The Malling-Hansen writing ball was the world's first commercially produced typewriter, and it was sold world wide. For his invention, Malling-Hansen received the First Price medals at the Scandinavian Art, Agricultural and Industrial Exhibitions in Copenhagen in 1872 and 1888, at the World Exhibitions in Vienna in 1873 and Paris in 1878 and at the Philadelpia Centennial in 1876. It was also exhibited on the first annual Kensington Exhibition in London in 1871.

The first model was patented in 1870, but soon went through a lot of improvements, even though the "ball" itself remained the same. On the picture to the right, the writing ball has gained it's well known shape in 1878. The writing ball was not only the first typewriter to be produced and sold in a relatively large quantity, it is also the fastest typewriter ever made, because of the unique construction of the "ball". Malling-Hansen was experimenting with the placement of the letters already in 1865 - and he succeeded in finding a placement of the letters that made the writing speed extremely fast. Not many people know that the traditional qwerty-keyboard was designed with the goal of preventing the arms from "hanging up" in each other, and in no way was designed to get the fastest writing speed - on the contrary!

The Function of the writing ball:

The writing ball consists of a semi-sphere with radial pistons, which can be severally pushed down to the center of the sphere, where the type is printed on a paper surface (by means of carbonized paper or a ribbon).

The whole apparatus (the writing ball included) is mounted on a stationary foundation plate in such a way that it can be moved down against a spring, when the writing ball or one of its pistons are forced down by the finger. The foundation plate has an upright anvil under the centre of the ball and directly under the paper frame. When a knob of a type piston is depressed, the paper resting on the anvil, below the same receives an impression. When the finger pressure on the type piston knob is removed, the instrument swings into its normal position. The escapement mechanism moved the paper frame that held the paper on space until the end of the line was reached. By pushing the button on the left in front of the ball all the way down, the carriage was turned concentrically back to the beginning of the line and moved one line to the left.

But, unfortunately Malling-Hansen's writing ball lost the commercial competition, even though it was clearly a better typewriter, and when Malling-Hansen died in 1890, at the age of only 55, the order he had placed for the production of 100 writing balls at the mechanic Lyngbye in Copenhagen, was cancelled, and the writing ball was never made again later.

27.10.06

Dieter Eberwein and Sverre Avnskog