From an 1897 Strand article: The “typewriter glove” was “a contrivance of wash-leather, upon which were embossed a set of rubber types. ‘Caps’ were on the left hand. Small letters on the right. The ink was supplied by a couple of pads, fixed to the palms of the gloves; and the alternate opening and shutting [of] the hands was supposed to bring it in contact with the type.

“Then, all that was necessary was for the operator to dab the impression of the particular letter he desired to use upon the paper in front of him. How the alignment was to be preserved, with even a tolerable degree of accuracy, the inventor did not deign to explain.”

(C.L. McCluer Stevens, “The Evolution of the Typewriter,” Strand 13:6 [June 1897], 649-656.)

Ulrich von Cranach of Hamburg devised this perpetual motion machine in 1664, offering it to drive pumps in mines. An Archimedean screw raises a succession of iron balls that then descend by a wheel that turns the screw.

Robert Fludd had proposed a water mill in 1618 that used essentially the same design. The anonymous variant below dates from the Middle Ages.

The first automated grocery store in the United States appeared in 1937. At Keedoozle, each customer received a key bearing a roll of paper tape. At a series of display cases, she’d insert her key at each item she wanted and press a button, which would punch a pattern of holes in the tape. At the cashier, an electronic “translator” would total the price and release the requested items through chutes onto a conveyor belt. The customer would wait in a lounge until her packed items were delivered to her.

Founder Clarence Saunders claimed that the automated store required only seven employees, half as many as a traditional supermarket. This permitted a 7.5 percent profit on prices 10 percent lower than competing stores, he said.

The system wasn’t entirely automated — humans kept the stocks filled and bagged the orders — and it could handle only cans and cartons, not fresh meat or vegetables. And it tended to founder when the store got busy. But historians also say that the concept was too far ahead of its time — the American public just wasn’t ready for automated shopping. Only three stores were ever built, and the last closed in 1949.

(Thanks, Abi.)