How a Mechanical Typewriter Works

Featuring more metal parts than a Terminator robot, but using exactly zero electricity, this mechanical typewriter is a wonder from recent history!
CREDITS
Jacob O'Neal - Modeling, animation, texturing, vfx, music, narrative script
Wesley O'Neal - Research, technical script
PATREON
Help us keep making videos:
/ animagraffs
PRIVATE WORK
Need 3D illustration and animation? Let's chat:
animagraffs.com/contact/
WEBSITE
See more explanations of how things work:
animagraffs.com/
SOFTWARE USED
We use Blender 3D to create these models. It's free and open source, and the community is amazing:
www.blender.org/
0:00 Intro
01:34 Pressing a key
02:25 Typeface
03:21 Mainspring
03:56 Escapement
07:17 Spacebar
07:59 Margins
11:17 Line space lever
12:19 Backspace
14:17 Shift
16:27 Ink ribbon
19:28 Tabs
21:09 Feed rolls

[@JaredOwen]

Well done! It's amazing how complex old machines like this can get

[@carlsaganlives6086]

I always marvel at the craftsmanship, math, and a ton of other factors that went into building the early pianos (modern, too), pretty complicated affair using only manpower. Plus 88 of the parts need to be identical except the strings, right?

[@animagraffs]

Hiya @JaredOwen!! It really is mind boggling, as you know all too well. It's so much mechanical complexity needed to reliably handle what seems to us like a simple set of tasks. It really is eye opening.

[@craigcollings5568]

It's a Marvel!

[@musicmikeish]

Jared Owen had to be here. Him and Animagraphs are great animators. Bravo!!

[@tomoesan6179]

😀😀😀😀

[@Andrew-px9fj]

Finally a real mechanical keyboard!

[@A10_warthog_official]

I wonder why no reply

[@1977np]

Finally?

[@hollyrobertshaw3813]

Lol

[@erni2619]

I'm still waiting for real mechanical display screen. I might be insane

[@1977np]

@@erni2619 LOL

[@raymondray8672]

As a former typewriter mechanic, i can tell you this animation is spot on, but if you want to see the progression of typewriters, maybe you can do an animation of the IBM Self-Correcting Typewriter, which was the final and most advanced mechanical typewriter.

[@fraziercrawford]

Seconding the mech's request to see the finest mechanical typewriter ever constructed

[@MrHantz101]

Is that the one with the ball instead of individual levers? I've always wondered how you can suddenly type a letter from the bottom of it in a split second. How does it know?

[@raymondray8672]

@@MrHantz101 It’s all about Rotate and Tilt!

[@MrHantz101]

@@raymondray8672 All I can picture is the ball sitting on an arm like a marshmallow on a stick, but I seriously cannot imagine how said arm would move to get every single character (100? 150?) printed onto the paper. How do you get to the symbol on the very bottom next to the arm socket?? 🤨

[@MrHantz101]

@@raymondray8672 All I can picture is the ball sitting on an arm like a marshmallow on a stick, but I cannot imagine how the arm would move to get every character (what, 100? 200?) onto the paper. How do you get to the one on the very bottom next to the arm socket?

[@Go4Corvette]

When I was a kid I work with my father in his office machine repair business, typewriters, and adding machines. I help him to work on many of these same machines, both older and newer. His personal collection was mostly typewriters from the early 1900s, so I know the typewriter in this video very well. The good thing back then was that everything was repairable, so you didn't need to buy a new one. Today almost everything is throwaway. In a lot of ways, we have gone backward, not forward in this world when it comes to reducing trash.

[@clearcutter74]

I appreciate how the writing of the narration in this episode is a bit more expressive than usual, very fitting 😄

[@maverick.404]

These videos should be in the national archives. It cant get more detailed than this.

