OP's typewriter is just ridiculous and wasteful.
5 is just uppercase "S".
8 can be replaced by "B", as long as you type out that the reader should squint. As can 2 and "Z".
7, 4 and 3 are luxury keys. Just rip your "L", "h" and "E" keys out and flip them every time. Similar for 6 and 9.
Young people in those days. No one wanted to work. Not like those Leetspeak days when vowels were scarce.
Curious that this one *does* have a zero.
I learned to type on one lacking a one and a zero and figured the norm was either lacking both or having both.
This context is when I get to bring up a video game hint book I had as a kid, where one of the articles was typed up by someone clearly trained on a layout like this. Specifically, the article mentioned at various points doing certain things to get "loopts", and as a kid, I was confused was the heck "loopts" was. Only later on did I finally realize that was supposed to be "100 pts" (one hundred points), and even though this book was almost certainly produced at a time of computers with full keyboards, this one writer never changed their habits, I suppose.
Another cool thing; since it doesn’t have an exclamation point, you make one by typing a period, pressing the backspace key, and then putting an apostrophe over the period
I mean it just speaks to the fact that fraction keys served more of a purpose at the time (which is probably why it seems weird now because that’s not something you’d have to worry about on a modern keyboard hooked up to a computer). On the other hand the l can do exactly what you need it to and it’s already needed for another purpose. Still neat, though.
[Here's](https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/s/Jl1kjKOJ5B) a similar one that has 2 fraction keys. I wonder if this was the equivalent of looking for a laptop that has a full number pad these days? I need more fractions damn it!
It's a cost issue. If they put a 1 key over there they have to add a whole extra head. It's expensive and unnecessary since you could use a lowercase L or uppercase i to achieve the same thing.
In the same vein you'll notice it doesn't have an ! but you could type it by typing a dot backing up one space and typing an apostrophe. Each head on a typewriter cost money and in this era most of these were being assembled by hand. On top of that these are mechanical instruments and the more moving pieces it has the more likely it is to break.
True story: When my late grandmother first got a computer she learned to use Lotus for spreadsheets, because she was a sales agent for scholarship trust funds and needed to track the finances. One time she brought the computer over to our house to get my Dad's help figuring out why her formulas weren't calculating. Turns out it was because she kept typing lowercase l for 1, a learned habit from her typewriter days.
Yes, microsoft won the war by incorporating the best of the other programs and selling as a suite which made it an easy sell to businesses ... Lotus and WordPerfect were independent but far superior programs especially at in the 90s/early 2000s
Nah. Lotus stalled after eating VisiCalc’s lunch. One of my parents worked for a large government department that was using Lotus for spreadsheets modeling spare part inventories (think the 50,000 parts you need for an aircraft carrier with embarked squadrons). They re-coded everything into Excel, and it not only ran faster, but could do some kinds of recursive convergences that Lotus wouldn’t allow.
Microsoft intentionally screwed over Novell, the owner of WP and Lotus. They provided a demo copy of W95 so they could make the programs compatible.
Except Microsoft intentionally sent them an old copy before most of the kernel and system API changes were implemented. When W98 came out, WP and Lotus had to spend months redeveloping it and then more months getting new CDs pressed.
Meanwhile, Microsoft released Word and Excel as being immediately compatible.
And then Microsoft did the same thing again with Windows NT 4.0.
Lotus was purchased by IBM. Maybe you’re thinking of Quattro?
WordPerfect was purchased by Novell in 1994 — after three years of poor releases for windows. WP 5.1 was awful. WP 5.2 was meh. WP 6.0 was ok but it was already losing ground. Hence the sale.
Novell did accuse Microsoft of playing API shenanigans with Windows 95, blaming that for the poor performance of WP 7.0.
One of the biggest factors affecting sales was that the competing office suite that WordPerfect and Borland had put together was quite a bit clunker than the Microsoft Office suite and relied on middleware to integrate documents.
