July 23: When the machine learned to write

On July 23, 1829, William Austin Burt patented the typographer, a typewriter precursor. Tonight's film: Electric Dreams (1984).

Before I say a word about tonight’s film, let me tell you how every typed sentence you’ve ever read got its start. On July 23, 1829, a Michigan surveyor named William Austin Burt received US Patent No. 259 for a device he called the “typographer”, a forerunner of the typewriter. You worked it by hand. You pulled a lever to choose the letter, then a hammer struck it onto the paper. It was slow, clumsy, and the model never caught on. But it was the first typewriter-like machine patented in the United States. The typing I do every day traces back to that heavy iron box.