[@captainkeyboard1007]

I wish I would have thought that myself.🙂

[@JesseSeaver]

Not sure what’s more incredible, the type writer or these videos :). Would love to see a “how an Animagraphs video is made” someday :)❤

[@joaoalbertodosanjosgomes1536]

❤

[@leitecunha]

I think @JaredOwen should make that! And @Animagraffs make one of Owen :D

[@TahoeRealm]

He just released one a few days ago. you have probably seen it but if not, it is there.

[@arkasytyt]

Once again, this was a great video. I would personally be very interested in an animation that explains an analog camera. It's still a mystery to me how you can accurately set the exposure time to fractions of a second.

[@realemonful]

Get smarter every day does a video on that

[@henryparkman9746]

i second this!

[@arkasytyt]

@@realemonful Thanks for the info!

[@BrainScramblies]

To be clear, are you talking about a SLR with the mirror that flips?

[@henryparkman9746]

@@BrainScramblies i believe he means a film camera, F1 style

[@nmauch]

This was awesome. Brought back memories of using my dad’s typewriter as a youngster, especially that “ding”. Great to see how ingenious these things really are.

[@hamentaschen]

It's insane to me how long ago they invented things like this, without the aid of computers or even calculators. Like the automatic transmission, or even the manual transmission (gearbox)... I mean, computers and technology are wonderful. Just, hats of to these inventors and engineers who came up with this stuff!

[@markdougherty9917]

I love how you're including more of the experience of using the item with your commentary, its a nice touch. Maybe do a grand piano next?

[@gaveintothedarkness]

Agreed, it was a really nice touch to the video

[@LinKongDa]

Grand piano is boring, it may look complicated because of all that stuff. But the motion is the same or similar for all the keys and foot peddles. Too easy, that video will finish in 2 minutes.

[@IcePeak99]

Mark Dougherty Here is a very good animated video about the grand piano: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHXZhGWMbK2VpLs

[@jackpine4347]

Showing my age, but I got my first mechanical typewriter when I was around 11, back in the 1970's. Spent many hours typing stories on it. Loved the sound of the keys clacking and the whole ballet of the machine's internals. I just read that there are still many authors who prefer a mechanical typewriter or writing long hand over word processing software. The physical connection of your body to the words is a different experience and aids creativity.

[@electron2601]

I heard Ekhart Tolle wrote his book by hand and then were later re-typed.

[@aymanibrahim9736]

I was literally looking for any visual explanation, out of the blue, about how type writers worked, and found this gem has just been uploaded hours ago, It's insane how much work and genius went into the type writer, awesome vid

[@Auraelius]

This one was SO CLEAR. As a former mechanical typewriter user, I had auditory and tactile memories as the narrative progressed. Communication on an entirely non-verbal pathway. Watched start to finish. Excellent!

[@NovemberOrWhatever]

The humor you threw in was very nice! It was funny, while also not being distracting. Yet another perfect video, thank you Animagraffs

[@daveking77]

I'm in awe of the intricacy of such machines and the way you explain them ❤

[@joaoalbertodosanjosgomes1536]

❤

[@envitech02]

Wow I didn't realize that the humble typewriter is so mechanically complicated! But it works like magic!

[@nullifye7816]

This is perfect. You nailed the 1940's newsreel educational humour style, in addition to being genuinely educational, as they were. GG.

[@freetolook3727]

Going to college in the 1970's required a typewriter for reports and later resumes. I bought a manual Underwood in a portable case for $15, a fair amount of money at the time. What a pain if you left out a letter or got paragraphs mixed up. Can't tell you how many times I had to start over. Then when I went back to college to finish my degree in the 1980's, I sprung for an electric typewriter. What a difference. You no longer had to pound on the keys to make a letter impression on the paper and it was easier to correct mistakes. I think that cost $150 new at the time. I still have both typewriters and joke that if the whole world goes to hell in a hand basket, I'll still be able to communicate with people on paper with the manual because it doesn't require electricity!

[@kindlin]

How does the ribbon work? Still fine? Or do you have to rewet it sometimes?

