Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) the queen in cards.

1904

Ade ‘Lonesome Trolley-Riders’ in True Bills 4: Mr. Gillespie was in with three Type-Writers and Mrs. Frisbie had an elegant Full House.

2. a machinegun or sub-machinegun [its ‘tapping’ noise].

1916		R. Service ‘The Black Dudeen’ in Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 138: A ‘typewriter’ clattered its pills about.
1917		A.G. Empey Over the Top 31: Then a Fritz would traverse back and forth with his ‘typewriter’ or machine gun. The bullets made a sharp cracking noise overhead.
1918		L.N. Smith Lingo of No Man’s Land 90: TYPEWRITER Another expression for ‘Machine Gun’ [...] arising from its sound in action.
1924		(con. WWI) A.G. Pretty Gloss. Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: typewriter. Machine gun.
1930		J. Lait Put on the Spot 11: I’m not scared o’ your guns — the only kind that hurt me are typewriters — I mean the newspapermen’s, of course.
1939		Army and Navy Register (US) 18 Nov. 3/2: The word ‘typewriter’ identifies a machine gun.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 64: I waited for their typewriters to begin pounding out their farewell notes to me.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 230/2: Typewriter. (Rare) Machine gun.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 822: typewriter – A machine gun.
1979		K. Bonfiglioli After You with the Pistol (1991) 299: Hoping to catch a glimpse of some mobsters cutting-down dirty, double-crossing rats with ‘typewriters.’.