Have You Ever Been (to Selectric Personland)
September 27, 2014 4:37 PM Subscribe
IBM's Selectric typewriter "paved the way for computer printers because the Selectric had an early version of a digital to analogue converter..." called the whiffletree, the application of which here is totally sweet.
My prep school, which I attended starting in 1976, had a Wang 2200B computer with an IBM Selectric printer attached. Good times.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:55 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:55 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
How about no-soldering-required instructions for converting a manual typewriter into a USB keyboard?
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:01 PM on September 27, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by Doktor Zed at 5:01 PM on September 27, 2014 [6 favorites]
The Engineer Guy did an excellent explanation of whiffletree linkages.
posted by endotoxin at 5:03 PM on September 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by endotoxin at 5:03 PM on September 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
Not evident in the videos: just how damn heavy those Selectrics were, about 30 lbs. according to a quick web search. I'm guess it was intentional, to keep the damn things from jumping all over the place.
posted by benito.strauss at 5:48 PM on September 27, 2014
posted by benito.strauss at 5:48 PM on September 27, 2014
I'm guess it was intentional
Yep the works are all bolted to a quarter inch thick steel plate. Given the tolerances of the mechanism, there are probably sound engineering reasons for wanting all that stiffness.
posted by localroger at 5:51 PM on September 27, 2014 [5 favorites]
Yep the works are all bolted to a quarter inch thick steel plate. Given the tolerances of the mechanism, there are probably sound engineering reasons for wanting all that stiffness.
posted by localroger at 5:51 PM on September 27, 2014 [5 favorites]
Yep the works are all bolted to a quarter inch thick steel plate
Ha! Can you imagine any personal computing or business machine having that stat now?
posted by stinkfoot at 5:54 PM on September 27, 2014
Ha! Can you imagine any personal computing or business machine having that stat now?
posted by stinkfoot at 5:54 PM on September 27, 2014
We've gotten used to computing being cheap, but it wasn't always so. In the mid 90's I got hold of a mainframe computer hard disk unit from 1975 and spent a weekend tearing it apart. The scale of physical engineering of massive and expensive moving parts was just incredible.
Bell System telephones (the ones you couldn't buy, only rent) from that era had a lead strip embedded in the handset to give it some heft, the kind of expensive detail few imitators bothered with.
posted by localroger at 6:31 PM on September 27, 2014 [5 favorites]
Bell System telephones (the ones you couldn't buy, only rent) from that era had a lead strip embedded in the handset to give it some heft, the kind of expensive detail few imitators bothered with.
posted by localroger at 6:31 PM on September 27, 2014 [5 favorites]
The Selectric is, and probably always will be, the apex of utility typewriter design from an era in which IBM really did mean International Business Machines instead of an abstract acronym. I have some experience here since my high school typing class used them. If you've never used one the best analogy I can think of is that of a high quality semi-automatic rifle. (This seems appropriate as the class was taught by an ex-Army typist who bragged that knowing how to type kept him from getting killed in Vietnam.) A light stroke of a key is instantly turned into an incredibly fast electromechanical WHAM! as the ball spins and hits the paper. It literally feels powerful and it never ever jams. A skilled typist can absolutely fly on one of those things.
It's also worth an image search to see the, perhaps unexpected, large variety of colors IBM made them in. That also seems like a long lost indulgence for office equipment.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 7:25 PM on September 27, 2014 [12 favorites]
It's also worth an image search to see the, perhaps unexpected, large variety of colors IBM made them in. That also seems like a long lost indulgence for office equipment.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 7:25 PM on September 27, 2014 [12 favorites]
There was a secretary in my dad's office who could type fast enough to jam it. IBM sent reps out to take a look see, as apparently it was impossible to type too fast for a Selectric. This one person could though, apparently.
posted by parki at 7:28 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by parki at 7:28 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
I agree, LastOfHisKind. (And that remark is too eponysterical for anyone to resist pointing out.) I tried replacing my old HP calculator a few years ago, and not only had they stopped making my model, but none of the current ones matched it for attention to detail. I realized that so few people use a scientific calculator today that I probably had seen the highest point in calculators, and it was now receding into history. The same thing has to happen to every technology; somewhere around 1910 someone was building the best horse buggy ever. And so the Selectric. It was, as planned, the best typewriter of its day. It will be, though unanticipated, the best one ever.
posted by benito.strauss at 7:35 PM on September 27, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by benito.strauss at 7:35 PM on September 27, 2014 [6 favorites]
There was a secretary in my dad's office who could type fast enough to jam it. IBM sent reps out to take a look see, as apparently it was impossible to type too fast for a Selectric. This one person could though, apparently.
