Hi, On 17 Sep 2001, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > Now to the ball point pen. The ball point pen is almost as old as > photography itself, having been invented prior to October, 1888, the > date when it was patented. It was met with mixed success, although it > worked well for rough marking of items, as the ball was not very > precisely ground and the ink was rather thick. However, in 1944 an > Argentinean by the name of Lazlo Biro (coincidentally, a distant > relative to a high school classmate, Barbara Biro) was able to > successfully produce an accurately ground ball that would ride in a > brass socket. This was the first ball point pen that could achieve > fine enough detail for correspondence and be able to compete with the > fountain pen in producing even lines. Almost true.... ;-) Biro Laszlo and Biro Gy÷rgy were Hungarians. They invented the first versions of the pen here in Hungary, but didn't do anythig to put it in production. Later they moved to Argentina (because of WWII), and found some investors there and marketed the pens. It needed heavy redesign before the success... Gabor - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
