Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 7
Inventions, Processes, and Wrinkles
Inventions, Processes, and Wrinkles.
A Fountain Drawing Pen.—Messrs Jackson Bros., Limited, 50 Call Lane, Leeds, have adapted the fountain principle to the hinged-nib pen in use by draftsmen. The annoyance and interruption caused by having to dip the pen while drawing a long line is in the experience of every one, as is also the difficulty of concealing the points of junction. The illustrations of the new « Injector » reservoir pen require very little explanation. The attachment is really a hand pump in miniature. To use the pen, the draftsman, taking hold of the milled gland f, withdraws the cylinder C from the handle and fills it with ink by dipping the lower end of the tube T into the liquid and pulling out the plunger P to its extreme position. After wiping the tube, and without disturbing the plunger, he re-inserts the whole cylinder into the handle of the pen, A slight push forward of the plunger then serves to feed the pen with ink. As this becomes exhausted, all that is required is from time to time to push the plunger slightly forward. All draftsmen will appreciate the improvement. The manufacturers state that each pen is carefully tested by an expert, and is guaranteed to be in working order. Users are cautioned not to unscrew but simply to withdraw the plunger. The pens can be obtained from Mr G. Dutton, stationer, Lambton Quay, Wellington.
A Telegraphic Keyboard.—Mr Donald Murray, a journalist employed on the Sydney Morning Herald, and formerly of New Zealand, has invented a clever contrivance by means of which telegraphic messages can be sent by using a typewriter keyboard and can be received at the other end in a similar manner. As eighty or more characters can be transmitted, it is possible by this new invention to operate at a distance, over a single telegraph wire, a typewriter, a type-setting machine, a piano, or any other keyboard instrument. By means of this patent it will in time be possible for a correspondent, by playing on a typewriter keyboard, to set type or, to work a matrix-machine in a dozen or more cities. The object of the invention, as described in the specification, is: To use only ordinary telegraph currents capable of being relayed, and subject to all the conditions of ordinary telegraphy; to operate at a distance any ordinary type-writing machine, or any type-setting or similar machine; to be able to transmit at least eighty different characters; to work at the utmost speed permitted by the manual dexterity of the operator working at a transmitting keyboard in all respects like that of an ordinary typewriter keyboard, and to dispense with all clockwork controlling mechanism, synchronously moving type-wheels, and other slow and cumbersome devices.