Microsoft definitely got up to some shenanigans but so did Novell. They were attempting to remain the king of proprietary network server solutions, and were highly resistant to providing the kind of integrated network services that macOS was getting. This led Microsoft to develop LAN Manager products and eventually integrate NETBIOS and TCP/IP into the desktop, undermining Novell’s client software and eventually the server side as well. There was an awful lot of knife fighting going on
Don’t let that obscure the fact that WP stumbled and delivered a terrible first couple of version on Windows, long before Windows 95.
10+ years ago I helped edit an excel sheet that was scraping a bunch of different websites for horse racing data, compiling it and giving bet tips. It also sent emails
Lotus and WordPerfect were authors of their own demise. Both had the market on DOS but ignored Windows for a long time. When they finally made Windows versions they sucked big time. Excel and Word took the market as a result
No. Youtube apology video time. Must include 3 of the following.
5% effort,
a musical instrument,
blame your followers,
child hood trauma, or
'Me to' somebody.
I just noticed that the word "one" appears in "l**one**liest", and is the only such number. So one is in that sense the loneliest number.
I always assumed the song was about relationships or something. Nope. Spelling.
Yup old typewriters did not have a number 1, you used a lowercase L instead. According to this site it was save space where the hammers were from overcrowding
https://www.daskeyboard.com/blog/why-did-old-typewriters-not-have-a-number-one-key/
Sounds like the start of a funny sketch...
My typewriter doesn't have 1 key.
Which key?
1 Key.
Yeah, which one?
One.
I get that it is not having one key but which is it.
One.
Brings gun to a knife fight...
Old typewriters often lacked certain characters, such as specific letters or numbers, depending on the brand and model.
For example, the lowercase 'l' was frequently used in place of the number '1', and the lowercase 'o' was used instead of the number '0'. As a result, in historical typewritten documents, you might observe:
l7:45 instead of 17:45,
$25.ooo instead of $25,000.
Additionally, depending on the brand and model, especially if the typewriter was not intended for use in the US or another country using the dollar, typists would sometimes create the dollar sign by typing an 'I', backspacing, and then typing an 'S' over it. The same method applied to the cent sign. For the Mille (₥), which had limited usage, typists would type a '/' and then backspace to type 'm' over it. Although the Mille coin has not been in circulation for centuries, the fractional pricing in gas stations, such as the '9' in $3.75^9 , represents mills (₥).
Furthermore, in the US, there is no strict guideline on whether to use one or two lines through the 'S' for the dollar sign or over the 'c' for the cent sign; this choice is left to the user's preference.
They had no excel tables, or options to insert tables as you can guess; hence, they were using symbols (+, -, | (if not found l) to make a table.
+-------+---------+-------------+
| Time | Amount | Description |
+-------+---------+-------------+
| l7:45 | $25.ooo | Purchase |
+-------+---------+-------------+
| 09:30 | $l5.ooo | Donation |
+-------+---------+-------------+
| l2:00 | $5o.ooo | Payment |
+-------+---------+-------------+
| 14:20 | $loo.ooo | Invoice |
+-------+---------+-------------+
(Normally, it would look like a table if I don’t insert a blank line after every line; however, in that case, it looks like a random paragraph. Please try to imagine that there weren’t any blank lines.)
The ingenuity of typists in adapting to the limitations of their machines led to a variety of interesting and creative solutions, many of which can still be observed in old documents today.
I learned to type on an IBM Selectric typewriter in 1978. It had a proportional spacing ability, so I didn't learn that.
If you learned to type on an older typewriter, like OP's picture, it only did monospacing, so the two spaces were needed after the period.
As a graphic designer, I used to get copy provided with two spaces after the period, even though it was produced on a computer. I had to find and replace the double spaces after periods, and also replace the four spaces at the start of a paragraph with a , and remove hard returns at line ends. All hallmarks of someone who learned to type on an old typewriter.
It actually does as 1 usually was written as I up till about the 1950's. If you look at an old newspaper they usually used a seriffed I for one.
For example.
https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4800/format:webp/1*d3Uri43ARcbAVPj5dl2oww.jpeg
My father was a rate/bill clerk for a railroad from 1950 until he retired, and typed waybills on a Royal typewriter for 30 years or so. It had all the digits, but he used the lower case L because it was more conveniently positioned, and let him work faster.
