the felt-tip pen, dating from the 1960s.

CHALK

Blackboard chalk is calcium carbonate and is used for the manufacture of putty, plaster, cement, and of course, blackboard chalk. Calcium carbonate is made up of Foraminifera, shells of little dead marine animals. It is found in the earth’s crust during all geological periods and is usually formed in thick deposits around marine, or formerly marine areas. There are other types of naturally occurring chalk, including black chalk and red chalk. Chalk, in its natural state, was used by early man in prehistoric times for cave paintings.

The electronic slide rule

HP-35

The HP-35 was the world's first pocket electronic scientific calculator.

It was introduced in January 1972 by Hewlett-Packard and had the equivalent of 30,000 transistors. It sold for $395.

Hewlett-Packard sold over 100,000 of the HP-35s the first year.

The introduction of the HP-35 and other electronic calculators that followed marked the end of the mechanical slide-rule as a primary problem solving device.

The HP-35 was known as the "electronic slide rule."

The Slide Rule

This is a slide rule. This was used before the invention of a calculator. It could do almost all math function, it just took a very long time to complete.

Reasons to Use Tenchonology in The Classroom

According to a survey done by the university of Maryland, there are many reasons to integrate technology into your classroom. Some of the following ideas came from www.edtechpolicy.org/Presentations/

•Motivation

–Gaining learner attention

–Engaging the learner through production work

–Increasing perceptions of control (intrinsic motivation)

•Unique instructional capabilities

–Linking learners to information sources

–Helping learners visualize problems and solutions

–Tracking learner progress

–Linking learners to learning tools

•Support for new instructional approaches

–Cooperative learning

–Shared Intelligence

–Problem solving and higher-level skills

•Increased teacher productivity

–Freeing time to work with students by helping with production and record keeping tasks

–Providing more accurate information more quickly

–Allowing teachers to produce better-looking more “student-friendly” materials more quickly

•Required skills for an information age

–Technology literacy

–Information literacy

–Visual literacy.


The also posted a list of current trends in the classroom from K - 12. I find this very helpful when i look for lesson plans for my students.

•PD activity ends with a teacher developed lesson plan

–Lesson Plan “databases” for others to use

–Make use of other “on-line” activities

•Implementing educational software into daily activities

–PowerPoint, Excel, Kid Pix, Inspiration, Kidspiration, StoryWeaver, etc.

•Selected Internet activities

–WebQuests, Scavenger Hunts, Treasure Hunts, etc.

•Problem-Solving Courseware

–Educational “Games”, Simulations, Case Studies

•E-Learning

•New Equipment Developments

–Graphic Calculators and Probes

–Handheld Devices & E-Books

–Wireless & Wearable Computers

•Group Activities

•Assessment through Electronic Portfolios.

There are great websites these days geared directly towards children and their educational needs, but that let the children have fun and keep thier interests.
http://www.cybersurfari.org/

first personal computer

IBM System/23 Datamaster
Model: 5322 Announced: 1979 Released: July 1981 Price: US$9,830 with printer Weight: 95 pounds CPU: Intel 8085 RAM: 64K max Display: 80 X 24 text green phosphor display Expansion: six internal slots Storage: dual 8-inch floppy drives Ports: current-loop serial port printer port OS: BASIC built-in

Please, stand at attention in the presence of the (horns sound - "ta da!") - IBM System/23 Datamaster!

This large, extremely heavy (95 lbs/43 kg) all-in-one desktop computer system, was designed to be taken out of the carton, set up, checked out and operated by first-time users.

The Datamaster combined word processing and data processing in a single machine to give small businesses the big benefits of information processing.


The same engineers who design the Datamaster went on to help designed the IBM PC, the computer system which started the PC revolution which exists today.


The power supply and motherboard both pull-out from the back of the system for easy access. This can be done whether or not the system cover has been removed.

As you can see, the 8-inch floppy drives are very large, with several heavy-duty components. These large and heavy drives are rather uncommon for 1981 - most other computer systems had switched to 5 1/4-inch drives by this time.


Seen to the left is a memory board which plugs into the motherboard.

It is very unusual, with all of the chips piggy-backed with an identical one.

This is either to double the memory capacity, or to add redundancy, as early RAM chips apparently failed (open) prematurely, and doubling them up greatly increased the lifespan of the memory board.

