Hall typerwriter (1890)

Hall typwwriter, an index typewriter

Hello everyone and welcome. This is a typewriter Hall model 3, it comes in its mahogany box, with brass handle. Should be around 1890.

It was the first index typewriter, patented by Thomas Hall in 1881.
It’s very portable, only 3.7 kg, very easy and cheap to manufacture.

It’s called index typewriter because there isn’t a real keyboard, but this plate with letters and symbols, and you use a pointer to select the letter you want to type. The keyboard is not the one we are used to, and it may seem strange, but at that time there was no standard that had imposed itself on others, and most of the users hadn’t already learned how to use the standard keyboard. So this keyboard was not so strange in the eyes of the secretaries of that time.

It is very difficult to exceed 30 words per minute, while with a normal typewriter you can do double that. ​Furthermore, unlike front-striking typewriters, you can't see what you're writing. And this is a big inconvenience.

It’s a very simple typewriter, made of few pieces, it was cheap and simple to use.

Here there is a video about this typewriter, how to use it and some more history.