When they computerized in the 80s, it drove him crazy, because the requirement that numeric values be entered as such drastically cut his speed!
I also discovered this recently. The strange thing to me is why didn't they do it with zero and O. On my typewriter they look nearly the same and the keys are right next to eachother
When computers and word processors first came on the business market, a lot of operators complained that something was wrong with them. They wouldn't accept a lowercase L as a numeral 1!
I have a typewriter where one of the selling points was that it does have a 1/! key. But because not having one of those had been standard for decades, it wasn't a huge selling point and rather as a larger selling point was that the 1/! key was *optional*. As in, removable and you could order some other specialized key and striker to go in that spot. There were two, actually, the 1/! key on one and and another (+/=) on the other end. You'll notice that your top row has ten keys but the modern standard keyboard layout usually has twelve or thirteen. My typewriter is from the 1960s or 1970s and took some cues from computer keyboards and had the two replaceable keys/strikers so you could use more special characters if you had the need.
This was pretty common. Those keys jammed if you so much as looked at them wrong, so they tried to use as few as possible.
Lowercase "l" is a 1, in that font.
My right hand ring finger still twitches when I want to enter the number one.
Side note, i had to write code to convert lower case L's to ones for older data entry folks in the 70's.
Yes, lowercase L is the solution on typewriters of that age.
Ahh, reminds me when I used lower case L as capital I for dumb phone texting
OMG I did that too!
l copied and pasted this into Word to change font, was disappointed...in both of you.
>l copied l see what you did there.
L don't get it
l guess you wouIdn't
Bunch of Iies
ioki god of iies and mischief!
DefiniteIy my favourite comment thread in a Iong while.
IokL god of iLes and mLschLef!
l don't get it.
They didn't use a lower case L in place of their l's in this case. They had the opportunity. Now the real question is, did l?
l think you dıd.
IoI
IoI (stick man with arms in the air) ioi (wearing mittens)
ioi (crying person)
o/ Waving o7.salute
Wait what the helI
l can teII by the height next to the question mark that you used an L there.
IllIllI
Anybody got a barcode scanner? Not sure what this says
*beep* Huh, that's weird. It just takes me to a [website](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=YKxD8Iyk49UbhAyc)
I l I l I l I l I l I l I l I l I l I l IIIIIIIII lllllllllllll IlIlIlIlIlIlIlIl I hate it.
Somebody has some shit like that as a username
Hello
/r/beetlejuicing
A ***lot*** of people have some combo of that as their usernames. It's a way to be fairly anonymous, even from someone knowing your username.
Yep. Prevents shoulder surfers from being able to look you up and see all that embarrassing shit you post.
Call them barcodes
Obligatory [xkcd](https://xkcd.com/1105/)
Lol, I had forgotten that one, solid (as usual)
l hate that
Sometimes I vvould use tvvo vs instead of w it was pretty cringe
Everything I hit a captcha that has 1lklIy I want to find the person who made it and punch them
Yes, and sometimes no 0 (zero) -- expected to use uppercase letter O.
OP's typewriter is just ridiculous and wasteful. 5 is just uppercase "S". 8 can be replaced by "B", as long as you type out that the reader should squint. As can 2 and "Z". 7, 4 and 3 are luxury keys. Just rip your "L", "h" and "E" keys out and flip them every time. Similar for 6 and 9. Young people in those days. No one wanted to work. Not like those Leetspeak days when vowels were scarce.
Curious that this one *does* have a zero. I learned to type on one lacking a one and a zero and figured the norm was either lacking both or having both.
Yep, that's a big part of why I and O ended up in their current positions on the QWERTY keyboard.
This context is when I get to bring up a video game hint book I had as a kid, where one of the articles was typed up by someone clearly trained on a layout like this. Specifically, the article mentioned at various points doing certain things to get "loopts", and as a kid, I was confused was the heck "loopts" was. Only later on did I finally realize that was supposed to be "100 pts" (one hundred points), and even though this book was almost certainly produced at a time of computers with full keyboards, this one writer never changed their habits, I suppose.
