A 100 Year Old Consul Typewriter?

Spurred by a discussion about Polish keyboard layouts, I tried to find more about the history of Czech keyboard layouts. Unfortunately, finding actual documents turned out to be very difficult.

What I did find is that prior to the current Czech keyboard layout standard (ČSN 36 9050, published in 1994), typewriter keyboard layouts were governed by ČSN 17 8151 from March 1974, titled “Psací stroje. Klávesnice s latinkou, česká a slovenská mutace.” (Czechoslovak State Norm 17 8151, Typewriters. Keyboards with Latin keyboard, Czech and Slovak variants.). There was also ČSN 17 8152 specifying Cyrillic layouts (quite uncommon). Computer keyboards, unsurprisingly, tended to closely match typewriter layouts.

Prior to that, since about 1953, typewriter keyboards were specified by ČSN 01 6906 (Czech and Slovak layouts) and ČSN 01 6907 (Cyrillic). These supposedly replaced ČSN 1408 from 1949. I have not been able to find out anything about the content of these standards, or if there was any attempt to standardize Czech typewriter layouts before 1949. I am not even entirely sure that ČSN 1408–1949 really existed.

However, I did remember that my family still owns my grandfather’s typewriter that must have been made sometime before WWII, perhaps in the 1930s. It’s a portable typewriter in a wooden case, and research showed that it is in fact a well known model… mostly.

The typewriter is quite clearly a Remington Portable No. 2, easily recognizable from the shiny type guards which need to be raised together with the type bars when the typewriter is prepared for operation. Even better, Remington serial numbers are well documented and the typewriter’s serial number (NE61083) indicates that it was made in August 1926, a century ago.

But then there were questions that I had no answers for. Did Remington really make Czech typewriters in the US? If not, how did the typewriter get Czech types? And what’s with the Consul label?

Consul Typewriters

Consul was a brand name of typewriters made in Czechoslovakia circa 1953-1988. Initially it was used as a model name for Zeta typewriters made by Zbrojovka Brno (ZB), but in the 1960s the entire typewriter line made by ZB was branded Consul. Consul typewriters, especially small portable ones, were exported into many countries around the world. Among others, Consul typewriters were sold in North America by Jack Tramiel’s Commodore Business Machines.

As an aside, there was a natural link between typewriters and computers. On the one hand, companies like Commodore sold business machines and more or less had to move from typewriters to computers. On the other hand, typewriter technology was very close to teletypes, and Zbrojovka Brno made for example the Consul 256 teletype or the Consul 259 computer keyboard, and in fact in the 1980s ZB made computer peripherals and entire computer systems, such as the Consul 2715 (a clone of the IBM 5280).

But back to typewriters. My initial assumption was that it would have been extremely difficult to rework a US typewriter (or a German one) to support Czech. But then I found an old typewriter repair manual which clearly indicated that it was entirely possible to de-solder existing types and solder on new ones, without even taking the typewriter apart.

So I had a closer look at the types. And sure enough, the types that would have needed replacing (the top row and the right-hand non-alphanumeric keys) really do look different. While I could not find any obvious evidence of soldering, the non-English types are slightly shorter (there’s less metal above the top letter) and while all the (presumably) original types have some kind of stamp that I can’t quite make out, the Czech types have a clearly recognizable ’27’ stamped into them (could that be 27 for 1927? Who knows).

The keys themselves appear to be designed such that the labels on them would have been replaceable. It is therefore entirely plausible that someone could have adapted a US typewriter for use in Czechoslovakia. That someone would have obviously needed a machine shop in order to manufacture the replacement types, but that was not exactly rocket science in the 1920s.

Does the Consul label on a 1926 Remington typewriter have anything to do with post-war Consul typewriters? Hard to say… but keep reading.

Czech Keyboard Layouts, Pre-WWII

My grandfather’s old Remington has a keyboard layout that is both quite familiar yet distinctly different from modern keyboards. The obvious difference is that the old typewriter was designed to write not only Czech but also German, and therefore has dedicated ä, ö, and ü keys. These are generally in the same locations where they would be on a German keyboard; surely not a coincidence.

The familiar part is the top row with Czech letters using diacritics. Interestingly, modern keyboards all use the sequence ěščřžýáíé while the historic Remington has ěščřžýáéí (that is, the last two letters are swapped around). I cannot discern any particular logic to this sequence, so either order makes as much sense as the other.

But why has the keyboard layout changed? It is likely that the combined Czech-German keyboard layout goes back to the times of the Austro-Hungarian empire (until 1918) when German was an official language in today’s Czechia and communication in German would have been essential.

In fact I found a photo of a typewriter that is probably a Remington 10 made in 1910 (and sold by Glogowski & Co) which has the same kind of keyboard layout:

After 1918, German was less important but there was still a large German minority in Czechoslovakia, and at minimum German proper names (towns and people) were quite common. Inertia may well have played a role too.

After the end of WWII, the German minority was deported from Czechoslovakia and other countries, and German was intentionally de-emphasized. That was also reflected in typewriter layouts which no longer supported German.

