Introduction

Currently, offset printing technology is the most common way of commercial printing. Thousands of Russian businessmen use offset printing, whether for advertising or for the direct manufacture of products. But many do not even know what offset printing is?

The concept of offset printing

Offset printing (English offset-transfer) - a printing method in which ink with printed form is transferred under pressure to the intermediate elastic surface of the rubber sheet, and from it to paper or other printed material.

Usually the name "offset printing" combines printing processes from forms flat printing, which are based on the selective wetting of the printing elements with ink, and the blank ones with an aqueous solution, which is achieved due to the different molecular surface properties of the dep. form sections. In the printing process, the form is alternately wetted with an aqueous solution and rolled up with ink, after which it is put under pressure into contact with the surface of the rubber plate, and the latter is in contact with paper and an imprint is obtained. Thus, the image is transferred twice and the paper does not come into direct contact with the printing plate, which makes it possible to drastically reduce the pressure required for printing and, consequently, the wear of the plate, increase the printing speed and improve the reproduction quality.

In general, we can say that offset printing is the only type of printing that does not impose restrictions on the original layout. In fact, any designer's idea can be reproduced on paper. In fact, its only drawback is the impossibility of economically printing small runs.

The offset printing method has become dominant due to a number of objective reasons., which include:

· universal opportunities for artistic design of publications (great freedom in the layout of material within the strip, the use of image elements of various configurations, sizes and colors and their combinations, etc.);

· ease (compared to the letterpress method) of manufacturing large-format products on sheet and roll machines using papers of various weights;

· improvement of quality on the basis of standardization of technologies and emergence of new basic and auxiliary materials.

History of offset printing

First offset printing machine was created in England around 1875 year and, it was designed for printing on a metal surface. The offset roller was covered with specially impregnated cardboard, which transferred the printed image from the lithographic stone to the metal surface. About five years later, the cardboard cover of the blanket cylinder was replaced with rubber, which is still the most commonly used material today.

The first person to use the offset method for printing on paper was probably an American. Ira Washington Ruebel in 1903. He came up with the idea by accident after noticing that whenever a piece of paper hit his offset press during operation, the lithograph stone printed the image on the rubberized print roller, after which the image appeared on both sides of the printing surface: direct offset printing on the front side and an image transferred from the rubber sheet on the reverse side. Ruebel later noticed that the image on the back of the paper is much more contrast and sharp than a direct lithographic print, because soft rubber is able to press the image more strongly against the paper than hard stone. Soon he decided to design a printing machine that would transfer each image first from the plate to the rubber sheet, and then to paper. The brothers Charles and Albert Harris, independently of Ruebel, observed this process around the same time and soon developed an offset press for Harris Automatic Press. Harris designed his offset press on the principle of a rotary letterpress press. It used a metal plate, curved around a cylinder and positioned at the top of the machine, closely adjacent to the inking and dampening rollers. The offset roller was located directly below, and the shaft with the printing plate adjoined it. An even lower print cylinder pressed the paper against a rubber surface to transfer the image to the sheet (see diagram). Although the underlying principle of this process is still in use today, it has evolved to include two-sided printing and web feeding (paper rolls are used rather than sheets).

In the 1950s offset printing has become the most popular commercial printing method. As printing plates, ink and paper were improved, this increased the already excellent performance of this technique and increased the life of the printing plate. Today, most printed matter, including newspapers, is printed in offset.

A typewriter or a typewriter - once this thing was the property of those who are commonly called people of intellectual professions: scientists, writers, journalists. A brisk knock on the keys was also heard in the reception rooms of high officials, where a charming typist-secretary sat at a table next to a typewriter ...

Now another time and typewriters are almost a thing of the past, they were replaced by personal computers, which retained only the keyboard from the typewriter. But maybe if there weren't a typewriter, there wouldn't be a computer? By the way, the typewriter also has its own holiday - Typewriter Day, and it is celebrated on March 1st.

Old typewriter, early 20th century

Legends and historical sources tell us that the first typewriter was developed as early as three hundred years ago in 1714 by Henry Mill, and he even received a patent for the invention from the Queen of England herself. But only the images of this machine have not been preserved.

A real, working machine was first introduced to the world by an Italian named Terry Pellegrino in 1808. His writing apparatus was made for his blind friend, Countess Caroline Fantoni de Fivisono, who was so able to communicate with the world by typewriting with her friends and loved ones.

