Miss Schizophrenia = Duplex & Brackelsberg
You can only type one letter at a time. To work twice as quickly, you only
have to put two separate keyboards next to each other. The typist then types two
subsequent letters, that strike the paper next to each other.
Theory is not the reality
This, at least, is the theory. In reality, Duplex drives his users up the
wall. From where they would love to throw that useless thing down.
They stare at, at least a hundred (100!) keys in four quadrants. At the
bottom left and right all lower case letters are double - except the central z
and x ... At the top left, the capitals, and in the upper right quadrant, all
numbers and types. To make things even more confusing, the letters on the
shorter rows are ordered differently to the standard QUERTY keyboard! And there
is only a space bar on the right hand side ...
2 hands at the same time
Do you want to type 'if'? Then a left finger has to go to the i, and a right
finger to the f at the same time. The target group is, as a consequence, very
small: typists with a split personality. The Duplex only lasts for a few years
after its launch in1894.
 4
fingers at the same time
So you imagine that it cannot get any more idiotic? Well, you must have
forgotten to take inventor Brackelsberg and his 'Gruppenschreibmaschine' into
consideration. On no less than 132 keys, the typist is supposed to strike 4
letters in 4 alphabet groups at the same (and then be taken away in a
straight-jacket). The machine does not find any suicidal buyers.
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