Williams Typewriter, 1892---

Williams Typewriter, 1892---.
The Williams Typewriter is one of the wonderful oddities of Typewriterdom, featuring its intriguing "grasshopper" typebar movement. As you can see, the typebars are arrayed in two fans, both in front of and behind the platen. Each type rests in an inkpad. When a key is pressed, the typebar hops forward, hits the paper, and hops back. Naturally, the paper is a problem, because it seems like there is no place to put it! Not quite. First, the blank sheet it fed into the basket of metal hoops just behind the keyboard. In use, the paper is fed across the platen, and down into the basket of hoops at the back of the maine. Only a few lines are actually "visible" at any one time.