Old typewriters with "unusual" keyboard layouts

The idea of ​​creating an ideal and convenient typewriter captured the minds of inventors, and over time, various modifications of this writing device began to appear in the world.

In 1863, the ancestor of all modern printing presses finally appeared: the Americans Christopher Sholes and Samuel Soule - former printers - first came up with a device for numbering pages in account books, and then, therefore, they created a workable typewriter, printing words.

A patent for the invention was obtained in 1868. The first version of their typewriter had two rows of keys with numbers and an alphabetical arrangement of letters from A to Z (there were no lowercase letters, only capital ones; there were also no numbers 1 and 0 - the letters I and O were used instead), but this option turned out to be inconvenient . Why?

There is a legend according to which, with a quick successive press on the letters located nearby, the hammers with the letters got stuck, forcing them to stop work and clear the jam with their hands. Scholes then came up with the QWERTY keyboard, a keyboard that made typists work slower.

According to another legend, Sholes' brother analyzed the compatibility of letters in English and proposed a variant in which the most frequently occurring letters were spaced as far as possible, which made it possible to avoid sticking when printing.

Typewriters with a familiar keyboard layout

Various types of machines over a period, gradually became more practical for daily use. There were also typewriters with a different arrangement of keyboards, but ... The classic Underwood Typewriter, which appeared in 1895, was able to dominate at the beginning of the 20th century, and most manufacturers began to make their typewriters in the same style.

The principle of operation of one of the modifications of typewriters Williams Typewriter demonstration

Old postcard - girl with a typewriter

What only is not present and there were no typewriters. Printing machines for special purposes: stenographic, accounting, for writing formulas, for the blind and others.

Typewriters for different areas activities

There was even an alternative - typewriters without ... keyboards. These are the so-called index squeakers: one hand works with the pointer, which selects the desired letter in the index, and the other hand presses the lever to print the letter on paper.

Such typewriters were very cheap compared to conventional ones and were in demand among housewives, travelers, graphomaniacs and even children.

Index typewriters

The principle of operation of the index typewriter The Mignon Index Typewriter - 1905

And a little about the Russian keyboard layout - YTSUKEN ... the story of its appearance is as follows: alas, it was invented in America at the end of the 19th century. Then all the companies produced a typewriter with only one layout option - YIUKEN.

This is not a typo - the familiar YTSUKEN appeared only after the reform of the Russian language, as a result of which "yat" and "I" disappeared from the alphabet. So now we have on the computer everything that has been invented for centuries before us ... The typewriters themselves have become an antique value and can be quite perceived as works of art.

The glory of the typewriter has already sunk, and yet quite recently it was truly grandiose. At the end of the last century, the typewriter had to pass the baton further - personal computer. But what was the first typewriter? Photo, invention history and design features- Further.

First experiences

When did the first typewriter appear? The history of the portable printing device begins long before the twentieth century. Many people together or independently in different years invariably came to the idea of ​​quickly typing a wide variety of texts. This happened for the first time at the beginning of the eighteenth century, namely in 1714.

Then the English Queen Anne issued an official patent to the worker of the waterworks in London, Henry Mill, for a machine in which the artificial method of imprinting letters allows each one to be placed separately and in the required order. At the same time, the text is printed on paper clearly and clearly. Unfortunately, apart from the text of the patent, nothing has been preserved.

The second typewriter was designed already in Germany in the fifties of the same century by Friedrich von Knauss. This device was not destined to become popular, the typewriter was again forgotten. Then it was Spain's turn. Around 1808, the talented mechanic Terry Pellegrino created his own typewriter. This device gave birth to love.

A touching love story

Terry Pellegrino fell in love with the lovely Countess Caroline Fantoni. The young girl suddenly became blind, but her chosen one turned out to be a faithful and rather enterprising person. For his blind beloved, Terry created the first typewriter. On it, the blind Carolina Fantoni wrote letters to her lover and composed poems.

The device worked as follows. With her fingers, the countess found a key with the necessary letter engraved on it, pressed it lightly, and the letter fell, imprinting the letter on paper through a carbon paper. After Karolina's death, the typewriter itself was lost, but several letters printed on it have survived.

