Martin Howard is a fount of knowledge regarding early typewriters, and his vast typewriter collection – parts of which are currently on view at the ROM – is a stunning example of a purveyor's predilections at work. Howard specializes in typewriters from the 1880s and 1890s, before the era of Underwood-brand-standardization. With these specimens, functionality is sometimes secondary to novelty; or, rather, functionality is in the eye of the enterprising designer. The machines are worth a gander for their kooky shapes alone – it's often hard to tell how anyone ever used them. Columbia 2, invented by New York watchmaker Charles Spiro, resembles a scale or a pump and was the first to provide typists with “visible typing,” a window through which they could see what they had just hammered out. The turn-of-the-century Lambert 1 (pictured) looks a bit like a dismantled telephone and works through its top disk, which tilts in the direction of the character button a user presses (as with all of these typewriters, considerable elbow grease is, presumably, required). Aesthetes will even fawn over the more conventional-looking typewriters, such as the elaborate single type-element Crandall New Model from 1886, a beautiful precursor to IBM's Golf Ball model from 1961. Hey, speaking of IBM, how about a Crandall-like laptop for the (select) masses of today, replete with mother-of-pearl inlays and hand-painted roses?