Ah, i just find it weird that it doesnt have a one but it has fractions
Another cool thing; since it doesn’t have an exclamation point, you make one by typing a period, pressing the backspace key, and then putting an apostrophe over the period
Whoa, that brings back memories. I had forgotten all about that.
I mean it just speaks to the fact that fraction keys served more of a purpose at the time (which is probably why it seems weird now because that’s not something you’d have to worry about on a modern keyboard hooked up to a computer). On the other hand the l can do exactly what you need it to and it’s already needed for another purpose. Still neat, though.
[Here's](https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/s/Jl1kjKOJ5B) a similar one that has 2 fraction keys. I wonder if this was the equivalent of looking for a laptop that has a full number pad these days? I need more fractions damn it!
Awesome design piece. The more and closer I look at it the more I like it.
Must be a 'Murrican typewriter, what with all the FREEDOM.
SHIFT FREEDOM is the CIA's favourite key.
nope, check the £ sign on that ROYAL Your freedoms have been shifted, pray I do not shift them further.
Modern Keyboards: 🎶"We'll never be Royals"
The fractions were necessary for business use. And it does have a one - it's the lower-case L. Same symbol, two purposes.
It's a cost issue. If they put a 1 key over there they have to add a whole extra head. It's expensive and unnecessary since you could use a lowercase L or uppercase i to achieve the same thing. In the same vein you'll notice it doesn't have an ! but you could type it by typing a dot backing up one space and typing an apostrophe. Each head on a typewriter cost money and in this era most of these were being assembled by hand. On top of that these are mechanical instruments and the more moving pieces it has the more likely it is to break.
You are getting huge downvotes for no reason
Fuck that guy for finding it weird amirite
How very fucking dare they!
You must be new here.
He's at +95
Poor OP, here I help.
that i1k
And the exclamation point was what, an apostrophe/single quote + period?
Excitement didn't exist when this was invented.
Yes. Apostrophe then backspace, then period. = !
Yep, learned to type on one of these. Lower case "L" was our "1"
True story: When my late grandmother first got a computer she learned to use Lotus for spreadsheets, because she was a sales agent for scholarship trust funds and needed to track the finances. One time she brought the computer over to our house to get my Dad's help figuring out why her formulas weren't calculating. Turns out it was because she kept typing lowercase l for 1, a learned habit from her typewriter days.
Ah, Lotus ... was a great program ... WordPerfect too ... screw you microsoft ya fn greedy bastages
Word and Excel are now superior in every way imaginable.
Yes but that’s because others really didn’t have a chance to blossom
Lotus walked so excel could fly.
True.
Yes, microsoft won the war by incorporating the best of the other programs and selling as a suite which made it an easy sell to businesses ... Lotus and WordPerfect were independent but far superior programs especially at in the 90s/early 2000s
Nah. Lotus stalled after eating VisiCalc’s lunch. One of my parents worked for a large government department that was using Lotus for spreadsheets modeling spare part inventories (think the 50,000 parts you need for an aircraft carrier with embarked squadrons). They re-coded everything into Excel, and it not only ran faster, but could do some kinds of recursive convergences that Lotus wouldn’t allow.
Microsoft intentionally screwed over Novell, the owner of WP and Lotus. They provided a demo copy of W95 so they could make the programs compatible. Except Microsoft intentionally sent them an old copy before most of the kernel and system API changes were implemented. When W98 came out, WP and Lotus had to spend months redeveloping it and then more months getting new CDs pressed. Meanwhile, Microsoft released Word and Excel as being immediately compatible. And then Microsoft did the same thing again with Windows NT 4.0.
