In this section we will present articles that focuse on the writing ball, and not on Rasmus Malling-Hansen as a person, or on his other activities, and which have been written after RMH's lifetime.

The content:

• Article from "Gabelsberger Stenografen" 1924 by Samuel Jarris - in English an Danish language.
• Article from Büro-Bedarf-Rundschau, 16. März 1929 - in German

• Article published in ETCetera No. 78/June 2007/3 by Flavio Mantelli and Sverre Avnskog - in English

II. The Writing Ball[1]

Hans Rasmus Malling Johan Hansen was born on the 5th of September 1835 in Hunseby, Lolland, where his father was a school teacher. The father died a few years later, and Count Knut of Knuthenborg Manor took him under his wings and made sure he could study. In 1865 Malling Hansen (as he called himself) passed his degree in theology and that same year was appointed principal of the Institute for the Deaf-Mute in Copenhagen. In this responsibility he has earned much merit within the field of education for the deaf-mutes; the introduction of the speech method instead of the sign method in Denmark is primarily thanks to him. Using ordinary copperplate one can write only around 4 signs (letters) per second, however a deaf-mute person, making use of his fingers to “speak” can produce around 12 signs per second. We are told that it was this observation that inspired in Malling Hansen the idea that it should be possible to construct a machine capable of transferring the movements of the fingers into writing at a similar speed. For Malling Hansen the distance between idea and action was very short, and since he was a very talented inventor and possessed considerable mechanical ingenuity, a result indeed came out of it. The machine constructed by Malling Hansen had two concentric ball-shapes (hence the name ‘writing ball’); the type bars were placed in the upper semi-sphere. On the upper side of the spherical surface were the heads of the type bars, arranged in such a way that the vowels were on the left hand side and the consonants to the right; there were no upper case letters or other signs[2]. The paper was placed in the center of the sphere, and when the keys were pressed, the writing was produced by means of a transfer paper. The type bars were secured into coil springs, enabling them to automatically return to their position of rest immediately after being pressed down. The idea behind this construction was not new. Already in 1838 the blind Louis Braille had constructed exactly the same thing – meant to be used by blind people: A perforated board with a type bar in each hole and using the same method for producing the writing; the difference was only that while Braille had his type bars placed in a board, Malling Hansen used a metal semi-sphere. However, in Louis Braille’s device the paper could not be moved automatically , and therefore it was not possible to do any speed typing. This is now the point where Malling Hansen introduces his idea: to use electricity for moving that part of the machine where the paper was placed – what we in the modern typewriter call the “carriage”. It will not be possible here to describe the locomotion mechanism in detail, since it requires minute drawings, but the principle was that the entire machine was connected by cable to a galvanized battery in such a way that pressing down a type bar switched on the current, whereby the part where the paper was placed was moved the distance of ‘one letter’. Professor C. Holten provided a very detailed description of the mechanism in “Illustreret Tidende” of October 30, 1870[3]. Malling Hansen had finalized the construction of this machine in 1870, and in March the same year he acquired a 15 year patent for it. Judging from an article by C.Nyrop in “Illustreret Tidende” of January 16, 1876[4], it seems that the machine was produced in several copies. It kicked up an infernal row and it was huge – 5-6 times bigger than a modern typewriter, quite unwieldy and weighed no less than 75 kilos. But more importantly it turned out that despite the most persistent efforts, it was not possible to make the electrical connection reliable. The machine was and remained unserviceable and was abandoned.However, Malling Hansen’s character was like Bjørnson’s[5] : “if a hope or two were broken, still a new one is blinking in your eye”. “He soon realized that for the machine ever to become functional, the entire electrical device must be abandoned as something superfluous and vexatious. The problem absorbed him for months; the most skilled mechanics gave up, but then he himself resolved the issue”[6]. Resolutely he abandoned electricity as the locomotive force, and shortly after he had constructed a new machine in which the carriage was moved one “tooth” forward in the cogwheel by the mere force of the keystroke itself. Otherwise the design was similar to that of the first machine; hence, the type bars were still positioned in a semisphere and were pressed down radially. The machine called a ‘Tachygraph’ (speed writer) was exhibited at the Nordic Exhibition in 1872[7].