1651 - John Dury Invents the Modern LibraryFrom: Dury John (1651). The Reformed School and the Reformed Library Keeper, Menston, Yorks.: Scolar Press, 1972. In his letters to Samuel Hartlib in 1651, John Dury presented his ideas on how the job of the university library keeper (librarian) could be enhanced to better serve the University (Oxford). At that time in England, libraries were not open to the public. In Dury's first letter we learn that the library keeper's only responsibility was to safeguard the collection. To do this, a man (note: not a women) did not need to be particularly well educated. The pay was low, commensurate with the skill-level required for the job. Dury describes the service provided by "factors and traders," educated men who profited by traveling throughout Europe searching for books suitable for various collections. Dury faults that system because he believed that the "factors and traders" were more interested in profit-making than in learning. (He then kindly defends these men by pointing out that, after all, they have to make a living.) His idea was to enhance the job of the library-keeper to include the role of the trader. In order to do this, the position of library-keeper would have to provide enough pay to attract educated men. If the library wanted men who were broadly educated and interested in the advancement of learning, Dury suggested the pay skill, which then ranged between 50 and 100 Pounds a year, be raised to 200 Pounds. He recommended that potential employees be tested in order to prove they are familiar enough with the various disciplines of the day to accurately maintain the library catalog. Dury felt that having trained library keepers was essential if libraries were to be made open to the public. The library-keeper's job would be extended to include recommending and annually defending additions to the collection before the faculty of the University. The library-keeper was to correspond with experts in every science throughout Europe (expenses to be paid by the University). The library keeper was also to be the reference person regarding the collection, in order to assist scholars. In addition he was to continue the role of safeguarding the collection, which, in a public library, meant overseeing collection use and maintaining the library catalog. Dury notes that the catalog would need to be created first, however. He suggested that the catalog be arranged by subject matter, then divided by language. The catalog he had in mind would also contain a pointer to the physical position of the book within the library. That system would be designed well enough to allow for the growth of the collection. Moreover, an annual list of additions to the collection would be printed. The entire catalog would be printed and circulated to other libraries in Europe every three years (or more often if the library grows faster than expected). He also proposed that the University keep books that the library has acquired, by gifts or purchase, even if the faculty couldn't use them, as; "there is seldom any book that does not contain something useful." He suggested keeping them in a separate collection and creating a list that was indexed by subject and arranged alphabetically by author. Dury's second letter offers an argument to be used in defending the cost of establishing his proposed library before the British Parliament, which he thought should supply the necessary funding. He bases his argument on Christian moral grounds, reminding us that in his day the separation of church and state was not a popular idea. Dury saw the library as a place that would nourish the spirits of men. He criticizes private libraries as serving those that "pride themselves in the possession of that which others have not," men who "covetously obstruct the fountains of life and comfort." He complains that this "dilates the light of knowledge and the love of the grace and goodness in the hearts of all men." He argues that library should be "communicating all good things freely to others." He goes on to argue that the university library, by proving useful to scholars in other nations, would encourage them to adopt similar policies for their own libraries, thus bringing honor to England. Finally, he warns that if the library is administered without relation to Christ's teachings, the endeavor is likely to lead to strife, confusion, and pride.

Works cited: Dury John (1651). The Reformed School and the Reformed Library Keeper, Menston, Yorks.: Scolar Press, 1972.

Blackboard Technology and Chalkboard History Advances

The blackboard revolutionized education. In our present age of continually evolving desktop, laptop and palm computers, photocopy equipment, PowerPoint presentations, video displays, interactive whiteboards, and internet access, it's startling to realize that the "technology" to first influence education was the invention of these black slate writing boards (also known as chalkboards).
Teaching could be a tedious and challenging business for American teachers before the chalkboard was a teaching tool. Whether they were in eastern academies or schoolrooms on the prairies, prior to 1801, teachers and schools had no means of visually presenting information to a roomful of students all at once, no means of presenting large concept and historical overviews for the entire class to view, grasp and discuss.
Blackboards, easels, corkboards and contemporary whiteboards may seem to us to have always been standard equipment in schoolrooms as well as business boardrooms, but none of these basic tools even existed in classrooms prior to 1801.
Supplies of pencils and paper were often in short supply or unaffordable for families. Without a means of making mass copies, hand outs, too, were a rarity since the teachers would have to hand a set for each of their students.
Students sat in schoolrooms with handheld slates upon which to write assignments. These were usually made of a wood board painted over with black grit, though some were made of porcelain imported from the United Kingdom. Teachers would then have to go from student to student copying, for example, a math problem onto each student's individual slate. Some weren't so fortunate.
When Mrs. Olive M. Isbell opened the first school in California school in 1846 she lacked slate, blackboard and paper, and so wrote the alphabet on the back of her pupils hands.
The expense of materials and the individual attention required by such presentation methods, caused small class enrollment and slowed instruction.

