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@coprolite9000 @futurebird oh my goodness I want this.

@renatoram @futurebird
Stenography is already weird enough - those ones sound especially unusual! I'll have to investigate...

@coprolite9000 @futurebird
https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macchina_Michela

...they are literally MIDI keyboards, which is pretty funny, somehow

@moira @futurebird
Alas, I *think* the pedal is for ratcheting up that heavy weight, powering the mechanical side of the device...

Best I can figure out about how it works: a small shuttle spins round a horizontal metal disc at a precise 120 rpm. Pressing a key raises a small peg in that disc which, when the shuttle passes it, sends an appropriately timed electrical pulse to the remote device.

1/2

@moira @futurebird
Each device has an inked, alphanumeric wheel rotating in sync with the shuttles - the pulse presses the paper tape against the wheel at the necessary moment, printing a character...

(I have no idea how any 'shift' mechanism works! There are two blank keys - maybe one of those? The patent - US 22770 - isn't exactly readable...)

Of note: this stuff predates the QWERTY typewriter, and quite possibly helped inspire it. Excellent.

2/2

@coprolite9000 @futurebird i was wondering about the blank keys - I mean, they could both be shift but I also wonder if one is a start-of-message synchronisation signal or something?

wikipedia has a picture of one with cyrliic alphabet keys and its blanks are in the same places definitely implying some sort of meta function

oh wait

one of them is probably _space_. xD

@moira @futurebird
There's definitely some sort of per-character synchronisation going on - you can have a go at making head or tail of how it works from the patent here:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US22770A/

(Apparently there's a dog involved. Presumably a mechanical metaphor rather than a hairy four-legged effort?)

@moira @futurebird
(And yes, I do have *much more important things* I should be doing!)

@coprolite9000 @futurebird Are you sure? Really sure?

this seems pretty important that's all i'm saying

xD

In the patent one of the keys is actually labelled space so I think we can accept that one of the blank keys is indeed space but the rest is a bunch of 19th century type setting i am not ready to try to parse tonight xD

I actually think I've figured out the per-letter synchronisation in that pressing a letter key triggers two signals, effectively, what amounts to a "start of tone" and the second an "offset" tone which arrives when (and only when) the receiving typewheel will have had time to reach the appropriate letter. And that time is determined by the _sender's_ wheel reaching the intended character.

No SHIFT yet tho'

@coprolite9000 @futurebird although i don't need to read scary typesetting (which I started to do anyway lol) to recognise that this thing is a mill

like, a medieval water mill of the hammer kind

which also is what a mechanical watch is

i mean, there's the barrel, driven by weight instead of water (or later in watches, a spring), there's the second wheel, there's the third and fourth wheels and there's the escape wheel and instead of a hammer (mill) or pallet fork (watch) you've got the type wheel _which works kinda like a pallet fork_

it's amazing to me how many machines are basically exactly grain breaking mills just smaller and smaller

@moira @futurebird
You'll like this - seen on another trip to London's Science Museum. Part of Charles Babbage's never-built Analytical Engine was called ... the mill. His son, Henry Prevost Babbage, eventually got round to constructing this small section of it...

(The word tickled a bit of my memory!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_engine#Design

@coprolite9000 @futurebird Oh yes, love Babbage's engines. :D

@moira @futurebird
If you haven't been already, definitely visit the Science Museum at some point. A reconstructed Difference Engine, bits of Analytical Engine, and (at least when I was last there) - most of Charles Babbage's brain in a jar. Eek.

(Also: a small room full of things relating to Ada Lovelace, including the originals of every picture you've ever seen of her. Wow.)

@janc @coprolite9000 @futurebird Because every key is printed with two character glyphs so there has to be a way to select which one is triggered.

@moira @coprolite9000 @futurebird Oh, right! (I should have zoomed in on the photos; they are tiny on my phone )