Ladislo Biro, lived in Hungary and worked as a proof reader. He had an old fashioned pen that he had to dip in a jar of ink before writing. It was a bother, and there was always the danger of getting ink splotches on the page. So he decided he would invent a pen that would not have to be dipped in ink. With his brother he tried many ways to make a new pen. Finally, they hit upon putting a tiny metal ball at the tip, then filling the pen with paste-like ink, That is the basic idea of today's ball-points. But it took many years to perfect the process.
When first manufactured, the new pens were very expensive, and few saw a good reason for buying them. interestingly, it was the fighter pilots of world War 2 who popularized ball point pens. Ordinary fountain pens leaked at high altitudes, and so the Air Forces bought for the airmen the "high attitude writing sticks" that Biro made. After that, Ball-point became increasingly popular and today many more are sold then fountain pens.
No comments:
Post a Comment