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When were chalkboards first used for instruction? James Pillans, Headmaster of the Old High School of Edinburgh, Scotland, is widely credited for inventing the blackboard and colored chalk which he used to teach geography.
Mr. George Baron, an instructor at West Point Military Academy, is considered to be the first American instructor to incorporate the use of a large black chalk board into the presentation of his math lessons in 1801. However, it's probable that a few other schools had access to it, also.
Thanks to such "out of the box" thinking on the part of a few instructors, the benefits of chalk and blackboards became clearly apparent.
Schoolhouses across America that could afford the slate material adopted the medium because it saved teachers re-writing and allowed them to educate larger numbers of students easily. Large-size slabs of slate boards were ordered and shipped across America via the ever-expanding railroad systems.
Even single-room schoolhouses in far rural areas of the country began enjoying the use of this innovative teaching tool. By the mid-1800s, a blackboard was to be found in almost every school and had become the single most important educational tool. Chalk boards remained the primary all-around educational fixture in schoolrooms and businesses for almost 200 years. Even the corkboard wasn't invented for presentations until 1891.
These boards became equally important in business offices. Blackboards soon became equally important in business organizations, as well as in the fields of math and science, long before the materials were even invented from which whiteboards could be manufactured. Thanks to the chalk board, not only were large amounts of people in the same room able to be presented with the same material all at once, but these boards also became a method of working out long strings of problems and "brain storming" new concepts among several people at once.
Some people, like the famous fellow at right, were known to do some of their best work on black boards!
Albert Einstein
It was not until the 1960s that the slate blackboard began to give way to boards manufactured with steel boards coated with porcelain enamel. At that point, green colored boards began gaining popularity as they also allowed rooms to have a less stark appearance compared to the typical black color, and the erased chalk powder was less obvious on this green colored board. The use of the term "chalkboard" gained increasing general popularity once black was no longer the only standard color.
Presentation media continues to evolve. Whiteboards (a.k.a. marker boards, or dry erase boards) did not begin to appear in business organizations until the mid-1980s, and 21% of all U.S. schools had converted from blackboards to whiteboards by the late 1990s.

The chalk board still has plenty of benefits today despite the relatively recent advance of white boards:
No longer made from the original slate as they were in the early 1800s, chalkboards are built stronger, more resilient, and many are also built to act as effective "projection screens." These boards continue to be just as capable "teacher and business aids" as they've always been!
Chalk boards are available in a variety of sizes and styles, can be mobile, mounted to walls, or hand-held.
Many educators assert that the grit texture of the chalkboard surface adds just enough resistance help children when write on the boards. The effect of the slickness of whiteboards for young writers, on the other hand, has caused some concern.
Chalk (and dust-free chalk) is now available in a variety of colors, so you're able to make your presentations bold and bright.
The invention of "dust-free" chalk plus test results proving that even standard board chalk is free of toxic substances (scroll down for more information) eliminates major concerns about using chalk.
Chalk generally lasts longer, doesn't dry out, and is less expensive to restock (easier on your budget) than whiteboard markers, particularly for high velocity users.
Chalk can be washed out of clothes and off skin much easier than dry-erase markers.
Chalk writing boards are easy to clean with just a damp sponge, so chemical cleansers aren't necessary.
Despite the industry and marketing pressure to transition to whiteboards, the chalk presentation board continues to be a favorite tool in schools, universities, and homes. Many teachers believe the "resistance" offered by a blackboard aids young new writers far better than the easy slip boards. Chalk also lasts longer than dry erase pens which dry out very quickly if left uncapped.
There have been three primary concerns about the continued use of chalkboards:
First, concerns that chalk might contain asbestos or "transitional fibers" were laid to rest in October 2002. A report issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found no such harmful materials in chalk after extensive test sampling from the five major manufacturers (Crayola, Prang, Pentech, Curiousity Kits, and Sketch & Scribble). Neither is chalk manufactured with talc, which has the potential to "bind" with asbestos and other transitional fibers. CPSC noted they would continue to monitor the materials to ensure safety, and no issue has yet arisen.
Allergies are a second concern. This may certainly be a problem for some percentage of people who have an allergy to such things as dust particles, though non-dust chalks have been developed that may solve that problem for many.
With the increasing presence of computers in classrooms, the potential impact of chalk dust has been a stated concern. Dust can damage computers, and chalk is, essentially, compressed dust. Yet this appears to be less of an issue with many than it sounds. As Nancy Myers, an Indiana school planner whose firm works with educational institutions, noted in a CNN "News for Students" interview (June 2, 2002), "The truth is, unless the computers are sitting right on top of the chalkboards, there isn't going to be an issue."