At the same time Sholes had finalized his machine; it was described in “Scientific American”, issue of August 10, 1872. For both inventors the next step was to achieve an industrial production. As is well-known, Sholes turned to the Remington factory, which distributed the first specimens a year later, in the autumn of 1873. Malling Hansen made use of “Jünger’s Mechanical Establishment”. It is not easyly established when the first specimens of the writing ball were distributed from there, but there is some evidence in the former article by Nyrup[1] from 1876. Initially he mentions that Malling Hansen’s “speed writing machine” was awarded prizes at the exhibition in Copenhagen in 1872 and in Vienna in 1873[2]: “but suddenly no more was heard about it. Most people probably gave it no thought, but a few may have supposed that the issue had been abandoned on the ground of being unfeasible, and that maybe the inventor was fatigued by always working, changing and perfecting the machine during many years of disappointments and trouble without a substantial outcome. Such a thought would be quite natural, but it does not correspond to reality. Far from being exhausted, reverend Malling Hansen has, since the last time the writing ball was the subject of public comments, been working on the success of his invention with persistence and zeal. He has spared no effort to continue his work, and now the writing ball has been finalized in a shape and version that we dare say is practical, smaller and less expensive than ever before”. And Nyrop ends his article as follows: “Professor Jünger’s Mechanical Establishment now produces the writing ball in its new version in greater quantity, such that the general public will be able to benefit from it, and the government ministries ought to introduce it.”

As regards the question of who is the father of the modern typewriter, we have to disregard Malling Hansen’s first machine; it is the last of the designs of that century which in practice could not keep what the theory promised. However, we have to count in the “tachygraph” (the name never caught on, people continued to call it the writing ball), both because it possesses the principle of the typewriter and because it was produced ‘en masse’ and proved itself to be very useful.[1]It is a fair conclusion that the typewriter was invented in Denmark just as early as in the United States, It is a fair conclusion that the typewriter was invented as early in this country as it was in the United States, but that the Americans managed to market their product before we did. When the Americans heard about the writing ball they were worried. An American patent agent attempted “in quite an importunate manner to get access to reverend Malling Hansen’s American patent”, and “Remington” offered the Danish inventor “to exchange patents”, the idea being that “henceforth they would be reciprocally allowed to use each others’ patents”. Obviously there must have been something useful about the writing ball. Indeed, during the 1880s and 1890s it was used to some extent in Copenhagen offices, but as late as in January 1892 the then parliamentary shorthand writer, later town hall librarian Mr Julius Salomon during a debate about “Women and Society”, and in relation to whether women ought to learn shorthand writing, used the following turn of phrase: “However, I do believe that the writing ball, which is gaining ground also in this country[2] in many respects can be as useful” (as stenography), and the following year, 1893, “Remington” opened their shop in Copenhagen.The fact that Malling Hansen’s writing ball was subsequently defeated in competition with the American machines, is probably due to our domestic technical inferiority. As far as I understand it had the defect that the carriage had to be moved by means of the force generated by striking the key, while in the American construction, as is well-known, the striking down on the key releases a spring generating the movement. Hence, the American machine was probably easier and quicker to type on.[3] On the face of it one would think this was a technical flaw that could have been remedied. In his biography[4] of Malling Hansen, Nyrop mentions that he continued to work on improvements of the writing ball well into the 1880s, “yet despite substantial funding from the government, among other sources, he did not succeed in producing it industrially in such a way that it was able to compete with aggressive American competitors. His end result of this invention was merely disappointment and loss.” About Malling Hansen, who in several different fields revealed a remarkable genius and achieved extraordinary things, “Illustreret Tidende” in its obituary on October 12, 1890, wrote that the constrained conditions of a small country weighed him down, “in his mind he saw the statue erected, but only attained a torso”. “His contemporaries did not believe in him 100 per cent, they did not listen carefully to what he said, and they ventured only little in his support”. It has justly been said concerning our great men in the world of politics, art and science, that they have almost never achieved the supreme; the apexes have always been broken off, when they have been close to the goal; they have been “on the verge”, “close by”, “just about to”, “on the point of”, but no more. Malling Hansen is no exception from this rule. He harvested no other fruit than disappointments from his writing ball, and he did not succeed in gaining a footing for it widely, neither in his own country nor abroad.