[@freetolook3727]

I have no idea. I haven't used it in years and remains in storage in the attic. My guess is the ribbon is probably dried out if that's what they do. I honestly don't know. I'll never get rid of it because it has a story to tell.

[@kindlin]

@@freetolook3727 I would be curious to know.... But apparently not curious enough to try and google it.

[@geoffdl03]

Typewriters really are a masterpiece of engineering. Unbelievably intricate design given the resources available for design at the time

[@Beegs164]

Exceptional job once again! The number of mechanical parts is mind boggling, such sophisticated machines.

[@FaigMasimov]

Whoever made this video, did exactly the same great job as engineers of this machine. Thank a lot for your hard work

[@ronelkins455]

Great job. My mom had one of these and we used to play with it as a kid. I remember being fascinated with the mechanics as a child. It had been her grandfather's, my great-grandfather's and was over 80 years old at the time and yet still worked perfectly as if it was new. It was loud and VERY heavy to move, yet still very easy to type with. It took very little force to "smack" the letters on the paper. My mom also had an old manual portable typewriter that she had used to write her papers when in college. It was 50 years newer, but you had to press much harder to type. But it did have extra characters like the exclamation mark and quote marks that the old Underwood one didn't. Don't know if you realize but like the exclamation mark, quotes had to be made by typing two apostrophies together. I remember to make a $ you had to type a an S and then backspace and put an I over it. It did however have a couple keys that had special characters that newer ones didn't including the British Pound symbol.. maybe ours originally came from England? Don't know. Anyway, great job!!!

[@xSabesx]

Oh wow, I can not imagine how many hours of work went into modeling and animating this. The mechanics of the typewriter are awesome and the presentation is amazingly good. I knew about shift and return keys but today I learned why tab stops are called that way. Thanks a lot for doing these videos!

[@Robotech010]

Seeing this typewriter work has its uses even today, considering that our current-day keyboards and word processors inherited their interfaces from their direct ancestor: now we know what 'Shift' and 'Return' keys are, what the rulers on top of word processor pages actually mean, and why both Carriage return ' ' and Newline ' ' are both needed to get a line.

[@TexMechsRobot]

This commentary was easily your best work. Made the already excellent videos just that much better. Nicely done!

[@GRUMO]

What an amazingly beautiful video. Human ingenuity never ceases to blow my mind.

[@kellywaldo3215]

Fun fact (that I think is true): the type rider is the reason for our ASDF keyboard layout too. The engineers had to place commonly “together” letters out so the arms don’t impact each other and get stuck. If you’ve typed on an old keyboard and are fast you know that sometimes still happens and can ruin your writing groove.

[@DFX2KX]

Something like that, yep. you *can* stumble across an ABCD style key layout, but QWERTY became common pretty quickly, slowed typists down a bit (you can still outrun one of these), and reduced the likelihood of binding even when typing near the maximum speed of the mechanism. It's also interesting to see the different typefaces these typewriters had, because not all of them had their symbols on the same keys either (though upper and lower case characters are USUALLY consistent)

[@brianb-p6586]

Freed of that constraint in electronic keyboards, any keyboard layout is possible. A popular choice has been the Dvorak, which is readily available in computer operating systems and even for the IBM Selectric typewriter.

[@baska-]

*Mechanics is beautiful. I appreciate my typewriter sitting on top of my bookcase even more now.*

[@carlsaganlives6086]

More complex with more angular motion(s) than an internal combustion engine. Lotsa 'finesse' going on here - a choreographed ballet of complimentary action/reaction - very impressive, great job!

[@kev3d]

I love this. I bought an Underwood 5 in December and I have been enjoying it for the work of art that it is. It needs a little work to be properly functional but the keys still have that beautiful and satisfying "snap" sound that I love so much.

[@md1400cs]

The mechanical complexities of these early typewriters is really astonishing. Your sage knowledge, and research are always so welcome within your videos. The IBM Selectric - now that one would be a mystery.

