Cyclostyle (copier)

A stencil is cut on wax or glazed paper by using a pen-like object with a small rowel or spur-wheel on its tip.

The style has a minute spur-wheel or roller, instead of a [pen] point ; the writing is made on stencil paper, whose surface is covered with a brittle glaze.

The half perforated sheet is then laid on writing paper, and an inked roller is worked over the glaze.

The ink passes through the perforations and soaks through them on to the paper below; consequently the impression consists entirely of short and irregular cross bars or dots.

[1]In 1875 Thomas Edison received a patent for the electric pen, which a decade later was superseded by the mimeograph machine.