One question that kept nagging at me was whether there was a standard Czech typewriter layout before WWII. I have not been able to find any official information at all. And while typewriters were a common enough sight in old photos and movies, getting an image sharp enough to make out the layout was near impossible.

So I did the next best thing and looked at vintage typewriters for sale today. While I cannot precisely date the typewriters in most cases, “before WWII” seems clear enough from looking at the machines. After looking at a few samples of typewriters suitable for writing in Czech, a fairly clear picture emerged:

• All typewriters had the ěščřžýáíé top row with slight variations
• Combined Czech-German letters (ä, ö, ü) were common
• Czech-only keyboards without German letters also existed
• There was no single common layout for either Czech or Czech-German keyboards

I believe the typewriters that supported both Czech and German were referred to as “universal”.

This is the Czech keyboard of a 1928 Remington Portable (serial number NX82639):

To underscore that there was no standard, here’s an example of a different mid-1920s Remington Portable typewriter (serial number unknown) with a Czech-only keyboard:

The second specimen has a layout very close to the modern Czech standard, with ěščřžýáíé in the top row (ending with the now-standard íé rather than éí), and the ú and ů keys to the right of P and L, respectively. Interestingly, the first keyboard appears to have an umlaut (¨) key which would make it possible (if not efficient) to write German, while the second does not. The layout is almost identical to the one used by post-war portable Zeta typewriters.

Now compare with the my grandfather’s 1926 Remington Portable typewriter equipped with a combined Czech-German keyboard:

Note that the shift and backspace keys are labeled in Czech in all cases. The combined Czech-German layout has äöü keys but lacks underscore (_), exclamation mark (!), and ú. The latter is not very common and can be easily produced by using the ´(acute accent) dead key followed by u. In fact the first Czech keyboard example has no ú key either (opting for umlaut key instead).

Why were Remington Portable No 2 typewriters (only produced circa 1925-1930) in Czechoslovakia sold with at least three different keyboard layouts? That different manufacturers would use different layouts would be understandable, but a single model from one manufacturer? That really seems like an overkill. Most likely it has something to do with how these typewriters were adapted for the Czech market, but I could not find a satisfactory answer.

To complete the circle, there were also Remingtons with a combined German-Czech layout. The typewriter below was clearly intended for users who primarily needed German (the shift/backspace keys are labeled in German), but also offers the ´ˇ dead key as well as ů. As such, the typewriter would have been suitable for writing German with the occasional Czech name or a short phrase in Czech. Most likely it was intended for German speakers living in Czechoslovakia.

Remington Typewriters in Bohemia and Moravia

Although it is unclear when exactly typewriters made it to what is modern-day Czechia, it is clear that it was in the late 1800s. In the 1890s, some job postings already required typewriting skills. Note that the following research is based primarily on German-language newspapers, simply because there is an excellent searchable database of historic print media covering Austria-Hungary that is German-oriented, since it is run by the Austrian national library.

The following advertisement appeared in Prager Abendblatt on December 18, 1886:

The Remington typewriter was claimed to write “2-3 times faster than a pen” and to be capable of writing 3 copies at once, which implies that typewriters were quite new to the intended audience. Although the ad appeared in a Prague newspaper, the Remington sales locations listed were in Berlin, Stuttgart, and Vienna.

By 1895, a Remington sales representative (John Birney, apparently working for Berlin-based Glogowski & Sohn) made it to Prague:

The ad touts the dozens of Remington typewriters used by Austro-Hungarian and German companies. In 1898, an ad offered typewriters, typewriter repairs, typewriter supplies, and training for typists by Remington representative Charles Jensen in Prague:

The Glogowski company, “Purveyor to the Royal Household” (remember that Remington 10?), at some point opened a branch in Prague, as evidenced by this ad from 1910:

Ads also appeared in Czech-language press, such as this Remington Portable ad from 1926:

It is presumably not a coincidence that the address of the Remington sales location in Prague (Zeltnergasse 35/Celetná 35) had not changed between 1910 and 1926.

There was no significant typewriter production in Czechoslovakia before the 1930s. All typewriters were imported and many well-known brands were seen—Remington, Underwood, Royal, Mercedes, Olympia, Olivetti, Yost, and many more.

That changed in 1932 when Zbrojovka Brno (the same company which made Consul typewriters after the war) began manufacturing Remington typewriters under a license. The following bit of news appeared in the Prager Tagblatt newspaper on November 27, 1932 (page 10):

Transcribed to modern letters:

Brünner Waffen erzeugt Remington-Schreibmaschinen. Die tschechoslowakischen Waffenwerke A.-G. in Brünn haben die Lizenz der Schreibmaschinentype “Remington” erworben. Für die erste Zeit werden noch eine Anzahl Bestandteile aus Amerika eingeführt. Die Montageabteilung hat bereits die Maschinen auf den Markt gebracht. Den Verkauf besorgt die bisherige Verkaufsorganisation der Remington-Gesellschaft.

Translated:

Brno Arms produces Remington typewriters. The Czechoslovak Arms Manufacturing Works Ltd. in Brno has acquired a license for Remington typewriter models. Initially, some of the parts will be imported from the United States. The assembly department has already delivered the first typewriters. Sales will be managed by Remington’s existing sales network.

