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> It absolutely isn't. Paige was actually the engineer ... It glosses over it and Twains autobiography goes into more detail. What impressed Twain about it wa
by EagnaIonat 2mo ago
> It absolutely isn't. Paige was actually the engineer ...
It glosses over it and Twains autobiography goes into more detail.
What impressed Twain about it was the demonstration had an operator typing at high speed.
When he got the device, he discovered the operator was typing the same phase over and over. They had memorised it so as to type faster.
So one of the overlooked lessons is don't believe product demos.
- dmurray 2mo agoA trained operator could have got up to a very high speed anyway, though, as the age of typewriters would show. Even if Paige didn't know that. Having the machine able to keep up is more important than the speed of the typist.
- EagnaIonat 2mo agoYou should read his autobiography It was not possible to get a high speed as the machine often jammed. IIRC Mark Twain said the machine helped in improving his swearing.
- kazinator 2mo agoBeing able to type a repeated phrase fast is something; it's better than not being able to. You want the typist to memorize some test sentences so that they are fast enough to demo what the machine can handle. However, if the phrase was contrived to be sympathetic to the workings of the machine, that would have been a misleading demo.