[@dugldoo]

I learned to type on one of these beautiful, magic machines. It's upstairs in the attic, safe in it's case that could withstand a pile driver. There are so many aspects of it's function that look like they derive from clock mechanisms.

[@talespinner4863]

A masterpiece of its era. I had to watch in two steps, it twisted my brain to see how much mechanical effort had to be implemented back then^^

[@asaffin1]

I restored a 1930s Underwood No. 5 for my sister a couple months ago, and had to kind of figure my way around all these parts and mechanisms. This would have been a great resource to have then, but instead I can marvel at how precisely you've modeled this thing. It's just like diving into a real one. As you touch on each part, I vividly remember fiddling with it myself.

[@henryparkman9746]

jake i love how your explaining has improved with the narrative aspect. appreciate y'alls hard work

[@cheegum6296]

This is so freakin' amazing! I grew up in the eighties and nineties in Karachi, Pakistan where my super rad dad (rip) managed to buy me an ibm compatible dos 1.0 computer. In addition to that there was an Epson dot matrix printer. So many of these terms, like carriage return, act as a connection to those times and the pre microprocessor times before that.

[@3skirk]

I loved the narration on this! Reminds me of me, long ago as a small child, typing away on my grandmother’s mechanical typewriter while composing what was no doubt some of my best and most important gibberish.

[@MrKotBonifacy]

Excellent animation and narration. Being on a tad older side I'm pretty familiar with mechanical typewriters (I typed my high school diploma thesis on one of those - sorry, no personal computers or printers back then), still a pleasure to watch.

[@benjaminloyd6056]

Amazing to see what human beings are capable of building. It's like one great puzzle.

[@aam50]

Just wow. The ingenuity that the designers of these mechanical marvels had is just incredible. As are your illustration and explanatory skills.

[@Onepushupaday]

Thank you so much! I have been trying to fix an old typewriter I have and couldn't find any in-depth guide on the escapement mechanism, but your video popped up and helped me a ton! This is a awesome video and was spot on! After watching I just turned to my typewriter and saw the problem immediately! Thanks!

[@MattH-wg7ou]

What a beautiful demonstration of good old fashioned mechanical engineering! I love stuff like this. The ingenuity has always impressed me. I love all the mechanical gizmos.

[@Greguk444]

What an incredible animation, with amazing detail. This must have taken a very large amount of time and effort. Well done! Thank you for taking such great effort to do this.

[@kindlin]

For the most part it seemed pretty much 'one thing fits just right into another thing', and having worked on some solidworks (which this kind of looks like), it could be harder. But all those bars coming right to the same location was really fun to see, something you could never see in real life.

[@brianb-p6586]

When you try them at the same time,@@kindlin, the result of course is a jam. Now, for entertainment, look into why the letters are arranged the way they are on the "QWERTY" keyboard...

[@o0o-jd-o0o95]

wow.... I had no idea how mechanically complicated a typewriter is. there is so much going on it's ridiculous. great video

[@thomasglessner6067]

Think of all the people involved in making each piece of the typewriter. They all made career changes as typewriters went away. Great video. Brought back many memories.

[@rahules6090]

The last one of these i ever saw was almost 20 years ago in my mom's office and even then it was being on the verge of being phased out and I had lot of fun with the decommissioned typewriters watching how it's keys move and getting many keys tangled and untangled this was such a nice video explaining it in detail ❤

[@jaybailey3518]

Extremely impressive, I can't believe the amount of hard work this took to produce. Kudos to you. Have you considered a "sewing machine" ?

[@timvandenbrink4461]

Great idea!

[@j.m.hughes1810]

Excellent video. I learned to type on a manual machine, and I still own one in good condition. There will always be a place in my heart for mechanical keyboards. And by the way, I think the "cylinder" is called the platen.

[@StokesFamilyCO]

My goodness - lots of impressive ingenuity here on all accounts!! The complexity & precision of the mechanical typewriter to the wonderful animation, instruction, and narration! Well done, seriously, well done!!