I'm shocked. Was it an older model?
Yeah, the Hyperdine System's 120-A2.
Well, that explains it then. The A2s always were a bit twitchy.
posted by ovvl at 7:51 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm shocked. Was it an older model?
Yeah, the Hyperdine System's 120-A2.
Well, that explains it then. The A2s always were a bit twitchy.
posted by ovvl at 7:51 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
The humming of the idling Selectric was one of the favorite noises of my childhood. I loved the hum, and I loved "typing" on it, nonsense though it was, and changing out the ball for one with a different font (measured in picas, as I distantly recall). I've considered buying one just for the nostalgia.
There was a secretary in my dad's office who could type fast enough to jam it.
One summer in college I worked in a campus office and one of the older secretary ladies there could type like that. She had nails that were about an inch long and could still type so fast that the poor machine made a sound like a blur, you couldn't even hear the individual strikes of the type ball.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:54 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
There was a secretary in my dad's office who could type fast enough to jam it.
One summer in college I worked in a campus office and one of the older secretary ladies there could type like that. She had nails that were about an inch long and could still type so fast that the poor machine made a sound like a blur, you couldn't even hear the individual strikes of the type ball.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:54 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
That "Engineer Guy" does not quite understand what is going on in the Selectric. This isn't a DAC in any way. It's a solenoid-driven linkage mechanism. It's basically digital, it's the same mechanism as the IBM 2741 Terminal. I have spent countless hours at the keyboard of a 2741.
I disapprove of that second video, you're not supposed to override the safety interlock and run the mechanism with the case off. You could get your necktie or your long hair caught in there and then you'll know why they use a safety interlock.
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:19 PM on September 27, 2014 [5 favorites]
I disapprove of that second video, you're not supposed to override the safety interlock and run the mechanism with the case off. You could get your necktie or your long hair caught in there and then you'll know why they use a safety interlock.
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:19 PM on September 27, 2014 [5 favorites]
One of the most interesting features of the Selectric mechanism is the way it lets you put one key down, and then while the first key is down, you can put a second key halfway down, such that when you release the first key, the second key will 'pop' all the way down and that character will be struck.
It's a little thing, but when you're typing quickly you'll be damned if it doesn't seem like the machine has a typeahead buffer, like a digital terminal or word processor does. It doesn't, not really -- or if it does, it's a "half character" worth of buffer. But it makes all the difference in the world since you don't have to ever worry about letting up on one key before you press the next one (which on a traditional typewriter would cause a jam).
The mechanism that allows this is truly ingenious, and involves a horizontal tube filled with ball bearings, with each key pressing a bar down in between two bearings. There's just enough loose space so that one key can slide up and down, but if you try to press two down, there's not enough room and the bearings bind up and stop the key. But the bar can rest against the bearings until the first key pops up, whereupon that second key slides right down. Crafty as hell.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:36 PM on September 27, 2014 [24 favorites]
It's a little thing, but when you're typing quickly you'll be damned if it doesn't seem like the machine has a typeahead buffer, like a digital terminal or word processor does. It doesn't, not really -- or if it does, it's a "half character" worth of buffer. But it makes all the difference in the world since you don't have to ever worry about letting up on one key before you press the next one (which on a traditional typewriter would cause a jam).
The mechanism that allows this is truly ingenious, and involves a horizontal tube filled with ball bearings, with each key pressing a bar down in between two bearings. There's just enough loose space so that one key can slide up and down, but if you try to press two down, there's not enough room and the bearings bind up and stop the key. But the bar can rest against the bearings until the first key pops up, whereupon that second key slides right down. Crafty as hell.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:36 PM on September 27, 2014 [24 favorites]
In an odd way, Selectrics even helped out the props department for a popular science fiction television show you may have heard of.
Jeffries reminisces...
Also, the best thing to do if you were taking a typing class in high school that had Selectrics was to sneak into the room and surreptitiously unlock the balls before class started.
posted by lagomorphius at 9:22 PM on September 27, 2014
Jeffries reminisces...
