How Typewriter work

 How Typewriter work...

 

 What happens when you press a key...?

 

Here's the typewriter with the top cover removed. The keyboard is at the front. The paper moves from left to right on the carriage at the back. In between, is a complex arrangement of levers and springs. A typewriter like this is completely mechanical: powered entirely by your fingertips, it has no electrical or electronic parts. There's not a microchip in sight!
So how do you use it? The basic idea is simple: you press a key (1) and a lever attached to it (2) swings another lever called a type hammer (3) up toward the paper. The type hammer has the slug of metal type on the end of it. Just as the type is about to hit the page, a spool of inked cloth called a ribbon (4) lifts up and sandwiches itself between the type and the paper (5), so the type makes a printed impression as it hits the page. When you release the key, a spring makes the type hammer fall back down to its original position. At the same time, the carriage (6) (the roller mechanism holding the paper) moves one space to the left, so when you hit the next key it doesn't obliterate the mark you've just made. The carriage continues to advance as you type, until you get to the right edge of the paper. Then a bell sounds and you have to press the carriage return lever (7). This turns the paper up and moves the carriage back to the start of the next line.

 Typewriter font

 

 

  
         Output:  Typewriter cause characters printed on paper...