works cited: http://www.ergoindemand.com/about_chalkboards.htm

Abacus

A Primitive Calculator

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Meanwhile in Asia, the Chinese were becoming very involved in commerce with the Japanese, Indians, and Koreans. Businessmen needed a way to tally accounts and bills. Somehow, out of this need, the abacus was born. The abacus is the first true precursor to the adding machines and computers which would follow. It worked somewhat like this:

The value assigned to each pebble (or bead, shell, or stick) is determined not by its shape but by its position: one pebble on a particular line or one bead on a particular wire has the value of 1; two together have the value of 2. A pebble on the next line, however, might have the value of 10, and a pebble on the third line would have the value of 100. Therefore, three properly placed pebbles--two with values of 1 and one with the value of 10--could signify 12, and the addition of a fourth pebble with the value of 100 could signify 112, using a place-value notational system with multiples of 10.

Thus, the abacus works on the principle of place-value notation: the location of the bead determines its value. In this way, relatively few beads are required to depict large numbers. The beads are counted, or given numerical values, by shifting them in one direction. The values are erased (freeing the counters for reuse) by shifting the beads in the other direction. An abacus is really a memory aid for the user making mental calculations, as opposed to the true mechanical calculating machines which were still to come.

Works Cited: http://lecture.eingang.org/abacus.html

the ball point pen

The first great success for the ballpoint pen came on an October morning in 1945 when a crowd of over 5,000 people jammed the entrance of New York’s Gimbels Department Store. The day before, Gimbels had taken out a full-page ad in the New York Times promoting the first sale of ballpoints in the United States. The ad described the new pen as a "fantastic... miraculous fountain pen ... guaranteed to write for two years without refilling!" On that first day of sales, Gimbels sold out its entire stock of 10,000 pens-at $12.50 each!