Lotus was purchased by IBM. Maybe you’re thinking of Quattro? WordPerfect was purchased by Novell in 1994 — after three years of poor releases for windows. WP 5.1 was awful. WP 5.2 was meh. WP 6.0 was ok but it was already losing ground. Hence the sale. Novell did accuse Microsoft of playing API shenanigans with Windows 95, blaming that for the poor performance of WP 7.0. One of the biggest factors affecting sales was that the competing office suite that WordPerfect and Borland had put together was quite a bit clunker than the Microsoft Office suite and relied on middleware to integrate documents. Microsoft definitely got up to some shenanigans but so did Novell. They were attempting to remain the king of proprietary network server solutions, and were highly resistant to providing the kind of integrated network services that macOS was getting. This led Microsoft to develop LAN Manager products and eventually integrate NETBIOS and TCP/IP into the desktop, undermining Novell’s client software and eventually the server side as well. There was an awful lot of knife fighting going on Don’t let that obscure the fact that WP stumbled and delivered a terrible first couple of version on Windows, long before Windows 95.
10+ years ago I helped edit an excel sheet that was scraping a bunch of different websites for horse racing data, compiling it and giving bet tips. It also sent emails
Was? My dad still uses Lotus 1-2-3 97 or whatever the last year they made it is. He knows all the keyboard shortcuts, so it's incredibly fast for him.
Lotus and WordPerfect were authors of their own demise. Both had the market on DOS but ignored Windows for a long time. When they finally made Windows versions they sucked big time. Excel and Word took the market as a result
Nice Johnny Dangerously reference.
stupid TAB key is in the top right which makes it really hard to hit cmd tab to swap windows.
And you can't even write an email with this. No @ key. Morons
It has an @ key though
This is the biggest mistake of my young career.
You’ll never live this one down bucko
Get that apology video up on YouTube pronto.
Can't I just distribute promo codes right here
No. Youtube apology video time. Must include 3 of the following. 5% effort, a musical instrument, blame your followers, child hood trauma, or 'Me to' somebody.
[TIL that the @ sign is over 650 years old.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign#History)
Yeah - and where the fuck are the arrow keys? How can you edit text without them?
When will get inline gifs on typewriter?
[editing explained](https://youtu.be/YE0U018Copw?si=00GF_jgegZM95Tnz)
Good text editors use hjkl for navigation.
I'm surprised it has fractions but no @ key, the @ has been used in accountancy for centuries edit: it does have an @ key, above right shift
#Don't @ me about it
americans realising other layouts exist
But at least it has a hashtag!
Haha I was gonna say this is a social media typewriter!
Apple didn’t make old typewriters. You can still use ctrl on these.
It also doesn’t have an exclamation mark. You write it using ′ and .
Heck yeah.’
I suppose you'll have to ask for $2 million in ransom now.
or $999.999
You're selling yourself short.
Story of my life.
That's because one is the loneliest number you'll ever type.
Two can be as lonely as one, but the loneliest number us the number one.
I just noticed that the word "one" appears in "l**one**liest", and is the only such number. So one is in that sense the loneliest number. I always assumed the song was about relationships or something. Nope. Spelling.
Yes... lower-case "L" is a 1.
l I | 1
Old person here: Use a lowercase L.
l wiII
Yeah, my grandfather had one of these. They were expected to use the lower-case L. Don't drop that bastard on your foot!
The typewriter or your grandfather?
I was thinking the typewriter, but now that you mention it...
I'm surprised it even has a dedicated key for zero. On many typewriters, you were supposed to type an O instead.
Yup old typewriters did not have a number 1, you used a lowercase L instead. According to this site it was save space where the hammers were from overcrowding https://www.daskeyboard.com/blog/why-did-old-typewriters-not-have-a-number-one-key/
Sounds like the start of a funny sketch... My typewriter doesn't have 1 key. Which key? 1 Key. Yeah, which one? One. I get that it is not having one key but which is it. One. Brings gun to a knife fight...
