A ballpoint pen, also known as a biro, ball pen, or dot pen, is a pen that dispenses ink over a metal ball at its point, i.e., over a "ball point". The metals commonly used are steel, brass, or tungsten carbide. The design was conceived and developed as a cleaner and more reliable alternative to dip pens and fountain pens, and it is now the world's most-used writing instrument; millions are manufactured and sold daily. It has influenced art and graphic design and spawned an artwork genre.
A quill is a writing tool made from a moulted flight feather of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen/metal-nibbed pen, the fountain pen, and, eventually, the ballpoint pen.
The recorder is a family of woodwind musical instruments in the group known as internal duct flutes: flutes with a whistle mouthpiece, also known as fipple flutes, although this is an archaic term. A recorder can be distinguished from other duct flutes by the presence of a thumb-hole for the upper hand and seven finger-holes: three for the upper hand and four for the lower. It is the most prominent duct flute in the western classical tradition.
A fountain pen is a writing instrument that uses a metal nib to apply water-based ink, or special pigment ink—suitable for fountain pens—to paper. It is distinguished from earlier dip pens by using an internal reservoir to hold ink, eliminating the need to repeatedly dip the pen in an inkwell during use. The pen draws ink from the reservoir through a feed to the nib and deposits the ink on paper via a combination of gravity and capillary action. Filling the reservoir with ink may be achieved manually, via the use of an eyedropper or syringe, or via an internal filling mechanism that creates suction or a vacuum to transfer ink directly through the nib into the reservoir. Some pens employ removable reservoirs in the form of pre-filled ink cartridges.
A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity that had to be periodically recharged by dipping the tip of the pen into an inkwell. Today, such pens find only a small number of specialized uses, such as in illustration and calligraphy. Reed pens, quill pens and dip pens, which were used for writing, have been replaced by ballpoint pens, rollerball pens, fountain pens and felt or ceramic tip pens. Ruling pens, which were used for technical drawing and cartography, have been replaced by technical pens such as the Rapidograph. All of these modern pens contain internal ink reservoirs, such that they do not need to be dipped in ink while writing.
A pipette is a type of laboratory tool commonly used in chemistry and biology to transport a measured volume of liquid, often as a media dispenser. Pipettes come in several designs for various purposes with differing levels of accuracy and precision, from single piece glass pipettes to more complex adjustable or electronic pipettes. Many pipette types work by creating a partial vacuum above the liquid-holding chamber and selectively releasing this vacuum to draw up and dispense liquid. Measurement accuracy varies greatly depending on the instrument.
A dip pen is a writing instrument used to apply ink to paper. It usually consists of a metal nib with a central slit that acts as a capillary channel like those of fountain pen nibs, mounted in a handle or holder, often made of wood. Other materials can be used for the holder, including bone, metal and plastic; some pens are made entirely of glass.
A scalpel, lancet, or bistoury is a small and extremely sharp bladed instrument used for surgery, anatomical dissection, podiatry and various handicrafts. A lancet is a double-edged scalpel.
The Jankó keyboard is a musical keyboard layout for a piano designed by Paul von Jankó, a Hungarian pianist and engineer, in 1882. It was designed to overcome two limitations on the traditional piano keyboard: the large-scale geometry of the keys, and the fact that each scale has to be fingered differently. Instead of a single row, the Jankó keyboard has an array of keys consisting of two interleaved manuals with three touch-points for every key lever, making six rows of keys. Each vertical column of three keys is a semitone away from the neighboring ones, which are in the alternate rows. Thus within each row the interval from one note to the next is a whole step.
A marker pen, fine liner, marking pen, felt-tip pen, felt pen, flowmarker, sign pen, vivid, flomaster, texta, sketch pen, koki or simply marker is a pen which has its own ink source and a tip made of porous, pressed fibers such as felt. A marker pen consists of a container and a core of an absorbent material that holds the ink. The upper part of the marker contains the nib that was made in earlier times of a hard felt material, and a cap to prevent the marker from drying out.
A touchscreen is a type of display that can detect touch input from a user. It consists of both an input device and an output device. The touch panel is typically layered on the top of the electronic visual display of a device. Touchscreens are commonly found in smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other electronic devices. The display is often an LCD, AMOLED or OLED display.
A chart recorder is an electromechanical device that records an electrical or mechanical input trend onto a piece of paper. Chart recorders may record several inputs using different color pens and may record onto strip charts or circular charts. Chart recorders may be entirely mechanical with clockwork mechanisms, electro-mechanical with an electrical clockwork mechanism for driving the chart, or entirely electronic with no mechanical components at all.
Pentel Co., Ltd. is a privately-held Japanese manufacturing company of stationery products. The name comes from one of their first widely known products and is a portmanteau of the English words pen and pastel. Pentel is also the inventor of non-permanent marker technology. Most Pentel products are manufactured in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Mexico, and France.
A writing implement or writing instrument is an object used to produce writing. Writing consists of different figures, lines, and or forms. Most of these items can be also used for other functions such as painting, drawing and technical drawing, but writing instruments generally have the ordinary requirement to create a smooth, controllable line.
A wired glove is an input device for human–computer interaction worn like a glove.
Dental instruments are tools that dental professionals use to provide dental treatment. They include tools to examine, manipulate, treat, restore, and remove teeth and surrounding oral structures.
A text entry interface or text entry device is an interface that is used to enter text information in an electronic device. A commonly used device is a mechanical computer keyboard. Most laptop computers have an integrated mechanical keyboard, and desktop computers are usually operated primarily using a keyboard and mouse. Devices such as smartphones and tablets mean that interfaces such as virtual keyboards and voice recognition are becoming more popular as text entry systems.
William Ford Robinson Stanley was a British inventor with 78 patents filed in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America. He was an engineer who designed and made precision drawing and mathematical instruments, as well as surveying instruments and telescopes, manufactured by his company "William Ford Stanley and Co. Ltd."
Speedball is a US manufacturing company of stationery and art products, based in Statesville, North Carolina. The company was originally established as the "C. Howard Hunt Pen Company" in 1899, to manufacture dip pens.
The Parker Jointless "Lucky Curve" is a range of fountain pens released by the Parker Pen Company in late 1897. The pen used the Lucky Curve ink supply system, designed to draw ink even when the pen was not in use, which was invented and patented by George Safford Parker in 1894. The pen was named "Jointless" because of its one-piece ink barrel, designed to prevent leakage, an innovation at the time – though the design made the refilling process messy. The pen was Parker's first to be advertised outside the United States. The American government purchased the pens in large quantities and a Parker Jointless was one of the pens used to sign the Spanish–American Treaty of Paris in 1898.
