US3502189A

US3502189A - Line finder with cutouts representing symbols

Info

Publication number: US3502189A
Application number: US604072A
Authority: US
Inventors: Gertrude Hopp
Original assignee: Olympia Werke AG
Current assignee: Olympia Werke AG
Priority date: 1965-12-24
Filing date: 1966-12-22
Publication date: 1970-03-24
Anticipated expiration: 1987-03-24

Description

March 24, 1970 cagHOPP 3,502,189

LINE FINDER WITH CUTOUTS REPRESENTING SYMBOLS Filed Dec. 22, 1966 Q mumm /O illllllllllllllllllllllhlll-llillllll Ill FIGZ

j "i 4 I lHlHlill CL CL 01 Ho IIHIIHiHHI ATTORNEY Ila lob 1g} FIGJ United States Patent U.S. Cl. 197-113 9 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Symbols are drawn on a paper sheet supported by the platen of a typewriter carriage by following with a writing implement the outlines of different cutouts in the line finders of the typewriter. The symbol can be placed on any selected portion of the paper sheet by moving the carriage or turning the platen.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an improvement of the line finders provided on standard typewriters on opposite sides of the typing area.

When technical, chemical or other scientific texts are typed, it is often necessary to insert symbols which are either freely drawn, or made by means of templates. Where the symbols have to fit into the text lines, the template can only be used in the upper part of the sheet while the same is still mounted on the platen of the carriage and since the lower third of the sheet is not accessible for a template, the sheet has to be removed from the typewriter before the symbol can be drawn with the aid of a template. If several sheets with carbon papers are used, the removal of such a stack of sheets causes a relative displacement of the copy sheets, so that the symbol cannot be simultaneously reproduced at exactly the same point of the previously written lines. It is also possible to first draw the symbols, and then reinsert the stack to type the lines of the last third of the sheet in position corresponding to the positions of the previously drawn symbols. Frequently, the desired exact line spacing and the vertical alignment of the imprints are lost when the paper stack is taken out, and then reinserted. Since the relative displacement of the copy sheets can hardly be avoided, it is usually necessary to draw the symbols separately for each copy sheet and the original.

That the drawing of symbols in a position fitting into a typewritten text is so complicated and time-consuming, is not only due to the fact that the template cannot be used in the lower third of the inserted sheet. Even if the symbols are drawn in the typewritten text by the use of a template while the sheets are inserted, the typed letters are precisely spaced in accordance with the carriage steps and the line spacing steps of the platen, while the template is manually held so that the drawn symbols do not precisely fit into the regular pattern of the typed imprints.

The German Patent No. 627,748 discloses the provision of typefaces representing chemical and other symbols. The disadvantage of such an arrangement is that only a limited number of symbols can be provided since the number of types is limited. Furthermore, other standard symbols have to be omitted so that the typewriter becomes a special machine which can be used only for special texts.

It is also known to provide guide bores in stationary parts of the typewriter into which a pencil point can be inserted so that horizontal lines are drawn by moving the paper carriage in writing direction, and vertical lines are drawn by turning the platen with the paper sheet. The German Patents No. 673,487, No. 338,614, No. 385,565, No. 322,028, and U.S. Patent No. 2,551,346 disclose such arrangements which, however, do not permit the drawing of the entire outline of a particular symbol such as a hexagonal symbol used in chemistry, or a circle.

It is also known to mount writing implements on the frame of the typewriter for drawing horizontal and vertical lines. The German Gebrauchsmuster 1,762,039, and the U.S. Patents No. 2,670,832, No. 2,581,167, and No. 2,670,067 disclose such constructions which, however, cannot replace a template having the outlines of the required symbols.

It has also been proposed to mount eraser templates on the typewriter moveable between an operative position covering a portion of the inserted sheet, and a retracted inoperative position in which writing operations are carried out. Such an eraser template provides a small opening of the size of a typed letter to permit the erasure of a wrong letter without impairing the appearance of adjacent letters. The U.S. Patent No. 2,558,147 and the German Gebrauchsmuster 1,677,454 disclose eraser constructions.

The constructions of the prior art are all provided for the drawing of horizontal or vertical lines, or for the erasing of letters. They do not permit the drawing of the outline of the symbol which is at the present state of the art accomplished by a manually operated template which, as explained above, requires the removal of the paper sheet from the typewriter, and produces symbols which are not spaced and dimensioned in accordance with the typed letters.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is one object of the invention to overcome the disadvantages of prior art constructions, and to provide a typewriter with means permitting the drawing of symbols on an inserted stack of paper sheets in proper relation to the text lines of the original and carbon copies.

Another object of the invention is to permit the drawing of circles, hexagons and slanted lines on a paper sheet inserted into a typewriter.

Standard typewriters have a pair of line finders arranged aligned in the direction of the lines of the typewriter text on opposite sides of the typing area. The line finders are usually made of a transparent synthetic material and provided along an edge with graduations spaced in accordance with the carriage steps and the spacing between typed letters. When a paper sheet is reinserted or displaced, the edge of the line finder, and the graduations on the same, permit the mounting of the sheet in a position in which new imprints will be spaced and arranged in the order of previously made imprints.

