[GreenKeys] what kind of crazy perforator is this?

[jhaynes@alumni.uark.edu]

I haven't a clue.  Unfortunately the catalog of patents in the local 
library doesn't go back that far, and you can't search online back that 
far.  And without a patent number it is even harder.

I'm guessing that the two spindles are for holding some kind of inked 
ribbon.  

Gil, if you have time to do some work, the library at ASU does have patent
indexes going back that far; and back that far the number of inventions 
might be few enough that you could make a few guesses and find out what it
is.

However, a quick Google search may have turned up the answer...

"In 1879 Miles Bartholomew, an official court reporter, received a patent 
on the first American shorthand machine. Four years later he further 
refined his "Type-Writing Machine," which applied the principle of "alteration 
of hands," but still wrote only a letter at a stroke.

"Ward Stone Ireland's efforts made a greater contribution to the 
advancement of machine shorthand than that of any otherinventor. His
high-speed keyboard, still in use today, had a minimum number of keys, thus 
reducing or eliminating the awkward reaching for keys not directly under
 the fingers. In fact, Ireland's first production model Stenotype machine 
enabled inexperienced operators to attain and often break speed 
championship records."

(from http://www.ncraonline.org/about/history/CourtReport.shtml)

"In 1876, the stenotype was patented by John C. Zachos of New York City 
(No. 175,892).  This was the first U.S. patent for a device for 
printing legible text in the English alphabet at a high reporting speed,
which he called a "typewriter and phonotypic notation." The type was fixed
on eighteen shuttle bars, two or more of which may be simultaneously 
placed in position. The impression was given by a plunger common to all bars. 
He called his new system of shorthand "stenophonotypy.""

(from http://www.todayinsci.com/cgi-bin/indexpage.pl?hhtp:.... etc etc)

There is a piece at www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/volume8.html that gives 
a later date to it all, but shows a Stenotype keyboard - has a lot more 
keys than the machine in the eBay illustration.

There is http://www.machineshorthand.com/   which says that there is a 
history center with photos of various steno machines used through the 
years of the court reporting industry - but I haven't been able to find it 
on the web page.

Well that's enuf for now...