III. Duplication

The inventor of duplication, or the copying technique, is Malling Hansen, - something which is probably not widely known, and he had finalized this invention in 1870[1], simultaneously with the first writing ball. As mentioned above, the writing of the writing ball was produced by the types hitting an inked paper below which was a white paper, but Malling Hansen now found out that many copies could be produced by means of the following procedure:He put an inked paper (prepared with berliner blue) below, then a piece of thin oil paper, then again inked paper and oil paper, for instance 5 layers. On the 5 pieces of oil paper the text would now appear laterally reversed. He would then remove the oil papers, insert white papers between them and let the heap pass through the rollers of a glazing machine (a machine for calendaring paper) and got five prints. After that he would once again insert white paper between the oil papers, the heap went through the glazing machine, and he got five more prints. This procedure could be repeated at least 20 times, before the ink of the ink paper had been used up, thus achieving by one printing with 5 layers at least 100 reprints.

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For us as stenographers there is the particular relevance of Christian Sørensen’s[2] and Malling Hansen’s typewriters that the purpose of both was to render stenography superfluous. It appears very clearly from the quoted text by Chr Sørensen, and it is also mentioned in all texts by Malling Hansen, that his goal and purpose was that a typist, using the writing ball, would be able to follow the speed of a speaker. Already concerning the first model professor Holten writes on October 30, 1870[3] that “by means of this device one will, after the necessary training, be able to type most speeches as quickly as they are held without using stenographic signs, and doubtlessly one will be able to achieve even higher speeds with mechanical improvements”. Well, since then many attempts have been made to replace stenography with machines, but until now they have been fruitless.In my view, the typewriter needs to be improved in two respects: it should be rendered soundless, and it has to be avoided that the typist has to return the carriage after each line.How Chr Sørensen was imagining the locomotive force is unfortunately not explained in his text, but his final remark is very interesting, when he states that the typing can be continued “Without interruption”, until one page has been fully typed. With the electro-technique of our present time it would perhaps be a good idea to go back to Malling Hansen’s electrically powered machine and revive it.

End of the article.

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Further down the page is:Editor responsible under the press laws: Parliament stenographer S. Jarris

Address: Jagtvej 197,  telephone: Strand 26

    Paa samme tid havde Sholes sin Maskine færdig; den stod beskrevet i ”Scientific American” for 10. August 1872.

    Det drejede sig nu for begge Opfinderne om den fabriksmæssige Fremstilling. Som bekendt gik Sholes til Remingtonfabrikken, som udsendte de første Eksemplarer et Aar senere, i Efteraaret 1873. Malling Hansen allierede sig med ”Jüngers mekaniske Etablissement”. Hvornaar de første Skrivekugler udgik herfra, vil det sikkert ikke blive let at faa konstateret, men et holdepunkt er der dog i den førnævnte Artikel af Nyrup[6] fra 1876.  Han omtaler først, at Malling Hansens’ ”Hurtigskriveapparat” blev prisbelønnet paa Udstillingen i København 1872 og i Wien 1873[7], ”[8]men saa hørte det pludselig op med meddelelser om det. Mange har vel ikke tænkt derover, men en og anden har dog maaske antaget, at Sagen som upraktisk var lagt til Side, og at Opfinderen var blevet træt af altid at arbejde, forandre og forbedre, under mangeaarige Ærgrelser og Bryderier uden reelt Udbytte. En saadan Tanke er naturlig, men den svarer ikke til Virkeligheden. Langtfra at være bleven træt har Pastor Malling Hansen, siden Skrivekuglen sidst var Genstand for offentlig Omtale, arbejdet paa sin Opfindelses Fremgang med Udholdenhed og Iver. Han har ikke skyet nogen Anstrængelse for at kunne blive sat i Stand til at fortsætte Arbejdet, og nu staar Skrive-kuglen færdig i en, som det sikkert tør siges, praktisk Form, mindre i Omfang og billigere i Pris end nogensinde”. Og Nyrop slutter sin Artikel saaledes: ”Professor Jüngers mekaniske Etablissement fremstiller nu Skrivekuglen i dens nye Skikkelse i et større Antal Eksemplarer, saa at Publikum vil kunne høste Nytte af den, og Ministerierne bør indføre den”.