The present invention relates to an improvement of the line finders of a typewriter, or like business machine. In accordance with the invention, different cutouts are provided in the line finder and are bounded by edges forming the outlines of different symbols. By movement of the paper carriage, or by turning of the platen, or by both operations, any selected cutout representing a desired symbol can be placed on any selected portion of the sheet. By manually guiding the point of the writing implement along the edges of the selected cutout, the outline of the desired symbol is drawn on the selected portion of the sheet. Preferably, at least some of the cutouts have hexagonal and circular shapes of difierent size. In order to obtain drawn symbols which fit into the pattern of the typed letters in line direction and vertical direction, the corners between adjacent edges of the cutouts, and the extremities of the cutouts, are spaced from each other in the direction of the carriage movement corresponding to the length of the carriage steps, and in the direction of the turning movement of the platen, distances corresponding to the spacing between the lines and to the height of the letters. The corners and extremities of the cutouts are placed in a predetermined relationship with the graduations along the edge of the line finder which indicate the positions of the letters in the direction of the lines. In the dimensioning of the cutouts and for the placement of the same on the line finders, the usual thickness of the point of a writing implement, such as a ball point pen, has to be considered since it is not possible to draw a line along an edge of a cutout directly under the edge. Therefore, a hexagon drawn along the edges of a hexagonal cutout, will be slightly smaller than the cutout, and the dimensions of the drawn symbol have to correspond to the spacing between adjacent letters and to the height of the same, as explained above.

The novel features which are considered as characteristic for the invention are set forth in particular in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, both as to its construction and its method of operation, together with additional objects and advantages thereof, will be best understood from the following description of specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawing.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. 1 is a fragmentary front view illustrating a pair of line finders according to one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view illustrating symbols drawn on a paper sheet by means of corresponding cutouts in the line finders; and

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary perspective view illustrating the position of the line finders on the frame of a typewriter.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT As shown in FIG. 3, a standard typewriter has a pair of line finders 1 and 2 mounted on the machine housing and frame 50 on opposite sides of the typing area 3 and closely adjacent the platen 4 which is mounted for turning movement on a paper carriage 5. The edges of the line finders 1 and 2 extend parallel to the direction of carriage movement, which is also the direction of the typed lines. A paper sheet 20 is held by pressure rollers 6 on the platen 4 so that by turning of knob 7, the platen 4 is turned and the paper sheet 20 moved in a direction perpendicular to the direction in which the

edges

1a, 1b and 2a, 2b of the line finders 1 and 2 extend.

Line finders 1 and 2 are shown on an enlarged scale in FIG. 1. Each line finder 1, 2 has cutouts, and in the illustrated embodiment which is used for typing chemical texts, hexagonal cutouts 10, pentagonal cutouts 11, 11' and circular cutouts 12 of different sizes are provided. Some of the polygonal cutouts, for example, 11, 11' are placed in different angular positions. Triangular cutouts 13, and slanted slot shaped cutouts 14 are also provided. Holes 15 position the writing implement in a known manner during the drawing of vertical and horizontal lines.

Line finders 1 and 2 have graduations 1c and 2c along the longitudinal edges 1a and 2a thereof, and preferably corresponding graduations, not shown, are also provided on the other longitudinal edges 1b and 2b of the line finders 1 and 2.

The symbols 10a, 11a, 12a, 13a, 11a appearing in FIG. 2 above the

corresponding cutouts

10, 11, 12, 13, 11' in FIG. 1 are plane figures drawn on a paper sheet by moving the point of a writing implement, such as a ball point pen, along the edges of the cutouts 10 to 13. The slanted lines 14a can be drawn by moving the writing point along slots 14. The symbol 13a is drawn by following two edges of a triangular cutout 13. As clearly shown in the drawing, the distances between diametrically opposite points of any cutout 10, 11 or 12 are substantially greater than the thickness of a line drawn by the writing point so that portions 10b, 11b, or 12b of a sheet are surrounded by the drawn outlines 10a, 11a, 12a, respectively.

The cutouts 10 to 13 and slots 14 are positioned in the line finders 1, 2 in a predetermined relation to the line spacing obtained by turning platen 4 by operation of knob 7 and the conventional stepping wheel. The corners and extremities of the cutouts 10, 11, 12, for example, are spaced in the direction of the carriage movement, dis tances corresponding to the carriage steps and the spacing of the graduations 1c, 20 and the spacing of the typed letters and being greater than one carriage step. Consequently, it is possible to type a line to the point where a symbol has to be inserted, to turn the platen 4 several line spaces until the typed line is horizontally aligned with the cutouts 10 to 13 in the line finders, and to move the carriage until the respective point of the typed line is located under the selected cutout, whereupon the symbol is drawn by moving the writing implement along the edges of the cutout. The thus drawn symbol will fit exactly into the pattern of the lines and typed letters, and the platen 4 and the carriage 5 can be returned to the previous position and the typing of the line continued, with the newly typed letters located, for example, at the height of a corner of the drawn symbol.

