History of the Typewriter

—177— The Stenotyper. The inventor of the Stenotyper, (John Franklin Hardy) was a skilled Graham phonographer whose inclinations led him to explore the well-known Cross System of Eclectic Shorthand. The orthographic basis of this method governed his future actions to a considerable extent. Mr. Hardy was also a professional telegraphist, of vast experience in the southern and western parts of the States, and he subsequently became a well-known type- writer man, whose doings and movements find record in professional papers of the later eighties and earlier nineties. His acquaintance with the winged art had led him to conceive the idea of a shorthand machine, his experience of the Morse instrument directed his thoughts towards that instrument as being a possible solution of the difficulty, and his intimate knowledge of the typewriter, past and then present, showed him how to work out his problem. No man had a more intimate acquaintance with the object of every part of the typewriter. No man had a keener appreciation of the effect of a change or the introduction of a new device—and it is safe to say that no man, other than he, could have devised the Stenotyper. The Stenotyper is a small machine, measuring about 8 in. by 7 in. and about 4 in. high. Its total weight is only three pounds or thereabouts. As will be seen from the illustration, it looks somewhat like a miniature type- writer, but there is no moving carriage. It is the ability to write a line, quite as long as that in any ordinary note book, and then, when the line is finished, to commence another automatically, without stop, pause, or hindrance, and, indeed, without even a knowledge of the fact, that gives the Stenotyper its marvellous powers. There are but six keys on the Stenotyper. First, there is the key in front, and above that four others. The illus- tration may be thought to show seven, but the explanation is that the keys on the right half of the bank are duplicates of those on the left half. The long key on the top bank completes the keyboard. The object of the peculiar arrange- ment is, to permit the hands to work alternately. Thus, if a character is struck with the right hand, the next is written with the left hand, and so on. The Stenotyper does not print ordinary letters. Each key prints a dot or dash, and one key, or the whole key- board, may be depressed at once. It takes no more time, and involves no greater effort, to imprint the most complex- looking sign than it does the simplest dash or dot. And,