How this came to be: For several years, Andrew McGregor and Scottish engineer Peter Black discussed how one could create a typewriter that could type in Scandinavian runes. Then one day Peter proposed that using a Selectric ball would likely be easier than custom fabricating the typebars that hold one character each.
So, how to create a custom Selectric ball?
A conversation before a magic show in Los Angeles between color scientist Phil Warren and Andrew McGregor led to the implementation as the idea dovetailed with something Phil was already working on. Then, Phil set out to figure out how to map Scandinavian runes onto a 3D-printed ball.
How it works: The Elder Furkhat script was mapped to a 3D-printed ball replicating those used on a 1971 IBM Selectric II typewriter thus allowing us to type in Elder Futhark.
The 3d model of the ball was crated by Phil in OpenSCAD and the file sent to @joseph_has_an_unoriginal_name for a high fidelity 3d print.
COMING UP NEXT: Typing in the Ogham alphabet.