     I Spørgsmaalet om Faderværdigheden til den moderne Skrivemaskine maa der ses bort fra Malling Hansens første Maskine; den er den sidste af Aarhundredets mangeaarige Planer, som ikke i Praksis kunde holde, hvad Teorien stillede i Udsigt. Derimod maa der regnes med ”Takygrafen”, (Navnet slog aldrig igennem, Folk blev ved at kalde den Skrivekuglen) baade fordi den har Skrivemaskinens Princip, og fordi den blev fremstillet en masse og vise sig udmærket brugelig.[9]

    Det kan herefter siges, at Skrivemaskinen saa Dagens Lys ligesaa tidligt her i Landet som i Amerika, men at Amerikanerne fik deres paa Markedet før vi.

    Da Amerikanerne fik nys om Skrivekuglen, blev de ængstelige. En amerikansk Patentagent søgte ”paa en temmelig paatrængende Maade at faa Raadighed over Pastor Malling Hansens amerikanske Patent”, og ”Remington” tilbød den danske Opfinder ”at bytte Patenter”; de skulle derefter være gensidigt berettigede til at bruge hinandens Patenter”. Noget godt har der altså været ved Skrivekuglen.

    I Firserne og Halvfemserne brugtes den da ogsaa noget paa københavnske Kontorer, men saa

sent som i Januar 1892 kan dog daværende Rigsdagsstenograf, senere Raadhusbibliotekar Julius Salomon i en Polemik i ”Kvinden og Samfundet” om, hvorvidt Kvinder bør lære at stenografere, bruge følgende Vending: ”Dog tror jeg, at Skrivekuglen, som jo er i færd med at vinde Indgang ogsaa herhjemm[10]e, i mange Henseender kan gøre samme Nytte” (som Stenografien)’, og Aaret efter, 1893, etableredes ”Remington’s” Udsalg her i  København.

    At Malling Hansens Skrivekugle derefter blev slaaet ud i Konkurrence med de amerikanske Maskiner, laa vel nærmest i vor hjemlige tekniske Underlegenhed. Saavidt jeg kan skønne, havde den den Fejl, at Vognen skulle flyttes ved Anslagskraften, medens Forholdet ved den amerikanske Konstruktion som bekendt er det, at Anslaget udløser en Spændkraft, som bevirker Bevægelsen. Den amerikanske Maskine har formodentlig da været lettere og altså hurtigere at skrive paa[11]. Paa Forhaand skulde man jo synes, at det her drejede sig om en teknisk Mangel, der maatte kunde afhjælpes. I sin Biografi [12]af Malling Hansen meddeler Nyrop, at han syslede med Forbedring af Maskinen helt ind i Firserne, ”men trods betydelige Understøttelser, bl.a. fra Staten, lykkedes det ikke at faa den fremstillet ad fabriksmæssig Vej paa en saadan Maade, at den kunde optage Kampen med nærgaaende amerikanske Konkurrenter. Hans Resultat af denne Opfindelse blev kun Skuffelse og Tab”.

    Om Malling Hansen, der paa flere andre Omraader aabenbarede en mærkelig Genialitet og ydede det fremragende, skrev ”Illustreret Tidende” i sin Nekrolog over ham den 12. Oktober 1890, at det lille lands smaa Forhold tyngede ham, ”han saa i Tankerne Statuen rejst, men naaede kun at frembringe en Torso”. ”Man troede ikke helt paa ham, man hørte kun halvt paa ham, man vilde kun vove lidt paa ham”.

    ”Det er med Rette blevet bemærket om vores Stormænd i Politikkens, Kunstens og Aandens Verden, at det saa godt som aldrig lykkedes dem at naa det højeste; Spidserne er altid brækket af, naar de staar Maalet nær; de har været ”nær ved”, ”lige ved”, ”paa Nippet til”, men heller ikke mere. Malling Hansen danner ingen undtagelse fra denne Regel. Han høstede ingen anden Frugt end Skuffelse af sin Skrivekugle, og det lykkedes ham ikke at skaffe den Indpas i vide Kredse hverken i eller udenfor sit Fædreland”.

