Siamese twin typewriters

In my recent series on little-known typewriters I included this photo of a double IBM unit.



Such machines were used when one set of characters was not enough. Maybe the typist needed two different alphabets, or needed to insert a wide variety of symbols in a text. Pulling the paper out and inserting it in a separate typewriter was not a good option, because the text would almost surely be misaligned. The solution was this Siamese twin arrangement.

IBM was not the only company to create such devices. Frans van de Rivière just alerted me to this dual Optima which is currently for sale in Germany.



The British company Imperial also offered "dual-unit typewriters."



Olivetti offered them too.

Of course, such devices were made obsolete by the Selectric and later daisywheel typewriters, which allowed you to swap the type element.

In fact, as typewriter collectors know, many early typewriters had interchangeable type elements, too. For example, the elusive Blickensderfer Electric. (This one was sold by Auction Team Breker in 2007.)



Another good solution to printing individual special symbols was Smith-Corona's Changeable Type system.



Want to type an emoticon? Smith-Corona's got you covered:



Brother offered a comparable system, Dial-A-Type (image source: Davis Typewriter Works).



Finally, I'll mention the Typit system, invented by Robert Twyford. More information in Klaus Brandt's story on p. 12 of ETCetera no. 99.