[@dudleyjackson7808]

So professional and accurate, you are a try pro, well done, I can’t imagine how many hours you have put in to make this

[@ClayGuana]

Not only the video is absolutely amazing, but also the narrative part! It was a true joy to watch and listen to. Everything is so clear! The whole mechanism behind mere typing and pressing the keys is mesmerizing! Thank you for all the hard work which went into creating this presentation.

[@theawesomer]

Love your animations. Really amazing to see how things work in so much detail!

[@timwintersoncntr]

Wonderful. Great work. I learned how to type in the seventh grade on similar machines: a slightly newer Underwood, a Remington, and a Royal. They sure strengthened my left pinky typing all those As. It is remarkable today to remember how much mechanical design and manufacturing precision was needed to accomplish what has become nearly trivial to do with software.

[@DonEduardo14]

Yeezz, the ammount of work you put into this; The quality of the 3d model,; The smothness of the animations (i was blown away, that the paper is not straight, it actually have little waves like a real paper sheet) and the script. A really amazing job. Thank you!

[@DougiePlaysSoccer]

I think my parents and grandparents had no idea how complex these machines were because there was no easy way to explain everything without an in-depth booklet, but now we can just watch videos like these.

[@Jupiter-T]

It's like how we these days have no concept of exactly what's going on in our phones or computers. You start having to get into all sorts of crazy physics, math, etc. But we use them every day.

[@MiniMC546]

It's awesome that the model used here is the same model that we have and it's still works. Our grandfather didn't like to use computers so he used the mechanical typewriter. And the sound that it makes is louder than any mechanical keyboard of this day.

[@HoshangGovil]

Since childhood, I had wondered how this machine worked and now I know how it works. Thanks to you.

[@brianb-p6586]

The animation is excellent as always from Animagraffs, but the writing of the narration is at a new level of engaging entertainment. Well done!

[@4n2earth22]

Excellent presentation, animation, and 3D modeling. Superb!

[@pauldelcour]

Fantastic. Finally understand how these work having worked on them. I absolutely love purely mechanical machines. In considering trying to make a typewriter in Knex I think getting a small part of it actually working will be quite a feat considering the many complex automatic operations! Many thanks for this.

[@theeota]

Man, these videos are so great. It reminds me of those big books I would pour over as a kid, with the exploded views and cut-a-ways. It scratches a deep itch.

[@MarcusAgrippa390]

This is the beauty of analog. Well done!

[@doggonemess1]

So cool! Have you ever used a manual typewriter? My mom used to have one. It was exhausting to type more than a paragraph. I swear, typists back then must have been able to crack walnuts with their bare hands.

[@Velciraptor12]

Old machines like this will always be more impressive than digital computers and the like. Beautiful work.

[@catalin-ap]

Great video! And what a wonder of mechanics was the mechanical typewriter!

[@stephenhill6017]

Now I finally know why we call it a shift key, so obvious after watching. As always fascinating video with great detail!! 🎉🎉

[@dbalderson89]

As someone who has recently tried to service an old Underwood typewriter, this is very informative! Now, if you could do a video about how to put it back together... 🤔. A marvel of engineering to be sure!

[@patrickbuildsit]

If I had Animagraffs as a kid, it would have helped spare a lot of my parents and grandparents stuff.

[@waleedaldikhary]

Lots of thanks for the hard work, well illustrated information and mechanical concepts.

[@jstewlly4747]

This guy is the GOAT of mechanical animation I love when you upload I literally wait to get off work pop some corn sit back cigar whiskey and enjoy!!!

[@SirJamesthang]

Yall did a fantastic job on this video, I am so impressed on the detail on narration and the video complilation. WOW WOW WOW

[@davekwcc]

Thank you for putting together this incredible video showing the amazing complexities of this old typewriter!

