All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

i88 All About Inventions Remington experts took the machine in hand they found it almost hopeless in its original condition. They embarked upon entirely new designs. These improvements entailed considerable time, patience, and expense, with the result that 1874 was well advanced before the “ Remington typewriter,” as it was called after the manufacturing firm, and one which to-day is known throughout the world, was ready for the market. The first commercial model was christened “ No. 1,” and now is colloquially known as “ the ancestor of writing machines.” But the appearance of the typewriter was not hailed with such enthusiasm by the business com- munity as had been anticipated. The Remington firm were engaged with its manufacture purely and simply : they had practically nothing to do with its sale. A separate entity was established for this purpose, Densmore and Yost combining to this end. Samples of work carried out by the machine were scattered like leaves far and wide, and an attempt to rivet attention upon the new time- and labour-saver for the office was made at the Centennial Exhibition held at Philadelphia in 1876, where, by the way, Bell was striving with might and main to induce the public to regard his telephone favourably. The public would have nothing to do with the typewriter. In the first place, it printed only in capital letters. This limitation is somewhat remark- able, seeing that Wheatstone’s typewriter for the rapid printing of telegrams, which had been invented ten years previously and which used both capital and small letters—upper and lower case—was well known. The first improvement was effected through the