[GreenKeys] Kleinschmidt Type Wheel

[Duncan Brown]

Paul,

There have been a lot of mechanisms for typing on "Printing Telegraphs".
The Teletype Corp. M26 used a typing mechanism sort of like a M28 type 
box rolled into a cylinder with the pallets on the outside and the 
hammer in the middle.

First, lets make a distinction between a "Type Wheel" and a "Type 
Cylinder". The M28 reperfs, M32/33 printers, KLI reperfs, and MITE 
military printers all use "Type Cylinders" with multiple rows of 
characters around the cylinder.  The earliest Type Cylinder that I have 
seen is on a 1908 Model 212 of the American Telegraph Typewriter Co.



The type cylinder is in the housing at the center. and the platen moves 
back and forth. This unit was NIB and the tag says something to the 
effect of "lubricated & tested 6/25/08"  This was one of the first units 
to use a permutation code, ie, some bits control the rotation of the 
cylinder and some control the height of the cylinder. So the cylinder 
can be moving as the bits are decoded. This is the same principle used 
many years later in the Teletype Corp. M28 type box, the MITE type 
cylinder and the IBM Selectric.


A Type Wheel has just one row - all the characters to be printed are 
arranged around the wheel.



This is a French unit made by Doignon, in Paris, c1900. It is a 5-bit 
machine copying Baudot's patent of c 1890 and an example of the 
beginnings of digital communications. The type wheel is in the center, 
with an inking wheel on the upper left. Note the keyboard. The operator 
had to know the 5-bit code and enter it on the 5 keys simultaneously.  
This unit was used in an Italian Cable station into the 1930s. There 
were very early "Printing Telegraphs" patented around 1850 that used 
similar type wheels.

So type wheels and type cylinders have been around for quite awhile.

Have fun,

Duncan
K2OEQ

On 13-Feb-21 06:02, Paul Birkel wrote:
>
> All;
>
> Based on dates in Army FM it appears that the introduction/use of the 
> Kleinschmidt type wheel (ca. 1965), instead of the standard 
> type-basket seen in typewriters and Teletype M14/15/19 equipment, 
> follows the introduction by IBM of the “golfball” typewriter mechanism 
> (1961), and predates mechanisms like the daisy wheel (Diablo, 1970) 
> and spinwriter (NEC, 1977).
>
> How far off-the-mark am I in that statement?  Would anyone care to 
> elaborate on the why’s and wherefores regarding types of printing 
> mechanisms in the GK repertoire?  (Yes, to include the “type pallet” 
> design :->.)
>
> I’m curious.  The Kleinschmidt type wheel seems to have the 
> type-basket approach beat hands-down, at least in the restrictive 
> context of a tape-printer mechanism.
>
> Thank you,
>
> paul//
>
>
>