First carbon paper

In the autumn of 1808, Caroline informed Terry that she was running out of paper, without which she would no longer be able to write letters to her beloved. Thus, the enterprising Italian can be considered the creator of not only the world's first typewriter, but also the prototype of modern carbon paper.

Terry Pellegrino impregnated ordinary sheets with printing ink and dried in the sun. After this touching story, various experiments on creating new versions of cars for the blind became widely known in many countries of the world. To the bitter end, the typewriter began to be invented in the USA.

American inventions

In 1829, American citizen William Austin Burt patented a typewriter for the blind called the Typograph (printer). Using a special embossing method, letter blanks left a clear mark on a thick paper tape. In 1843, Charles Tober received a patent for a printing device.

The inventor was worried about the fate of the blind. Like his predecessors, the American wanted to provide jobs for blind people who had not previously participated in any way. social life. Tober's typewriter did not find a response from manufacturers, but his invention uses the fruitful idea of ​​\u200b\u200blever transmission of the movement of letters.

The next "first" typewriter was the invention of Samuel Francis. His 1856 typewriter had a movable carriage, and levers with letter blanks, and a ribbon soaked in special printing ink, and even a bell that warned of the end of a line.

Other inventors

So who invented the first typewriter? In the middle of the nineteenth century, another prototype of a typewriter was created by a certain Italian. He called his invention "harpsichord writing", or "keyboard writing machine". It was already a more modern device that allowed you to see the written text in the process of printing.

In 1861, a Brazilian priest created his own version of the device. Inspired by this invention, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil awarded the priest with a gold medal. The father became the real pride of the Latin American country. In Brazil, he is still considered the only inventor.

Russian writing machine

Who created the first typewriter in Russia? In 1870, Mikhail Ivanovich Alisov designed a "quick printer", or "scribe". Its purpose was to replace the calligraphic rewriting of manuscripts and various documents. The rapid printer turned out to be quite suitable for this, for which he received high reviews and medals at three exhibitions: in Vienna in 1873, in Philadelphia in 1876 and in Paris in 1878.

The inventor who came up with such a device was awarded a medal by the Russian Technical Society. That typewriter was very different in appearance from most devices familiar to the modern man in the street. Wax paper was used, which was then multiplied on a rotator.

QWERTY keyboard

Different types of printing presses gradually became more practical for daily use. The familiar QWERTY keyboard was invented by a certain Scholes. The inventors analyzed the compatibility of letters in English language, and QWERTY is a variant in which frequently combined letters are located as far as possible. This prevented sticky keys while typing.

Timeless classic

The classic "Underwood" appeared as early as 1895 and achieved dominance in the early twentieth century. It is the first typewriter in the world to truly become a resounding commercial success. Soon another classic model appeared. American Christopher Latham Sholes patented a device that, after several improvements, received the commercial name "Remington No. 1". These machines were mass-produced.

The Remington trade was hard until the Treasury ordered the machines. By 1910, over two million of these typewriters were in use in America. Even the writer Mark Twain purchased one printer from this series.

Serial production in Russia

In Russia, before the revolution, typewriters were not produced, but were actively used. Due to the pre-revolutionary spelling, the letters on them were located rather unusually. On portable devices, there were no numbers that were replaced with the corresponding letters (O, Z, and so on) when printed.

The first typewriter in Russia, which was mass-produced, was called Yanalif. The device was produced since 1928 in Kazan. In later times, the most common domestic brands of cars were portable "Moscow" and "Lyubava", stationery "Ukraine" and "Yatran". Of the foreign devices, "Optima" and "Robotron", "Erika" from the GDR, "Consul" from Czechoslovakia, "Olympia" from the FRG were popular.

It must be admitted that Wedgwood's invention was then actively used in office work for a good two centuries to obtain several copies of one document. Yes and on dot matrix printers carbon paper in the absence of a cartridge helped out a lot.

Let us return, however, to the history of the emergence of typewriters in general and keyboards in particular. So, in September 1867, the poet, journalist and part-time inventor Christopher Latham Sholes from Milwaukee applied for a new invention - a typewriter. After appropriate bureaucratic procedures, which, as usual, dragged on for several months, Sholes received a patent in early 1868. In addition to Christopher Scholes, co-authors of the invention were Carlos Glidden (Carlos Glidden) and a certain Soule (S. W. Soule), who also worked on the creation of the first typewriter. However, the Americans would not be Americans if they did not try to profit from their offspring.

