Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Eventually one side was standardized on, and I think it was the right side,
> and people were taught to put the handwritten thing they're copying on the left.

Positively not: I recall hacking away on my dad's "modern" mechanical
typewriter, and that a "carriage return" would involve *pushing* (not pulling)
the carriage back, so the maneuver must have been carried out with the left
hand (given that, regardless of which side the lever was attached, a carriage
return maneuver must have moved the carriage from the left to the right). This
would also load a spring, that would provide for the energy required to move
the carriage leftwards while typing.

(It strikes me that during all the development of the mechanical typewriter,
nobody ever tried loading an even stronger spring by the carriage-return
action, and use its energy also to help actuate the type levers.)

I don't recall the brand or model my dad owned; but as operating the lever was
all that was needed to start a new a line - combining the function of both
carriage return and a line feed (with a configurable number of "ticks" per
line; I think it was either two or three) - I guess it must have been a Unix
machine :P

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