Actually, this "new" pen wasn't new at all and didn't work much better than ballpoint pens that had been produced ten years earlier. The story begins in 1888 when John Loud, an American leather tanner, patented a roller-ball-tip marking pen. Loud’s invention featured a reservoir of ink and a roller ball that applied the thick ink to leather hides. John Loud’s pen was never produced, nor were any of the other 350 patents for ball-type pens issued over the next thirty years. The major problem was the ink - if the ink was thin the pens leaked, and if it was too thick, they clogged. Depending on the temperature, the pen would sometimes do both. The next stage of development came almost fifty years after Loud’s patent, with an improved version invented in Hungary in 1935 by Ladislas Biro and his brother, Georg. Ladislas Biro was very talented and confident of his abilities, but he had never had a pursuit that kept his interest and earned him a good living. He had studied medicine, art, and hypnotism, and in 1935 he was editing a small newspaper-where he was frustrated by the amount of time he wasted filling fountain pens and cleaning up ink smudges. Besides that, the sharp tip of his fountain pen often scratched or tore through the newsprint (paper). Determined to develop a better pen, Ladislas and Georg (who was a chemist) set about making models of new designs and formulating better inks to use in them. One summer day while vacationing at the seashore, the Biro brothers met an interesting elderly gentleman, Augustine Justo, who happened to be the president of Argentina. After the brothers showed him their model of a ballpoint pen, President Justo urged them to set up a factory in Argentina. When World War II broke out in Europe, a few years later, the Biros fled to Argentina, stopping in Paris along the way to patent their pen. Once in Argentina, the Biros found several investors willing to finance their invention, and in 1943 they had set up a manufacturing plant. Unfortunately, the pens were a spectacular failure. The Biro pen, like the designs that had preceded it, depended on gravity for the ink to flow to the roller ball. This meant that the pens worked only when they were held more or less straight up, and even then the ink flow was sometimes too heavy, leaving smudgy globs on the paper. The Biro brothers returned to their laboratory and devised a new design, which relied on "capillsry action" rather than gravity to feed the ink. The rough "ball" at the end of the pen acted like a metal sponge, and with this improvement ink could flow more smoothly to the ball, and the pen could be held at a slant rather than straight up. One year later, the Biros were selling their new, improved ballpoint pen throughout Argentina. But it still was not a smashing success, and the men ran out of money. The greatest interest in the ballpoint pen came from American flyers who had been to Argentina during World War II. Apparently it was ideal for pilots because it would work well at high altitudes and, unlike fountain pens, did not have to be refilled frequently. The U.S. Department of State sent specifications to several American pen manufacturers asking them to develop a similar pen. In an attempt to corner the market, the Eberhard Faber Company paid the Biro brothers $500,000 for the rights to manufacture their ballpoint pen in the United States. Eberhard Faber later sold its rights to the Eversharp Company, but neither was quick about putting a ballpoint pen on the market. There were still too many bugs in the Biro design. Meanwhile, in a surprise move, a fifty-four-year-old Chicago salesman named Milton Reynolds became the first American manufacturer to market a ballpoint pen successfully. While vacationing in Argentina, Reynolds had seen Biro’s pen in the stores and thought that the novel product would sell well in America. Because many of the patents had expired, Reynolds thought he could avoid any legal problems, and so he went about copying much of the Biros’ design. It was Reynolds who made the deal with Gimbels to be the first retail store in America to sell ballpoint pens. He set up a makeshift factory with 300 workers who began stamping out pens from whatever aluminum was not being used for the war. In the months that followed, Reynolds made millions of pens and became fairly wealthy, as did many other manufacturers who decided to cash in on the new interest. The competition among pen manufacturers during the mid-1940s became quite hectic, with each one claiming new and better features. Reynolds even claimed that his ballpoint could write under water, and he hired Esther Williams, the swimmer and movie star, to help prove it. Another manufacturer claimed that its pen would write through ten carbon copies, while still another demonstrated that its pen would write up-side down. However, the effect of the slogans and advertising wore off as soon as the owners discovered the many problems that still existed with the ballpoint pens. As the sale of the pens began to drop, so did the price, and the once expensive luxury now would not even sell for as little as 19 cents. Once again, it looked as if the ballpoint pen would be a complete failure. For the pen to regain the public’s favor and trust, somebody would have to invent one that was smooth writing, quick drying, nonskipping, nonfading, and most important didn’t leak. Two men, each with his own pen company, delivered these results. The first was Patrick J. Frawley Jr. Frawley met Fran Seech, an unemployed Los Angeles chemist who had lost his job when the ballpoint pen company he was working for had gone out of business. Seech had been working on improvements in ballpoint ink, and on his own he continued his experiments in a tiny cubbyhole home laboratory. Frawley was so impressed with his work that he bought Seech’s new ink formula in 1949 and started the Frawley Pen Company. Within one year, Frawley was in the ballpoint pen business with yet another improved model-the first pen with a retractable ballpoint tip and the first with no-smear ink. To overcome many of the old prejudices against the leaky and smeary ballpoint pen of the past, Frawley initiated an imaginative and risky advertising campaign, a promotion he called Project Normandy. Frawley instructed his salesmen to barge into the offices of retail store buyers and scribble all over the executives’ shirts with one of the new pens. Then the salesman would offer to replace the shirt with an even more expensive one if the ink did not wash out entirely. The shirts did come clean and the promotion worked. As more and more retailers accepted the pen, which Frawley named the "Papermate," sales began to skyrocket. Within a few years, the Papermate pen was selling in the hundreds of millions. The other man to bring the ballpoint pen successfully back to life was Marcel Bich, a French manufacturer of penholders and pen cases. Bich was appalled at the poor quality of the ballpoint pens he had seen and he was also shocked at their high cost. But he recognized that the ballpoint was a firmly established innovation and he resolved to design a high-quality pen at a low price that would scoop the market. He went to the Biro brothers and arranged to pay them a royalty on their patent. Then for two years Marcel Bich studied the detailed construction of every ballpoint pen on the market, often working with a microscope. By 1952 Bich was ready to introduce his new wonder: a clear-barreled, smooth-writing, non-leaky, inexpensive ballpoint pen he called the "Ballpoint Bic." The ballpoint pen had finally become a practical writing instrument. The public accepted it without complaint, and today it is as standard a writing implement as the pencil. In England, they are still called Biros, and many Bic models also say "Biro" on the side of the pen, as a testament to their primary inventors. works cited:http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/ballpen.htm

History of Pencils

The Story of Pencils Lesson Plan: Activity 2 - The History of the Pencil?

