It's a typewriter for mathematicians, and at first it was very popular, because it really spoke their language, but the fad quickly died once they discovered that only a few useful words like the one above could be typed. Also, they had to erase each previous word before the could show another one to their colleagues.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
Hmm yes, it's so obvious now you say it...I'm rather embarrassed I hadn't worked it out myself now.
Of course that's what it is...I'd like to know what the other useful words are, although to be completely honest, how much more useful could they be than 80085? The most useful things ever! Lol.
Thanks heaps for participating and clearing up, once and for all, what this thing is...And also for endorsing the extreme usefulness of 80085.
:)
Yes, that was the sample word that was used in all their ads for the product, which is probably another reason for high initial sales.
It sells...Everyone knows that. Even made me buy a pink one! (Not that I'm a mathematician or anything...) But who can resist the power of 80085?
A search of the web will reveal some of the other less popular words that could be typed on the typewriter, here's a small sample:
HO = 04
LESBO = 0.8537
OBESE = 35380
Another annoyance was that sometimes you had to flip the device around, as some words were displayed upside down.
Ah yes, Google knows everything!.
Just looking at those three words, reading them in reverse order with the words, you're nothing but an... in front of them...
Sort of makes me chuckle.
Not you of course...I mean you in the more general sense of the word.
At 50 years old a person would think this sort of thing wouldn't make me laugh...But nope, still laughing.
No not a bit of it... Age is no substitute for maturity my friend, the two are often mistakenly linked but alas they have zero correlation...
I'm a big kid mostly, well inwardly anyway. Company executive by day - Knucklehead at heart. Lol.
They did release a version of this typewriter that allowed the words to be printed on paper, like traditionally-marketed typewriters, but strangely, those typewriters were mainly aimed at accountants instead of mathematicians.
And it still suffered from the problem that some words were upside down, and this problem was even more evident when multiple words were on the page, with some being upside down, so there was no way to read all the words without flipping it back and forth.
And now accountants are as redundant as the device itself...Thanks Xero accounting software. Who needs jobs anyway?
Ultimately the entire design team was canned, but there's a happy ending to the story, because they realized that their true strength lay in quick sell fads of useless products. Among other well-known products, they later went on to design the "fidget-spinner"...
Haha, the fidget-spinner...It's flame burned brightly, but briefly. I had someone give me one for some reason or other. I fidgeted for a few minutes then threw it in the bin. One of the worlds most useless products. Now, the yo-yo on the other hand...Many hours of fun! Lol.
Ah, the yo-yo was a great product. Originally designed to teach the principles of angular mechanics to small children, but later banned in many countries after children found it also made a great weapon.
Haha! Yeah, I think I was one of those kids. I recall trying to do a round the world trick one time...Yo-yo went flying, broke a window. Young G-dog got a belting. Ah those were the days...
Now I do not want to stereotype or pigeonhole mathematicians in any way shape or form but I imagine they would have parties and that type-writer and indeed that very word would be incredibly popular...