                                                    III. Duplikeringen.       

      Duplikeringens Opfinder er Malling Hansen, hvad der vistnok ikke er almindeligt kendt, og denne Opfindelse havde han fuldt færdig i 1870[13], samtidig med den første Skrivekugle. Som nævnt foran frembragtes Skrivekuglens Skrift paa den maade, at Typerne ramte et Sværtepapir, under hvilket der laa et hvidt Papir, men Malling Hansen fandt nu ud af, at der kunde faaes mange Kopier ved følgende Fremgangsmaade:

    Han lagde set Stykke Sværtepapir (præpareret med Berlinerblaat) nederst, derover et Stykke tyndt Oliepapir, saa igen Sværtepapir og Oliepapir, f.Eks. 5 Lag. Paa de 5 stykker Oliepapir stod Skriften nu omvendt. Ved derefter at tage Oliepapirerne ud, lægge hvidt Papir imellem dem og lade Bunken gaa igennem en Satinérmaskines Valser (en Maskine til Glitning af Papir) fik han 5 Aftryk. Derefter blev der atter lagt hvidt Papir mellem Oliepapirerne, Bunken gik igen igennem Satinér-maskinen, og han fik 5 nye Aftryk. Dette kunde gentages mindst 20 gange, før Farven paa Sværte-papiret var opbrugt, saaledes at der af en Skrivning med 5 Lag kunde tages mindst 100 Aftryk.

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       For os Stenografer knytter der sig den særlige interesse til Chr. Sørensens[14] og Malling Hansens Skrivemaskiner, at Hensigten med dem begge var at overflødiggøre Stenografien. Dette fremgaar jo tiltrækkeligt tydeligt af den gengivne Skrivelse fra Chr. Sørensen, og det anføres i alle Skildringer af Malling Hansen, at hans Formaal var, at man paa Skrivekuglen skulde kunde følge en Taler. Allerede om den første Model skriver Professor Holten den 30 oktober 1870[15], at man ”ved Hjælp af den med tilbørlig Øvelse vil kunne nedskrive de fleste Taler ligesaa hurtigt, som de holdes, uden at stenografiske Tegn dertil er nødvendige, og der er ingen Tvivl om, at man vil kunne opnaa en endnu større Hastighed ved mekaniske Forbedringer”.  Naa, der er jo siden gjort mange Forsøg paa at erstatte Stenografien med Maskiner, men hidtil har de været forgæves.

    Skrivemaskinen bør efter min mening forbedres paa to Punkter: den bør gøres lydløs, og det maa undgaas, at den skrivende skal føre Vogen tilbage efter hver Linie. Hvorledes Chr. Sørensen har tænkt sig Bevægkraften, fremgaar desværre ikke af hans Skrivelse, men interessant er hans Slutningsbemærkning, at Skrivningen kan fortsættes ”uden Afbrydelse”, indtil et Ark er beskrevet. Med vor Tids Elektroteknik var det maaske et Forsøg værd at genoptage Malling Hansens elektrisk drevne Maskine.

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Ansvarshavende Redaktør: Rigsdagsstenograf S. Jarris

Adr.: Jagtvej 197   Tlf Strand 26

In Verfolg seiner weiteren Arbeiten an dieser Maschine gab Malling-Hansen die elektrische Bewegungsmethode auf und konstruierte eine neue Schreibmaschine, bei der der sogenannte "Wagen", der das Papier trug, durch die Kraft des Anschlags um eine Zahnradzacke vorgedrückt wurde.

Die "dänische Schreibkugel" wurde auf fast allen Ausstellungen, auf denen sie gezeigt wurde, lobend erwähnt und ausgezeichnet. So im Jahre 1869 in Altona, 1872 in Kopenhagen und 1873 in Wien. Auf der Weltaus­stellung des Jahres 1878 in Paris erhielt eine inzwischen noch weiter verbesserte Schreibmaschine die goldene Medaille. In Dänemark selbst erhielt Malling-Hansen als Anerkennung für diese Leistung die goldene Verdienstmedaille.

Das verbesserte Modell, das dann in der Folge auch verstärkten Eingang in die Praxis fand, kannte schon die Ein­färbung der Typen durch ein Farbband, während bis 1878 zur Einfärbung ein Kohlepapierblatt diente. Das Farbband wickelte sich automatisch ab. Die Schrift war klar und sauber. Beim Ab­druck schlugen die Typen des neuen Mo­dells gegen das in einen gewölbten Rah­men gespannte Papier, hinter welchem ein Amboß als Widerlager plaziert war.

