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I hope this hasn't been posted before, but here it is, courtesy of my sister in Tucson http://www.thepassivevoice.com/06/2015/the-enduring-genius-of-the-ballpoint-pen/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter The battery never runs out; you never have to worry about getting a bad signal; it cant get hacked. When this new device was launched, crowds lined the streets, desperate to get their hands on it. A window-shattering, hell-raising, no-holds-barred fracas: That was how Nations Business magazine described the American debut of the ballpoint pen in 1945. At $12.50 a penaround $160 todaythe Reynolds International ballpoint wasnt cheap, but that didnt stop thousands from queuing up outside Gimbels department store in New York City on Oct. 29 of that year to buy this fantastic, atomic-era, miracle pen. According to the New Yorker, Gimbels sold $100,000s worth of the pensnearly $1.3 million todayon that one day alone. . . . . The ballpoint pen came to the U.S. from Budapest, by way of inventor László Bíró. Born in 1899, Bíró tried several careersfrom studying medicine to practicing hypnotism to selling insuranceuntil he stumbled into journalism. That led to his great invention. One day, while visiting the printing room of the newspaper where he worked, Bíró grew frustrated when the heat of the presses made his fountain pen leak. He watched the machine cylinders apply ink to paper and wondered if he could develop a pen that worked similarly. He spotted one issue: A cylinder could only roll backward and forward, while a pen needs to move in all directions.