It is also possible to move a selected portion of the paper sheet 20 under a selected first cutout, and then to move a portion of the sheet adjacent the first selected portion under another cutout to combine two symbols whereupon the platen and carriage are returned to the initial position and the typing of the line is continued. For example, a pentagonal cutout 11' may be used for drawing the symbol 11a whereupon slots 14 are used to draw lines 14a connected with symbol 11a.

Instead of chemical symbols, it may be desired to draw electric symbols, and cutouts representing the shape of the signals for switches, resistors, condensers or coils may be provided instead of the illustrated cutouts. As desired for other technical subjects, cutouts representing symbols used for valves or pistons, cutouts representing architectural standard symbols, and cutouts representing the plan views of furniture may be used.

The illustrated embodiment of the invention is applied to a typewriter. However, line finder templates according to the invention may be mounted on other business machines, for example billing machines, accounting machines, requiring particular symbols in the text. When the line finder template of the present invention is used in business machines, it is no longer necessary to provide special keys for special symbols.

Itwill be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together, may also find a useful application in other types of business machines differing from the types described above.

What is claimed as new and desired to be protected by Letters Patent is set forth in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. In a business machine, in combination, a frame; a paper carriage mounted on said frame for movement in one direction; a platen mounted on said paper carriage turnable predetermined angular distances in a direction transverse to the direction of movement of said carriage, and being adapted to support a sheet so that lines typed on said sheet have predetermined distances from each other; at least one line finder mounted on said frame and located on said sheet, said line finder having at least one cutout bounded by edges forming the peripheral outline of a plane figure representing a symbol, the extremities of said cutout being disposed and spaced from each other in said transverse direction corresponding to said predetermined distances so that by movement of said paper carriage and turning of said platen, any selected portion of said sheet can be placed under said cutout at least partially surrounded by said edges whereby by manually guiding the point of a writing implement along said edges of said cutout while said carriage and said platen are at a standstill, the outline of the desired symbol is drawn about said selected portion of said sheet, the size of said cutout being selected so that diametrically opposite points of said edges are spaced from each other distances substantially greater than the thickness of said drawn outline.

2. A business machine as defined in claim 1 wherein said paper carriage moves in a writing direction in steps having a predetermined length, wherein the corners of said cutout between two adjacent edges are spaced from each other in the direction of the carriage movement a distance greater than said predetermined length of said steps, and wherein corners of said cutout between adjacent edges are spaced from each other in said direction of carriage movement and in said transverse direction distances which are, respectively, multiples of the width and height ofletters typed on said sheet.

3. A business machine as defined in claim 1 wherein a plurality of different cutouts is provided in said line finder, said cutouts having edges and corners disposed so that the symbols of the respective cutouts can be combined to form a new symbol.

4. The business machine of claim 1 including another line finder having a cutout, said line finders being aligned in the writing direction of said paper carriage and located on opposite sides of the central typing area of the typewriter.

5. A business machine as defined in claim 1 wherein said edges include edges extending at an angle to the direction of carriage movement and to the direction of the turning movement of the platen.

6. A business machine as defined in claim 1, said line finder including a plurality of cutouts, wherein said cutouts include hexagonal and circular cutouts.

7. A business machine as defined in claim 1 wherein said paper carriage moves in a writing direction in steps having a predetermined length, wherein the corners of said cutout between two adjacent edges are spaced from each other in the direction of the carriage movement a distance greater than said predetermined length of said steps, and wherein corners of said cutout between adjacent edges are spaced from each other in said direction of carriage movement and in said transverse direction distances which are, respectively, multiplies of the width and height of letters typed on said sheet, wherein said line finder is transparent and has an elongated edge extending in the direction of the carriage movement and having graduatrons indicating the length of the carriage steps and the letter distances, and wherein said line finder has a plurality of cutouts, the extremities of said cutouts being disposed in the direction of carriage movement so that the extremities of drawn symbols are aligned with corresponding graduations in the direction of the turning movement of the platen.

8. A business machine as claimed in claim 1 wherein said paper carriage is mounted on said frame for movement in said one direction in steps of a predetermined length; and wherein the extremities of said cutout are spaced from each other in said one direction a distance equal to a multiple of said predetermined length of said steps.

9. A business machine as claimed in claim 8 wherein said line finder has an elongated edge extending in said one direction and having graduations indicating said length of said steps; wherein said line finder has a plurality of cutouts, the extremities of said cutouts being disposed in said one direction of carriage movement so that the extremities of drawn symbols are aligned in said transverse direction of the turning movement of said platen with corresponding graduations.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,199,228 9/1916 Anderson 197-135 1,219,269 3/1917 Drew 197-135 1,439,708 12/1922 Orr 197-8 1,615,180 1/ 1927 Stewart 33-104 2,010,198 8/1935 Rice 33-104 2,693,035 11/1954 Beck 33-174 993,681 5/ 1911 Hess. 1,397,544 11/1921 Peterson 197-190 2,060,327 11/ 1936 Landis 197-194 X 3,035,680 5/ 1962 Fondiller 197-190 FOREIGN PATENTS 266,969 8/1929 Italy.

ERNEST T. WRIGHT, 111., Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 197-190, 194-