Der Papierrahmen verschob sich nach jedem Abdruck um Buch­staben­breite, indem durch pendelnde Anordnung des Kugelsektors eine Schalt­klinke ausgelöst wur­de. Die Maschine war auch schon mit einem Glockenspiel zur Ankündigung des Zeilenschlusses versehen. Die urspünglichen Modelle hatten 52 Tasten, erhielten aber später deren 54.

Eine der ersten ausführlichen Beschreibungen der von Malling-Hansen erfundenen Kugelschreibmaschinen ist aus der Feder von Professor C. Holten in Kopenhagen am 30. Oktober 1870 in der "Illustretet Tidende" erschienen.

Malling-Hansens Tachygraph genannte elektrische Schreibmaschine erhielt am 23.August 1973 ein preußisches Patent.

Im Jahre 1880 nahm Hansen ein Patent, welches gestattete, drei Buchstaben auf einmal zu schreiben. Die Schreibkugel war demnach die erste Silbenschreibmaschine.

Noch bevor die ersten Remington-Schreibmaschinen nach Europa kamen, waren die "Schreibkugeln" schon mehrfach in praktischem Gebrauch. Einer eigenartigen Verwendung wurden sie durch den Kopenhagener Buchdruckerei­besitzer C.  Ferslew zugeführt. Ferslew, ein Gönner und prak­tischer Förderer der seit 1871 in Aufschwung kommenden Setzmaschinen des aus Kassel gebürtigen Kaufmannes Charles Kastenbein, hatte 1881 zehn Setz- und 17 Ablegemaschinen Kastenbeinscher Konstruktion in seinem Betriebe in Tätigkeit. Damit waren damals zum erstenmal so viele Setzmaschinen eines Systems in einer Druckerei in Anwendung; sie wurden ausschließlich von Mädchen unter Anleitung einer Direktrice bedient. Diese Bezugnahme auf die befriedigenden Erfolge der ersten Setzmaschine ist hier aus dem Grunde angebracht, weil hier die Setz­maschine als Schrittmacherin für die Schreibmaschine zum erstenmal augenfällig in die Erscheinung tritt: Ferslew war nämlich der erste Buchdruckereibesitzer, der den Wert guter Manuskripte für die Setzmaschine erkannte;

er ließ alle Manuskripte mit der Malling-Hansenschen Schreibkugel ins Reine übertragen, besonders wohl wegen der Verwendung von Nichtbuchdruckern an den Setzmaschinen, denen so ein ununterbro­chenes Absetzen der Texte möglich gemacht werden sollte (Otto Höhne, Geschichte der Setzmaschinen, Berlin 1926).

Noch eine andere praktische Verwendung war der Schreibkugel be­schieden. Die Nordische Telegraphen-Compagnie hatte eine größere An­zahl von Schreib­kugeln in ihren Telegraphensälen zur Aufstellung ge­bracht, mit deren Hilfe die Morsezeichen der Telegraphenstreifen in die übliche, für jedermann lesbare Schreibschrift übertragen wurden. Bei diesen für den Telegraphen­dienst bestimmten Schreibkugeln war der Papierträger durch eine Messing­rolle mit abwickelbaren Papierstreifen ersetzt.

Malling-Hansen ist auch der Erfinder eines "Xerographie" genannten Vervielfältigungsverfahrens, eines Trockendruckes, der als Vorläufer der Hektographie dienen konnte.

Auch seine neben den praktischen Erfindungsarbeiten einhergehenden Untersuchungen erregten die Aufmerksamkeit der Gelehrtenwelt.

Am 27. September 1890 starb Malling-Hansen als Direktor der könig­lichen Taubstummenanstalt in Kopenhagen an einem Herzschlag. Die Ar­beit eines unermüdlichen und rastlos tätigen hochbegabten Mannes war zu Ende. Mit seinem Tode hörten auch die von Malling-Hansen begonnenen wissen­schaftlichen Untersuchungen auf und es besteht wohl keine Aus­sicht, daß sie von neuem aufgenommen werden.