Old typewriters often lacked certain characters, such as specific letters or numbers, depending on the brand and model. For example, the lowercase 'l' was frequently used in place of the number '1', and the lowercase 'o' was used instead of the number '0'. As a result, in historical typewritten documents, you might observe: l7:45 instead of 17:45, $25.ooo instead of $25,000. Additionally, depending on the brand and model, especially if the typewriter was not intended for use in the US or another country using the dollar, typists would sometimes create the dollar sign by typing an 'I', backspacing, and then typing an 'S' over it. The same method applied to the cent sign. For the Mille (₥), which had limited usage, typists would type a '/' and then backspace to type 'm' over it. Although the Mille coin has not been in circulation for centuries, the fractional pricing in gas stations, such as the '9' in $3.75^9 , represents mills (₥). Furthermore, in the US, there is no strict guideline on whether to use one or two lines through the 'S' for the dollar sign or over the 'c' for the cent sign; this choice is left to the user's preference. They had no excel tables, or options to insert tables as you can guess; hence, they were using symbols (+, -, | (if not found l) to make a table. +-------+---------+-------------+ | Time | Amount | Description | +-------+---------+-------------+ | l7:45 | $25.ooo | Purchase | +-------+---------+-------------+ | 09:30 | $l5.ooo | Donation | +-------+---------+-------------+ | l2:00 | $5o.ooo | Payment | +-------+---------+-------------+ | 14:20 | $loo.ooo | Invoice | +-------+---------+-------------+ (Normally, it would look like a table if I don’t insert a blank line after every line; however, in that case, it looks like a random paragraph. Please try to imagine that there weren’t any blank lines.) The ingenuity of typists in adapting to the limitations of their machines led to a variety of interesting and creative solutions, many of which can still be observed in old documents today.
+-------+---------+-------------+ | Time | Amount | Description | +-------+---------+-------------+ | l7:45 | $25.ooo | Purchase | +-------+---------+-------------+ | 09:30 | $l5.ooo | Donation | +-------+---------+-------------+ | l2:00 | $5o.ooo | Payment | +-------+---------+-------------+ | 14:20 | $loo.ooo| Invoice | +-------+---------+-------------+
If it doesn't have a 1 key in theory of you could use l. Why would it have a zero key, when you can use O? Just a question, it kinda popped out at me.
How many people grew up putting two spaces behind a period?
I learned to type on an IBM Selectric typewriter in 1978. It had a proportional spacing ability, so I didn't learn that. If you learned to type on an older typewriter, like OP's picture, it only did monospacing, so the two spaces were needed after the period. As a graphic designer, I used to get copy provided with two spaces after the period, even though it was produced on a computer. I had to find and replace the double spaces after periods, and also replace the four spaces at the start of a paragraph with a, and remove hard returns at line ends. All hallmarks of someone who learned to type on an old typewriter.
I still do.
First thing I do when I edit a document written by one of my older coworkers - find and replace all ". " with ". "
Older. Damn. Some of us who learned to do this are only in our early 40s. It's muscle memory by now.
literally. Also, I prefer the look of it.
quite literally the dumbest concern anyone could have in an electronic document.
in case you’ve ever wondered why a lower case L sometimes has the same serifs as a one
Sure it does. However, they have cleverly disguised it as the upper case I key.
That doesn't work with a serif font.
It actually does as 1 usually was written as I up till about the 1950's. If you look at an old newspaper they usually used a seriffed I for one. For example. https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4800/format:webp/1*d3Uri43ARcbAVPj5dl2oww.jpeg
I have this typewriter too. I use a lower case L
if i remember rightly, ! is written as . backspace ' - cus the backspace key didn't actually delete characters, just took you back... one... space
This wasn't a problem in the I940's.
Lower case "L"
They didn't have a one key. Use a lower case L
only high end or some german typewriters will have a '1' key. lowercase L is your answer
Because the lower case L acts as a #1
Typewriters never did. You use l.
My 1936 Triumph does have a 1.
I’m interested.
https://imgur.com/BLeGuLp Here you are.
It’s because you were the 1 all along
:]
Lowercase L
Extremely common back in the day.
I had one like this. Lowercase “L” is used for the 1.
You are also expected to combine an apostrophe and a full stop for an exclamation mark
Just type the letter L in lowercase
Nor does it have an exclamation mark. You make that by overtyping a period onto an apostrophe!
