Carbon Paper

Everything has a history, long or short, and office equipment is no exception.  There have been massive changes in office technology in recent years, although the paperless office is not yet with us.  In fact, there seems to be more and more paperwork generated now than ever there was, though perhaps that is only a perception.

A simple piece of almost redundant equipment, which at one time was a necessity, is carbon paper.  Carbonated paper’ was first used in 1806 when Ralph Wedgewood filed a patent for a ‘Stylographic Writer’, although Italian Pellegrino Turri invented a typewriting machine in 1808 that also needed a black paper for its operation.

Neither was intended for copying purposes at the time, but to help the blind to write by using a black transferable paper rather than ink.  It was only when typewriters became common that it was realized that the paper could be used to make copies.

Clips and Staples

You would have though that the stapler would have come after the paper clip, but not so.  The stapler was patented in 1878 by one George W. McGill – prior to that fasteners were inserted manually into the paper.  The paper clip as we know it today was patented twenty one years later, in 1899, by William D. Middlebrook, although an earlier form had been in use for fastening tickets to garments.

Copying Machines

The original copying machines used stencils formed by writing on an impervious sheet with a corrosive ink, so that the ink ate into the sheet and made it porous to ink. When the sheet was then printed over with ink, it would pass through the porous writing and make copies; this was called the Papyrograph and was patented in 1874 by Eugenio de Zuccato.

The same person later invented the Typograph that involved perforating the sheets, and an improved version was invented in 1884 by Albert Blake Dick that he called the Mimeograph. After that came a rash of duplicating machines, mostly mechanical until the first commercial retail photographic machine came onto the market sometime between 1907 and 1911.  The most popular of these was marketed by an Eastman Kodak affiliate called Photostat, and the term is still occasionally used today for photocopies.

The first electrostatic copier was introduced in 1950, but required special paper. The first plain paper Xerox machine, the Xerox 914, was retailed in the early 1960s, and could produce 400 copies an hour – fast by the standards of the day, though by 1965 this had increased to 2,500 copies an hour and the age of the photocopier had arrived.

Water Coolers

Finally, one of the most important pieces of office equipment: the water cooler.  What office would be complete without a water cooler for people to congregate around and put to right the ills of the world?  You might be surprised to learn that office water coolers have existed since the early 1900s, although the earlier models have been largely superseded by the bottled coolers that do not need a water supply, and can therefore be situated just about anywhere convenient in an office.

The early coolers were plumbed into the mains water supply, and dispensed water in the form a fountain. You would drink from the top of the fountain, and many were not cooled. The bottle coolers came later and are now very popular.  However, the point of use (POU) coolers are gaining ground:  once again plumbed in, so things are going full circle. The difference is that the water can be chilled, maintained at room temperature or be heated to make tea or coffee.  They therefore provide a complete water service rather than just chilled water.

This history of office equipment is of necessity brief and covers only a tiny fraction of the equipment you would find in any office.  We might change the entries now and again and provide historical details of some other office equipment in the future.

A Office Equipment Buying Guide.

This buying guide is intended as a guide to buying office equipment in general, and not specific items.  However a guide to choosing some of the more common office items is also provided.

1.  A very large part of your company office budget goes on office supplies, and reducing the time you spend sourcing your materials can be worth a lot more than buying at a cheap price. You want a supplier that can supply rapidly when needed, and so save you money on storage space and tied up capital.