India rubber buttons
India rubber keys were two-colored pressed rubber caps, which were attached to the keys of a typewriter in order to protect the fingertips. The name goes back to the type of rubber used, the so-called India rubber from South America.
The invention was the founding idea of the India key factory (today India-Dreusicke Berlin) and dates back to 1929. The India key factory, founded by Felix Dreusicke, in Berlin owned the patent and produced the rubber keys. One set consisted of 45 keys in the 2-color rubber press process for the characters. The keys could easily be attached to any typewriter keyboard used at the time.
As the choice of typewriter types increased and the keys varied more and more in shape and size depending on the manufacturer, the production of India rubber keys was discontinued due to their incompatibility with many typewriters. Likewise, the effort required to operate the typewriter types, especially after the invention of the electric typewriter, had decreased, thereby reducing the need for damping. For the period up to 1990, the INDIA button factory in Berlin, after being taken over by the son of the company's founder Thomas Dreusicke, produced engraved keycaps for typewriters and computers with country-specific character sets. The "QWERTY" keyboard that was common at the time was replaced by "AZERTY" (French), "QWERTZ" (German) keyboards. Cyrillic, Arabic, Thai and diacritical keyboards were also added.
literature
- Johannes Erich Heyde: Technology of scientific work. Junker u. Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1941.
- Technique of scientific work, Junker u. Dünnhaupt, Berlin, edition 1941
- Company history of INDIA-DREUSICKE Berlin - Thomas Dreusicke, 12277 Berlin, Nunsdorfer Ring 17