The production of the first typewriters began at the very end of 1873, and in 1874 they entered the American market under the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer brand.

I must say that the keyboard of the first typewriters was strikingly different from the current one. The keys were placed in two rows, and the letters on them were in alphabetical order.

In addition to this, it was possible to print only in capital letters, and there were no numbers 1 and 0 at all. They were successfully replaced by the letters "I" and "O". The text was printed under the roller and was not visible. To look at the work, it was necessary to raise the carriage, which was hinged for this purpose. In general, like any new invention, the first typewriters had a lot of shortcomings. And among others, as it soon became clear, the bad layout of the keys. The fact is that with an increase in the speed of printing, the hammers of the typewriter with the stamps-letters attached to them, which struck the paper, did not have time to return to their place and clung to each other, threatening to break the printing unit. Obviously, there were two ways to solve the problem - either to somehow artificially slow down the typing speed, or to develop a new typewriter design that would eliminate key jamming.

Christopher Sholes proposed an elegant solution that made it possible to do without changing the mechanics of the rather complex design of the printing unit. It turned out that in order for things to go better, it is enough to change the order of the letters printed on the keys.

And here's the thing. Since the hammers were located in an arc forming a half circle, most often when printing, letters located close to each other jammed. Scholes decided to arrange the letters on the keys so that the letters that form pairs that are stable in English are located as far apart as possible.

In order to choose the "correct" arrangement of keys, Scholes used special tables that reflected the frequency of occurrence of certain stable combinations of letters in writing. The relevant materials were prepared by educator Amos Densmore, brother of James Densmore, who, in fact, financed the work of Christopher Scholes on the creation of a typewriter.

After Scholes arranged the hammers with the letters inside the carriage of the printing press, the letters on the keyboard formed a very whimsical sequence that began with the letters QWERTY. It is under this name that the Scholes keyboard is known in the world: the QWERTY keyboard or the universal keyboard (Universal keyboard). In 1878, after the modernization was tested on the typewriters produced, Sholes received a patent for his invention.

Since 1877, the Remington company began to produce typewriters according to the Scholes patent. The first model machine could only print capital letters, while the second model (Remington No.2), which began production in 1878, had a shifter that allowed both uppercase and lowercase letters to be printed. To switch between registers, the print carriage was moved up or down using a special Shift key (shift). In this and subsequent (until 1908) Remington typewriters, the printed text remained invisible to the worker, who had the opportunity to look at the text only by lifting the carriage.

Meanwhile, Sholes' example inspired other inventors. In 1895, Franz Wagner received a patent for a typewriter with horizontal letter levers that strike the paper roller from the front. The main advantage of this design was that the newly printed text was visible during operation. He sold the rights to its production to the manufacturer John Underwood. This machine proved to be so convenient that it soon became very popular and Underwood made a huge fortune on it.

Christopher Scholes' first typewriter was designed for typing ... with two fingers. The appearance of the ten-finger printing method is attributed by historians to a certain Mrs. Longley (L. V. Longley), who demonstrated new approach in 1878. And a little later, Frank E. McGurrin, a federal court clerk in Salt Lake City, proposed the concept of touch typing, in which the typist worked without looking at the keyboard at all. At the same time, manufacturers of typewriters, trying to prove to the public the prospects new technology, held numerous competitions for typing speed on the first Remingtons and Underwoods, which, of course, spurred typists to type faster and faster. Very soon, the pace of work of "typewriter workers" exceeded the average 20 words per minute characteristic of handwritten text, and the typewriters themselves became an integral working tool of secretaries and a completely familiar element of offices.

Until 1907, Remington & Sons produced nine models of printing presses in succession, the design of which was gradually improved. The production of typewriters grew like an avalanche. Over the first ten years, "Remingtons" produced over a hundred thousand copies.

Apart from large firms(such as "Remington" and "Underwood") typewriters were produced by hundreds of small factories and dozens large companies specializing in precision engineering. There are dozens of new designs and hundreds of models. Of these developments, by the middle of the century, only about twenty retained their significance.

