Again, we have something special for all of you steampunk fans out there. Before the keyboards and computers there were typing machines, but before them, there was the Malling-Hansen Writing Ball. The Hansen Writing Ball is the ancestor of typing machines and it has been invented in 1865 at Royal Institute for the deaf-mutes in Copenhagen by Rasmus Malling-Hansen.The first Malling-Hansen Writing Ball was patented and produced in 1870 and it has become the first typewriter in the world that has had an ergonomical design and 52 buttons. As for the Malling-Hansen Writing Ball, it was popular all over the world and even famous German philosopher Fredrich Nietzche used one. Besides him, some sources tell us that the famous writer Mark Twain had one of these writing balls, but that’s not confirmed. From what we find out, ten different Malling-Hansen Writing Balls have been sold all over the world but we don’t know how many of them survived.Anyway, Malling-Hansen Writing Ball was a revolutionary device but typewriters soon replaced it. Today we have few pictures of this amazing device and we’re not sure if these pictures are from a real machine or from a replica, but they simply look amazing. So if you’re a fan of steampunk, check these sweet machines out.

Via (Walyou)