Dagegen ist später mehrfach versucht worden, das Konstruktions­prinzip der Schreibkugel neu aufleben zu lassen, so im Jahre 1880 von W. Dressler, der sich seine Schreibkugel-Umkonstruktion durch das Deutsche Reichspatent Nr. 16716 schützen ließ und 1896 von Professor Rudolf Schade, dem für eine auf dem gleichen Prinzip beruhende Schnellschreibmaschine das DRP 100526 erteilt wurde. Nach dem Tode Malling-Hansens wurde seine etwas veränderte Schreibkugel von einem Wiener Konsortium hergestellt, deren Erzeugnisse aber keinen großen Verkauf erreichten, da ihre Preise zu hohe waren. Es wurde für das elektrische Modell ein Preis von 600 und für das ursprüngliche Modell ein solcher von 300 Gulden verlangt. Der Preis der Malling-Hansenschen Schreibkugeln betrug für das Modell mit dem kleinen Papierwagen 450 Mk., für welchen Betrag auch die inzwischen langsam nach Europa kom­menden Remington-Schreibmaschinen angeboten wurden.

By Flavio Mantelli and Sverre Avnskog

Article published in ETCetera No. 78/June 2007/3

A debate on who should be considered the real inventor of the typewriter is something that was born with typewriter collecting (if not earlier) and keeps on running today. Different inventors from different countries made different contributionsin the very early days of typewriter history, making it therefore very hard to address only one of them as “the” inventor of the typewriter. However, what is generally accepted as a fact is that the first mass-produced typewriter is the Malling Hansen writing ball. What most people don’t know is that at one point in history, Rasmus Malling Hansen was doubted to be the actual inventor of the machine bearing his name. In fact, in the 1920s a Danish professor set forth false allegations that Malling Hansen was not the real inventor of the writing ball, but had stolen his idea from an older Danish inventor. This is when one of Hansen’s daughters, Johanne Agerskov, stepped in and decided to make some very thorough investigations on the matter and gain actual information on her father’s invention. Luckily, she later published her findings in a 1924 book entitled Hvem var Skrivekuglens Opfinder? (Who was the inventor of the writing ball?). In her book she tells that her father was already working with his idea for the writing ball in 1865, and that he had made a porcelain ball which he used for the purpose of working out the best placement of the letters. He tested different arrangements and tried to write a text as fast as he could, while his brother-in-law, Johan A. Heiberg, took the time. It became therefore very clear that Malling Hansen was indeed the original inventor of the writing ball, and that the idea was completely his own! Mr. Heiberg later confirmed this story to Mrs. Agerskov, by consulting his diary. He lived in the Malling-Hansen home for a period in 1865.

Until last year there was only one porcelain ball known, a white model treasured in the Royal Scandinavia Museum. Luckily, in 2006 another one, this time painted black, showed up at auction in Denmark and is now a splendid highlight in the Mantelli collection of Italy.

Both these porcelain writing balls have 36 “keys” (indentations) with lowercase letters and punctuation only; this is quite interesting, because Hansen used lowercase letters only in the very beginning forhis first prototypes, while already with his very first production model of 1870 (which looked like a wood case with typing ball on top) he was using the capital letters instead. Nevertheless, it is hard to tell if these two porcelain balls known are those 1865 developmental models described in Mrs. Agerskov’s books, because it is speculated that Hansen also made practice models to give to the institutions he regarded as potential customers. Moreover, although Hansen’sfirst working model of 1870 had capital letters on the keytops, all the letters written with Hansen’s writing balls dated from 1870 to 1871 that we have today are written with lowercase letters. Last but not least, the patent drawings of 1872 depict an arrangement of keytops on the writing ball that is identical to that of the porcelain balls. Obviously, the keyboard of the writing ball underwent a constant development during the years: the first model had only 24 keys—with only the lower-case letters, and without keys for punctuation. The shape of the writing ball remained the same, but increased in size, to make space for 36 and later 54 keys on the last models. Given all this information, the Royal Scandinavia Museum therefore claims their porcelain ball should be from 1871; however, it is hard to date these inventor’s models precisely. The specimen they treasure seems actually to be an exhibition piece, while the black model recently rediscovered seems to have been heavily used. The manager of the Royal Scandinavia was very helpful in finding other information on the porcelain balls as well: it seems like these porcelain balls were produced at the factory called “Aluminia Fajance.” “Fajance” is a special form of porcelain; “Aluminia Fajance” had great success with its products, and bought the old royal porcelain factory, “Royal Copenhagen,” in 1884. There are still investigations to be made on the matter of the keyboard of the writing ball, and for those readers who wish to have other insights into Hansen’s developmentof his writing machines, we suggest visiting the web site of the Rasmus Malling Hansen Society at www.malling-hansen.