Ball-point pen
In the 1930’s, in Hungary, Ladislao Biro was getting fed up with his old-fashioned fountain pen. He was tired of the way it leaked and had to be endlessly refilled. Fidding around in his workshop, Biro filled a pen with printer’s ink and on the tip of it he fashioned a little ball that picked up more ink as it rolled.
In England, Biro helped set up a factory to manufacture “high-alititude, nonleaking writing sticks ” for the British Air Force. The factory was eventually taken over by Bic, a French company, which developed an even better and cheaper throw-away pen.
In American, following World War ll, Milton Reynolds invented his own version of the ball-point-pen. As a sales gimmick, he advertised it as the “pen that writes underwater”. To attract customers, he arranged a demonstration in the display window of a department store. While sitting in a tank of water, a demonstrator scribbled with a ball-point pen on while plastic. In one day, nearly 10,000 had been sold! The price: $12.50 apiece.
圓珠筆
20世紀20年代，匈牙利人拉迪斯勞·比羅越來越無法忍受他那支老式自來水筆了。他討厭這支筆總是漏墨水，害得他必須沒完沒了地往里續墨水。有一天，比羅在自己的工作室里瞎鼓搗的時候，隨手把打印機上用的墨裝到鋼筆芯里，并在筆尖處裝了一個小圓珠，這樣墨水便隨著圓珠的滾動流了出來。
比羅在英國建了一家工廠，專門為英國空軍生產這種“高緯度防漏書寫棒”。后來，法國的BIC公司接管了這家工廠，并研制出更好用、更便宜的一次性圓珠筆。
第二次世界大戰后，美國人彌爾頓·羅納德發明了自成一體的圓珠筆。作為推銷手段，他在廣告中宣稱這是一種“水下書寫筆“。為了吸引顧客，他在一家商場的櫥窗搞了一個現代演示：演示者坐在一個裝滿水的魚缸里，用這種圓珠筆在白色塑料上寫寫劃劃。僅僅一天，上萬支圓珠筆就銷售一空！當時每支圓珠筆的價格為12.5美元。