[@woodypride5497]

I am currently restoring an Underwood No.5 and this video explained a few things that were still a mystery to me. thanks

[@mymobile5014]

Fabulous video. The engineering is amazing and to see it at work is excellent.

[@borge2014]

' a satisfying smack! against the ink ribbon ' I love your videos, this one in particular is so delicious to hear, and watch, the narration is spectacularly witty, the animation is superb, this is a complicated machine, and you made it fun to watch and learn. Thank you!

[@blueluny]

What an incredible video using brilliant methods to demonstrate an amazing piece of technology. Well done dude

[@Glen.Danielsen]

These fascinating videos with their outstanding narration and stunning graphics are utter excellence. They are a wonder.

[@shreeniwaslele357]

simply amazing mechanism, as well your commentary and animation

[@alexanderpearson6068]

I'm a typewriter collector and user, and I must say: Bravo! This is an outstanding video. It clarifies a lot of mechanisms that I'd only half-understood.

Thank you. My Grandpa was a Typewrighter mechanic. This brings much nice memories back. Thank you!

[@madhusudanjeurkar3178]

It is amazing ingenuity of design. Apart from the interlinking of several mechanisms sequencing is amazing!

[@berniepokorski6608]

"Shazam!!!' What A Great Video! Now I understand the inner workings of my 1924 Underwood No. 5 standard typewriter so much better! Thank You So Much!

[@Muthukumar-uz6rf]

You really is the best teacher with correct 3d model and animation and expert in the subject with explaining it too.

[@johnnyrocketed2225]

Don’t remember it being that dramatic - but you really do a great job demonstrating the ingenuity of the typewriter! 👏😀

[@LisztyLiszt]

The design and engineering of this machine is more sophisticated than the design and software engineering of a typesetting programme (limited to the same functionality). Beautifully done.

[@stabilini]

Amazing video. It's incredible how these machines where made, without any software aids. All hand drawn.

[@johnniewalker39]

This video deserves more views. Amazing work, thank you!

[@mitchvass4498]

Absolutely amazing. Very Nice. !!! Unbelievable how you did this. This mesmerizing.

[@maingailatembo350]

Bravo!! well done!! I'm typing this from a modern keyboard and now I see where it came from. This is an excellent video. I didn't know this was this engineering behind a typewriter !! Thank you

[@jayschafer1760]

Someone needs to get this video in front of Tom Hanks. He's a noted typewriter collector and enthusiast and would probably love this.

[@Pete4875]

A magnificent piece of machinery - great job!

[@stevesomers7366]

Impressive animation! A veritable work of mechanical genius. Thanks!

[@lucasread1743]

Love the videos! Keep up the good work man👍

[@Isthatyoudermot]

What an incredible machine. I remember as a boy looking at these old machines as junk. Thank you.

[@TheBlitzu]

Impressive! Both you and the inventor of such a complex and precise mechanisms.

[@Drax658]

Awesome video, I love every mechanicals contraptions and this video along with the mechanical watch are the best 😁

[@columbusgab828]

Absolutely spectacular. Thank you for sharing. ❤

[@jimsvideos7201]

Kudos to you for all the time it takes to model all those organic shapes!

[@HWPcville]

I took typing in 10th grade (1967) and all we had were manual typewriters. I discovered if I held the space bar down in just the right spot (slowly sneaking up on the sweet spot) I could cause the platen (round roller) to ratchet all the way across from right to left. Sort of like a slow motion machine gun, chick-a-chick-a-chick-a-chick-a-chick-a...... To a 14 year old it was great fun. To me typing came pretty easy and was fun. Probably the most tedious was setting up newspaper column type print with left & right margins aligned. Count all the available space between margins, then count the all the letters & spaces of the text to figure out the maximum number of words that could fit between the margins. Then determine how many extra spaces had to be included between certain words to make the right-hand margin flush. With today's word processors you just select the option. It gives me great appreciation for old time printers of newspapers & books that had to do that for a living.

[@JamesDavy2009]

That's how fully justified text was typed in those days.