The announcement implied that the typewriters would be at first assembled partially from US-made components and later manufactured entirely in Brno.

A similar, somewhat earlier announcement can be found in the Československá republika newspaper on May 1, 1932 (page 9):

Translated:

Typewriter production in Zbrojovka Brno started. Brno-based “Zbrojovka” signed an agreement about typewriter production in Czechoslovakia with Remington-Rand company of New York. A certain licensing fee will be paid for the acquired rights. All preparations were completed in Zbrojovka’s factory in Brno and the production of parts has commenced. Zbrojovka plans to not only supply the domestic market, but also considers exporting Czechoslovak-made typewriters to other Central European countries, especially the Balkans.

Soon enough, ads for the Remingtons made by Zbrojovka Brno could be seen, such as this one from March 1933:

Or the following ad from November 1933:

The typewriters were apparently referred to as Remington “Z” and the ads showed Remington sales locations in Prague and Brno (both of which apparently moved between March and November 1933, for whatever reason).

Some of the ZB-made Remingtons survived, such as this ZB-made Remington Junior:

The keyboard layout is identical to my grandfather’s 1926 Remington Portable, which is surely not a coincidence.

Note that there is no ‘1’ (number one) key at all; instead, lowercase L was used. In addition, this pre-war Czech keyboard also had no ‘0’ (zero) key and capital O had to be used instead.

It is also worth pointing out that the key with diacritical marks (´and ˇ) is a dead key and typing it does not move the paper, because it is assumed to be followed by a letter that needs to be typed in the same position.

The basic layout is QWERTZ since typewriters originally came to modern-day Czechia from Germany. In German, the relative frequency of Y and Z is about the opposite of what it is in English (in English, Y is very common and Z is not; in German, Z is quite common while Y is rare) which is why the Y and Z keys were swapped on German keyboards. In Czech, neither Z nor Y is particularly rare and although the QWERTZ layout is standard, QWERTY is also used on computers.

So… Consul?

Back to the mysterious Consul logo. Here is the add-on logo on my grandfather’s Remington Portable:

For comparison, here’s the Consul logo on a 1970 Consul 231.2 portable typewriter, a model produced in the 1960s and 1970s:

The typeface is almost identical. Given the near-infinite variety of typefaces used for typewriter logos, even for Consul typewriters, it is very difficult to believe that this is a coincidence.

So far I have not been able to find photos of any other Remington typewriter with a Consul logo. However, the logo is very professionally made. I do not believe that it was added later, in fact I strongly suspect my grandfather didn’t use the typewriter much at all after 1950 or so—before Zbrojovka Brno (ZB) even started making Consul typewriters.

Here’s what we know:

• In 1932, Zbrojovka Brno started manufacturing Remington typewriter under a license
• After WWII, ZB started manufacturing their own typewriters under the Zeta brand
• Circa 1953, the Consul name was used for Zeta typewriters; the entire typewriter line from Zbrojovka Brno was later branded Consul

Here’s what we don’t know:

• Why does a 1926 Remington Portable with a Made in USA label have almost exactly the same Consul logo as 1960s-1970s portable typewriters made by Zbrojovka Brno in Czechoslovakia?

It is plausible, perhaps even likely, that ZB was involved with adapting Remington typewriters for the Czech market well before 1932, either working with Czech importers or with Remington directly. I have not been able to find information about how exactly Remington typewriters were imported to Czechoslovakia, but there is clear evidence that Remingtons were sold in Prague at least since the 1890s, and import likely started in the 1880s, in times of the Austro-Hugarian empire.

It is near certain that whoever originally sold my grandfather’s Remington Portable in the 1920s put the Consul logo on it. Whether it was Zbrojovka Brno or not is impossible to tell based on the available data (which consists of one single typewriter). I could not find any positive evidence of Consul-branded typewriters being sold in Czechoslovakia in the 1920s, but the available sources are far too limited.

It is also near certain that in the 1960s, Zbrojovka Brno reused the 1920s Consul logo, either because someone saw it on a (then) decades-old Remington typewriter, or because it was in fact ZB who used the Consul logo on Remington typewriters in the first place. I consider the latter somewhat more likely.

Given that Remington typewriters clearly sold in good numbers and many of them survived for 100+ years, it seems unlikely that my family would own the only Remington with a Consul label in the world. Are there more of them?

Summary

The modern Czech keyboard layout has a long history, although the particulars are fuzzy. Typewriters capable of writing Czech existed before WWI, and may have started appearing around 1890. In the 1920s, typewriters with a Czech keyboard layout very similar to the modern one already existed. For practical reasons, early Czech typewriters often used a combined Czech-German layout which likely vanished after WWII. Post-war typewriters settled on one of the layouts used before the war, and no later than the 1950s, official standards for typewriter layouts were established (although their precise content is unknown).

The history of the Consul brand for typewriters remains shrouded in mystery. The only data point known so far is that a 1920s Remington typewriter sports a Consul logotype near identical to the one which appeared on Consul portable typewriters in the 1960s.