The Early Days
Modern pencils are the descendants of ancient writing instruments.

In ancient Rome, scribes wrote on papyrus (an early form of paper) with a thin metal rod called a stylus, which left a light but readable mark. Other early styluses were made of lead. Today we still call the core of a pencil the "lead" even though it is made from nontoxic graphite.

Graphite came into widespread use following the discovery of a large graphite deposit in Borrowdale, England in 1564. Graphite left a darker mark than lead, but was so soft and brittle that it required a holder. At first, sticks of graphite were wrapped in string. Later, the graphite was inserted into wooden sticks that had been hollowed-out by hand! The wood-cased pencil was born.

Oldest Known Wood Cased Pencil – Faber-Castell collection

The first mass-produced pencils were made in Nuremberg, Germany in 1662. There an active pencil industry developed with famous companies like Faber-Castell established in 1761, Lyra, Steadtler and others growing throughout the 19th century industial revolution.

Development of the US Industry
Until the war with England cut off imports, pencils used in America came from overseas. William Monroe, a cabinetmaker in Concord, Massachusetts, made the first American wood pencils in 1812 as did another Concord area maker, famous author Henry David Thoreau.

Click here to learn more about famous people who have used pencils.

Other eary US manufacturers that helped industrialize pencil making in the United States were Joseph Dixon Crucible Company (now Dixon Ticonderoga) and a number of factories established in New York and New Jersey towards the end of the 19th century by immigrants from the German industry including Faber Castell, Eberhard Faber, Eagle Pencil Company (Later Berol) and General Pencil Company.

Eagle Pencil Factory - New York

The first mass-produced pencils were unpainted, to show off their high-quality wood casings. However, by the 1890s, many manufacturers were painting their pencils and giving them brand names. There's an interesting story behind the familiar yellow color of the common pencil. Click this link to find out why pencils are yellow.

March 30, 2008 was the 150th Anniversary of the Hymen Lipman patent on eraser tipped pencils. Read more here.

Following the Wood
Early American pencils were made from Eastern Red Cedarⁱ, a strong, splinter-resistant wood that grew in Tennessee and other parts of the southeastern United States. Many Northern manufacturers set up wood mills in Tennessee and other Southern states where Eastern Red Cedar grows. Eventually much of the US pencil manufacturing industry established pencil factories in Tennessee where the remaining US producers are primarily concentrated today.

By the early 1900s, pencil manufacturers needed additional sources of wood, and turned to California's Sierra Nevada mountains. There they found Incense-cedar, a species that grew in abundance and made superior pencils. California Incense-cedarⁱ soon became the wood of choice for domestic and international pencil makers around the world.

To ensure the continued availability of Incense-cedar, forest workers have carefully managed the stands of trees in which Incense-cedar grows, and timber companies have been careful to harvest the trees on a sustained-yieldⁱ basis. "Sustained-yield" means that the annual growth of the forest is greater than the amount harvested from the forest. Forests managed on a sustained-yield basis are abundant and healthy, and will continue to provide wood for people and habitat for animals for generations to come.

A Global Industry
The history of the pencil industry includes a great number of important companies and brands from around the world. Many of the major brands now have factories throughout the world. The reduction of trade barriers, the introduction of containerized shipments of goods overseas, the comparative differences in raw material costs between countries and the lower cost of tranporting people and information around the world have lead the pencil industry like many others to experience the challenging impact of globalization. This has lead to a great shift in the past 20 years of where pencils are produced with increasing concentration of manufacturing in Asia.

Works Cited : http://www.pencils.com/pencil-information/pencil-history

First Typewriter using: QWERTY

First Typewriter using: QWERTY

1872 1878 1932 2050

*1872

Christopher Latham Sholes set out to develop a machine that could number book pages automatically. The idea was soon extended to the idea of a machine that could print the alphabet. An article in the "Scientific American" sent "Typewriting" jetting into the future. The first typewriter containing QWERTY- the keyboard design still used today, was put on the market in 1874 . The original design excluded the number one since the "l" could be substituted easily and the shift keys(named because the key actually shifted the carriage) because the letters were all uppercase.

Sholes' first model typewriter had rows arranged alphabetically. This arrangement proved to be inefficient. The location of the keys and the use of some letters over others caused the machine to jam easily. When Sholes rearranged the letters using QWERTY(top six letters on the left top corner) people accused him of trying to slow typists down to prevent frequent jamming. His goal, however, was to strategically place the letters used frequently at safe distances to keep the typebars from interlocking.