What did the very first writing ball look like?

Most writing ball cognoscenti regard the well-known wooden box model from 1870 with an in-built cylinder as the very first writing ball. This model had the paper attached around a cylinder that moved by means of an electrical battery. The wooden box model was displayed to journalists and people in the trade in Denmark on September 8, 1870, receiving good coverage in the press already the following day. Many have considered this to have been the prototype of the Malling-Hansen writing ball.

It is also worth noting the very thorough assessment of the factors that might contribute to bringing about the best typing speed, being the basis of the shape of the keyboard of the writing ball. RMH documented that he had taken into consideration the most frequently used letters[1] and their placement in relation to which fingers are capable of writing most speedily, as well as seen to having letters used in the most frequent letter combinations were not to be typed by the same finger. The short pistons placed at a certain individual angle through the writing ball hemisphere, as well as the shape of the pistons, would also contribute to a high-speed typing, and also minimize the risk that the pistons would become entangled. This feature was in great contrast to the competing Remington-machine, where the only criteria by the placement of the keyboard letters was that the letters most frequently succeeding each other in the English language, had to be placed as far away from each other in order to avoid that the very long, jointed pistons would entangle. The typing speed did not enter the equation at all in that context.

However, how can I with such confidence state that at least one of the models described in the patent text of January 25, 1870, was built? Well, because RMH himself tells us so. It is perfectly clear from the patent application text that at least one of the models was in fact finalized, and most probably both of them, since Malling-Hansen writes as follows:

“with these investigations and tests as a foundation I started putting together a machine for speed writing, and this machine eventually acquired the shape that I have tried to illustrate in the enclosed drawings and which I shall  try to describe in detail in the following.”

Hence, there can be no doubt that the writing balls on the patent drawings of January 1870 must be recorded not only as fore-runners of the writing ball being presented to the press in autumn 1870 but really independent prototypes that existed not only on paper. Through various sources, among them in articles by the son-in-law Fritz Bech, as well as by some of RMH’s daughters, we are informed that the very first writing ball model weighed around 75 kilos. This would indicate that Malling-Hansen himself counted the large model built into a table as the very first writing ball model. Judging by the drawing it seems reasonable to suppose that the weight was around 75 kilos. Those of the opinion that RMH did not build any writing ball prior to presenting his patent application and that the wooden box model with the battery must be regarded as the prototype have judged that the weight of 75 kilos must have included the battery, because the wooden box with its content weighed only some 9 kilos. However, a closer investigation into the batteries available at the time has shown that that there were in fact wet batteries already from 1866, used in telegraphy stations and for telephones, and these batteries are not particularly voluminous – rather they resemble jam jars filled with liquid, and they seem to have weighed less than 10 kilos. Hence, the size of the batteries cannot explain the large weight of the first writing ball.

It is likely that both these models, rendered in the drawings, were in fact built, because from one of the letters from July 26, 1870, from RMH to the Danish Consul in Washington, USA, general Christian T. Christensen, we know that he favored working with several models simultaneously:

“The machine itself, as well as two other such machines with modifications, will be ready in a few days. They correspond entirely to my expectations. I shall very soon permit myself to send your Grace samples of the work of the writing ball. The arrangement of the electrical machine to move the platen has undergone many changes for the better since the last time  your Grace was here”.

My interpretation is that RMH, at this point in time, saw the electrical wooden box model as the writing ball that he was going to invest in and develop further, while simultaneously working with two other machines, which were further developments of previous models. In actual fact he himself hardly carried out this work, rather his mechanic and – in certain considerations co-inventor – C.P.Jürgensen – performed it in practice .

Already within a week after the first patent application, on January 31[1], 1870, RMH presented a supplement to the original text, the paper feed mechanism being the object of further development. Very soon he found a way to make the movement of the paper happen automatically every time a key was pressed, making use of a helical spring that was wound up before the machine was to be used. The depression of a key then made the spring trip a movement of the cylinder, precisely big enough to make another letter appear at exactly the right distance from the previous one. The solution of this model in relation to the paper guide could be characterized as being based upon a solution somewhere between manual, pedal  and electrical power, and as such had to be wound up pretty much like a mechanical toy vehicle before it could be used.

In the second supplement, dated February 28, RMH includes the information that the cylinder could also be moved by means of an electromagnet in combination with a “watch spring”, as described in the first supplement. There is much circumstantial evidence that this combination model, capable of using electricity as well as a helical spring, was really built because graphical prints were made of it, and the illustration was used in several magazines in 1870. This version of the writing ball was also built into a wooden box, similarly to the “officially” first version, but its wooden box featured a tilted surface at the side turned towards the typist – for him or her to rest the arms -, and it was also equipped with a key at one end for winding up a spring mechanism. However, as RMH himself described it in his letter to general Christensen in the USA during the Summer of 1870,  a further development of the electrical solution was taking place, and the “official” writing ball demonstrated in public in Autumn 1870 no longer had internal batteries, but rather a switching-on point on the outside of the wooden box. Inside the box were also two coils or reels wrapped with copper wire such that the electricity from the battery was transformed into magnetism used for the movement of the paper platen as triggered by the suppression of the keys and pistons.

Throughout the 1870s RMH developed the cylinder model as well as the flat model, and already in 1871 he launched new, open writing balls with a cylindrical as well as with a flat paper surface, until finally in 1875 he abandoned electricity all together and launched the very first high model, where he had chosen what we may call a compromise solution between the cylinder-shaped and the flat paper surface, where the paper was fastened onto a curved frame. At this time, batteries were not 100% reliable and required quite a lot of maintenance and inspection, and RMH had for a long time been searching for a better solution for the paper guide, since he – according to his son-in-law Fritz Bech – had frequent complaints from buyers of the writing ball on the ground that the battery had stopped working. Consequently, RMH had asked his mechanics to find a solution that would automatically move the paper frame a step ahead each time a key was depressed; however, they were not able to find a satisfying solution, and hence – according to Fritz Bech – the inventor himself had to step in and come up with the final solution.