In the period 1890-1920, there was an intensified search for constructive solutions in order to obtain a clear, visible text when printed and expand the capabilities of the printing press. Among the machines of this time, two main groups can be distinguished: with a single type carrier and with a lever printing mechanism. For machines of the first group, the letters are applied on a single letter carrier various shapes, either an indicator device or a keyboard was used to select a printed character. By changing the media, it was possible to print in several languages. These machines produced text that was visible when printed, but their slow printing speed and poor penetrating power limited their use.

In machines with a lever printing mechanism, the letters are located at the ends of separate levers, printing is done by hitting the lettering lever on the paper support shaft when a key is pressed. The variety of lever printing presses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries reflects the struggle of ideas aimed at obtaining a text that is visible when printing, increasing the speed of printing and the reliability of the machine, and ensuring a "light" hit on the keys.

In 1911, Russia conducted a comparative analysis of energy consumption when writing various models typewriters. It turned out that writing 8000 characters is equivalent to moving your fingers on "Remington No. 9" 85 pounds, on "Smiths Premier" - 100 pounds, on "Postal" -188 pounds!

The typewriter was widely used by writers. It is noteworthy that Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, published in 1876, became the first book whose text was prepared using a typewriter.

Office of L.N. Tolstoy, for example, the acquaintances of the great writer could not imagine without the old "Remington", just like the office of V.V. Mayakovsky is unimaginable without his beloved Underwood.

The machine revolution of the 70s of the XIX century affected many areas of human activity, including writing. FROM the invention of the typewriter a person did not need to spend a lot of time on commercial correspondence and business papers, which required special legibility of writing. Now, instead of writing out each letter, one hit on the desired key was enough. Many inventors tried to invent a typewriter accessible to everyone and capable of quickly issuing not one, but several copies of a legible, fast-reading manuscript.

One of the first machines known to us was introduced in 1833 by the French inventor Progrin. 88 circular machine arms were connected to digital and letter stamps. The levers moved across and along the sheet of paper on special sleds. In 1843, S. Thurber patented a typewriter for the blind. The idea of ​​the lever transmission of letters proposed by him was later used in all typewriters.

In 1867, American printers Samuel Sullet and Lettam Scholes invented a pagination machine for printing series and numbers of bank notes. An acquaintance of Scholes suggested that, based on the created typewriter, they design to design a typewriter in which letters and words were printed instead of numbers and signs. At first, a single-letter typewriter appeared, consisting of a glass plate, a telegraph key in the form of a key, and other parts. Putting a sheet of white paper and a charcoal tape on a glass plate, Scholes moved the paper with his hand, with the other hand he pressed the telegraph key with the letter "B" carved on it from brass. Thus, he received a print on paper. In the same year, a sample of a multi-letter typewriter was designed, which wrote clearly and quickly. The disadvantages of the typewriter were a flat keyboard and typing only in large letters. In 1868 the machine was patented.

After that, Sulle ceased to be interested further fate their joint brainchild, and Scholes continued to work on creating a more advanced machine. Over the next five years, he created 30 models, each of which was better than the previous one. Finally, in 1873, Scholes created a fairly comfortable, reliable model and offered it to the Remington factory, which was engaged in the production of sewing and agricultural machines, as well as weapons. In 1874, the first hundred of these machines appeared on sale, and in 1876 their mass production was launched. But for another 8 years, the public was accustomed to this technical innovation, until, finally, firms, banks and business offices were able to appreciate this miracle of technology. In the first Remingtons, the text was printed under the roller. To see it, it was necessary to raise the trolley located on the hinges, which was not very convenient.

In 1890, F. Wagner invented a typewriter with a type visible during typing and with letter levers lying horizontally. He sold the rights to manufacture the machine to John Underwood, who became fabulously rich on it. From 1908, Remington typewriters were also produced with visible type. By After that, many more designs were created, but the foundation laid down in the invention of 1873 remained unchanged. Steel levers are placed in a metal case like a fan. At the tip of the levers there are letters (numbers, signs, letters). The levers are connected to the keys. The blows on the keys are transmitted to the levers, which hit the letters on the paper through the colored fabric tape. The letters leave their imprint on the paper coming from under the roller. Several hundred typewriter designs have been patented since Remington, although no more than 30 of them are of practical value. The principle of operation is the same for everyone - a hit on the keys pushes the lever with the desired letter at the end.