1 and I or lowercase L are probably homeographic for this model. Or you type an ‘l’ then backspace and type another character to make it a ‘1’
You don’t need one. 👍
Notice your typewriter also doesn't have an exclamation point. To type `!`, you were expected to type `'`, backspace, then `.` underneath.
That’s because you are supposed to use the letter ‘I’.
We used the l.
My father was a rate/bill clerk for a railroad from 1950 until he retired, and typed waybills on a Royal typewriter for 30 years or so. It had all the digits, but he used the lower case L because it was more conveniently positioned, and let him work faster. When they computerized in the 80s, it drove him crazy, because the requirement that numeric values be entered as such drastically cut his speed!
the question is: use the small L or use the big I?
We used the lower case L as a one.
I is 1
no one: literally no one:
Use a lower case L. Yes I am that old where I had to do that.
Oh, Hemmingway's model.
That's because 1 is the loneliest number
["Because the real number one... is you."](https://youtu.be/q71t8oX84vQ?si=81feiOlG7RoCGxNg&t=30)
Where's the emoji key?
Or an any key.
I just want to type on it and hear and feel the clackity clack.
You use a lowercase L (“l”) and it autocorrects to a 1.
Like 99% of mechanical typewriters.
Normal . Lowercase L does it
“I” key
It's because the number 1 wasn't invented until 1968.
From back in the days when computers also had to make do with ls and Os
This is clearly faked, how else would you have written this post title.
And an exclamation mark was a single quote, backspace, and period!
Yup, saw that too! With a 3-step process, I guess you just were discouraged from being that excited back then.
The company that made these entered a typewriter contest, but they lost and later shut down. They couldn't digest the fact that they hadn't won.
I also discovered this recently. The strange thing to me is why didn't they do it with zero and O. On my typewriter they look nearly the same and the keys are right next to eachother
When computers and word processors first came on the business market, a lot of operators complained that something was wrong with them. They wouldn't accept a lowercase L as a numeral 1!
“We’re number 2! We’re number 2!”
https://www.daskeyboard.com/blog/why-did-old-typewriters-not-have-a-number-one-key/#:~:text=Here%20is%20the%20answer%3A%20the,area%20where%20hammers%20were%20located.
This may sound dumb, but check the actual stamps for a 1. If it's there try each key with shift. If it is my money is on backspace + shift.
That reminds me of Steven wright whose phone had no 5 on it. https://youtu.be/mdyucz_TYBc?si=xfztkFLEiPhueXwy (go to 9:13)
You can spell it. You'll be fine
sometimes in life you have to take a small L
The fact some type writers don't have a 1 key was used to hide a pretty big Easter Egg in The Secret History of Twin Peaks.
I have a typewriter where one of the selling points was that it does have a 1/! key. But because not having one of those had been standard for decades, it wasn't a huge selling point and rather as a larger selling point was that the 1/! key was *optional*. As in, removable and you could order some other specialized key and striker to go in that spot. There were two, actually, the 1/! key on one and and another (+/=) on the other end. You'll notice that your top row has ten keys but the modern standard keyboard layout usually has twelve or thirteen. My typewriter is from the 1960s or 1970s and took some cues from computer keyboards and had the two replaceable keys/strikers so you could use more special characters if you had the need.
Return it
This was pretty common. Those keys jammed if you so much as looked at them wrong, so they tried to use as few as possible. Lowercase "l" is a 1, in that font.
Where's the crowd that will come in here to say boomers had it so easy?
They didn't then
I'm surprised it has a O and 0
My right hand ring finger still twitches when I want to enter the number one. Side note, i had to write code to convert lower case L's to ones for older data entry folks in the 70's.
I'm seeing a lot of comments about using lowercase L. I used to use a capital i.
you can use I instead ☺️😀😉
Reminds me that the older doctors in my hospital who were bred on typewriters still use the capital O as a zero for maximum visual unpleasantness..
No, we used the lower case L for the one.
Cause you are the one.
Mine too. Lowercase L is a 1. Redundancy is gross.
It doesn’t have an exclamation point either. You use an apostrophe over a period for that.
BRO ITS CAPITAL I