Smith Corona

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Smith Corona or the SCM Corporation is a US typewriter and calculator company. The company has been experiencing a decline in sales since the mid 1980s due to the introduction of PC-based word processing. Its competitors include Brother, Olivetti and IBM.

[edit] History

This Smith Premier typewriter, purchased around the end of the 19th century, was found abandoned in the Bodie ghost town.

The company originated in 1886 when the Smith Premier Typewriter Company created the first machine to use both uppercase and lowercase letters. In 1903 it was reorganized as the L.C. Smith & Bros. Typewriter Company in Syracuse, New York. Separately, in 1906 the Rose Typewriter company marketed the first successful portable typewriter, and in 1909 renamed itself the Standard Typewriter Company. With the success of their Corona model in 1914 Standard Typewriter was renamed again and became the Corona Typewriter Company . Smith Corona was created when L.C. Smith & Bros. united with Corona Typewriter in 1926, with L.C. Smith & Bros. making office typewriters and Corona Typewriter making portables. Electric typewriters debuted in 1955 and electric portables came along in 1957.

In a diversification move that later proved unsound, Smith Corona purchased Marchant Calculator in 1958. Smith Corona invented the typewriter power carriage return in 1960. In 1962, they changed their corporate name to Smith-Corona Marchant (SCM). In 1973 SCM introduced a cartridge ribbon which eliminated the long-standing problem of getting ink-stained fingers from hand-threading a replacement spool of inked ribbon. The calculator market was devastated by cheap electronic pocket calculators in the mid 1970s. By 1985, personal computers were being widely used for word processing, and SCM launched their first portable word processor, along with the first portable typewriter that included an electronic spelling function.

The company moved its typewriter manufacturing to Mexico in 1995.