I’m not an expert on typewriters, but I can try because those kind of keyboards are really interesting.
This is an example of a index typewriter, with a keyboard that’s… well… not a board filled with keys.
This is an example of a index typewriter, with a keyboard that’s… well… not a board filled with keys.
Instead, it’s a simple pointing device where you first choose your letter with a lever, and then use a separate mechanism (button or lever) to imprint it. 
If it feels cumbersome – oh yes, it is. You cannot touch type on an index typewriter. Often, index typewriters were derisively called “a page a day typewriters.”
But the simple construction had benefits. #1: An index typewriter could be had for a quarter of a price of a regular desk typewriter – or even for as little as $10. That made it instantly accessible (particularly for millennials).
Bonus #2: It’s smaller and therefore much more portable! The first photos of people using typewriters in public transit were of index typewriters… (and they were not even photos, since we didn’t know how to print this new invention of photography well yet!)
(There were even a few index typewriters you could keep in your pocket, the earliest predecessor to a smartphone! Note: “Not a toy.”)
Bonus #3! The construction makes it easier to change fonts. Instead of solid typebars with type on them, you can imagine a swappable element.
This it the first time in history the act of *choosing a font* was available to a common person.
This it the first time in history the act of *choosing a font* was available to a common person.
Some index typewriters were linear, some circular, other semicircular.
Confusingly, later on, as regular typewriters became cheap and small, some index typewriters – now sold as toys – came pretending they’re “real” keyboards.
But, let’s go back to Mignon. Mignon was a very popular “prosumer” index typewriter. (Within that now-completely-forgotten category there were many subcategories!)
Mignon used a much faster, “2D” indexing. It also came with multiple colours…
…and with “typesleeves” allowing for many font options. (Each one with a matching keyboard plate.)
There was even a Braille version!
Just like home computers in the 1980s found their second wave in East Europe, and third one in Africa (well into the 1990s), the Mignon was sold for many decades in countries where it was harder to afford a “real” typewriter.
The funny thing? You probably used an index keyboard at some point. Maybe inputting a password on Apple TV (which alternated between linear and 2D indexing).
Maybe entering a high score on an arcade game using a joystick.
Maybe labelling stuff in your workshop.
Index keyboards are a great example of an alternative idea that’s easy to ridicule, but the moment you step outside the mainstream, its deficiencies can become its powers.
Japanese and Chinese typewriters? Needing to access thousands of characters before software meant traditional keyboard was impossible… but an index typewriter could work.
Stephen Hawking used a version of an index keyboard to talk. The very same simplicity and inefficiency that would bother many typists was actually a great benefit here, a cheek twitch being his sole input method.
You might also remember a lo-tech version of this idea from Breaking Bad.
(“A page a day” is better than nothing.)
(“A page a day” is better than nothing.)
Have a limited room on your 1980s wrist? Put a tiny index typewriter in your phone.
Need to communicate with ghosts? How about an Ouija index typewriter.
Wait
Wait
Well, next time, be on the lookout for an index keyboard in your life! Maybe, if you’re lucky, it’ll even be as cute as this cutest ever package-labeling machine.
That’s it! I-click-space-H-click-O-click-P-click-E-click-space-T-click-H-click-I-click-S-click-space-H-click-E-click-L-click-O *fuck*
