Noiseless

The Noiseless

Many typewriters praise themselves on silence. The Smith-Corona Silent, for example, or Remington Quiet-Riter, or Royal Quiet de Luxe. But when the term "Noiseless" is brought up, it refers to one specific mechanism and the family of typewriters it spawned.

The name "Noiseless" appears on a variety of machines -- usually Remingtons -- built from the 1930s through the 1950s. Some machines will also bear the Underwood name. Less commonly, some Noiseless typewriters were built by the Noiseless Typewriter Co. from the 1920s.

Originally invented by Washington Parker Kidder, the Noiseless mechanism ensured smooth and even printing despite the typing force. In essence, the user doesn't directly power the typewriter key all the way to the platen: instead, a small weight, following the momentum of the user's typing, would bring the slug through the last few milimetres to the platen. This gave the Noiseless mechanism the ability to accurately control the print quality and significantly reduced the noise that these typewriters produced.

Somewhat ironically, the reduced noise was so effective that many secretaries, used to the loud noises of conventional typewriters, felt as if they weren't working adequately on a Noiseless. Furthermore, because the slug was stopped short of the platen, the typewriter was prone to skipping if the user had poor technique and feels as if it bottoms out early.

One can see the Noiseless mechanism in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn2Bwf1DS4E