Alisov, Mikhail

Alisov, Mikhail Ivanovich 

Born circa 1830 in the village of Pankovo, Kursk Province; died 1898 near Yalta. Russian inventor in the fields of printing and typography.

In 1869, Alisov designed a duplicating machine, which he called Poligrafiia. Russian revolutionaries used such a machine to duplicate proclamations. Alisov wrote a brochure describing his method; this brochure passed the censorship in 1870, and 20,000 copies were printed. He distributed it to the public before the opening of the Paris Exhibition in 1878. The German entrepreneurs Quaisser and Husak took advantage of this and patented Alisov’s invention in their name in 1879.

In 1870, Alisov built an original typewriter with 240 letters of various type and a working speed of 80–120 characters per minute. He also invented a photomechanical method for making matrices for music typesetting. For his inventions he was awarded medals of the Russian Technical Society and of the Paris and Philadelphia world’s fairs.

WORKS

Poligrafiia ili novyi sposob razmnozheniia teksta, risunkov, chertezhei i proch., izobretennyi M. I. Alisovym. St. Petersburg, 1879.
Pishushchaia mashina. S prilozheniem opisaniia mashiny. St. Petersburg, 1878.

REFERENCES

Burinskii. “Pishushchaia mashina g. Alisova.” Vsemirnaia illustratsia, 1878, no. 484.
Ob’iasnitel’naia zapiska k “Skoropechatniku” M. I. Alisova. St. Petersburg, 1874. (Hectograph.)
Vinogradov, G. A. Nabornye mashinny russkikh izobretatelei. Moscow, 1949.