Also, the best thing to do if you were taking a typing class in high school that had Selectrics was to sneak into the room and surreptitiously unlock the balls before class started.
posted by lagomorphius at 9:22 PM on September 27, 2014
typeahead buffer
Some later models actually had memory cards (in a big case the size of a full-size PC ca. 2000), and the ability to retype whole letters, as well as automatic undo with the built-in white-ink ribbon. Pretty amazing stuff in the day, like running film through the projector backwards.
posted by dhartung at 10:17 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
Some later models actually had memory cards (in a big case the size of a full-size PC ca. 2000), and the ability to retype whole letters, as well as automatic undo with the built-in white-ink ribbon. Pretty amazing stuff in the day, like running film through the projector backwards.
posted by dhartung at 10:17 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
> This isn't a DAC in any way. It's a solenoid-driven linkage mechanism. It's basically digital
The inputs to the mechanism are digital. The outputs are two values (0..3 and 0..21) with more than two possibilities each. Sort of like the output of an electrical DAC before the reconstruction filter, e.g. 16 bits in, 65,536 discrete values out.
posted by morganw at 10:31 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
The inputs to the mechanism are digital. The outputs are two values (0..3 and 0..21) with more than two possibilities each. Sort of like the output of an electrical DAC before the reconstruction filter, e.g. 16 bits in, 65,536 discrete values out.
posted by morganw at 10:31 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
My boss at Kaiser Aerospace in 1969, Phil Cooper, let me talk him into purchasing a BLUE Selectric for me! What a sweetheart! The machine, not the boss!! Oh, no - both of them were sweethearts. I loved that machine because it was incredibly fast, couldn't jam ever, I couldn't outtype it, the print was beautiful - clean and crisp - and it was BLUE!
I feel about Selectrics sorta like I feel about VW buses - I get all weird and nostalgic when I get near either one. Sigh.
posted by aryma at 10:44 PM on September 27, 2014 [8 favorites]
I feel about Selectrics sorta like I feel about VW buses - I get all weird and nostalgic when I get near either one. Sigh.
posted by aryma at 10:44 PM on September 27, 2014 [8 favorites]
Besides typewriters, the Selectric technology was also used for typesetting in the late '60s, thru the'70s. I remember first being exposed to it in my college graphic arts class. It pretty much bridged the gap for cold type between super expensive photo typesetting and more affordable desktop publishing on personal computers and laser printers.
posted by SteveInMaine at 12:21 AM on September 28, 2014
posted by SteveInMaine at 12:21 AM on September 28, 2014
I disapprove of that second video, you're not supposed to override the safety interlock and run the mechanism with the case off. You could get your necktie or your long hair caught in there and then you'll know why they use a safety interlock.
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:19 PM on September 27
If that's the way you feel, it's clear why you don't surf.
posted by Didymium at 1:37 AM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:19 PM on September 27
If that's the way you feel, it's clear why you don't surf.
posted by Didymium at 1:37 AM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
I'm a manuals guy, myself, trying to recover from decades of computer poisoning, but the thing I love about Selectrics, until they got all fancypants, is that they were actually purely mechanical and could be run off a belt rigged to a treadle, if all human civilization were to fall, leaving behind a lack of electricity and a need for paperwork in triplicate. They had all the look of magical computer-based devices, but were, at their heart, an extension of the old mechanical wonders of transcription going all the way back. It's a triumph of 19th century clockwork and the soul of the Saul Bass sixties working in perfect harmony to generate the future with a masterful sleight of hand.
I still prefer the magical marionette show of a well-maintained manual, but if I'm stuck with a damn electric, it better be a Selectric.
The Selectric Composer on my father's desk was so complicated that it was more a sign of his success in his field than a tool he actually used to its full potential, but boy, did it ever look the business. I eventually mastered it, but used it primarily to generate myriad accusations of plagiarism by turning in what, at the time, were inconceivably attractive papers with fully justified text.
"No, Mrs. Thompson, I did not just photocopy this from a book."
posted by sonascope at 4:45 AM on September 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
I still prefer the magical marionette show of a well-maintained manual, but if I'm stuck with a damn electric, it better be a Selectric.
The Selectric Composer on my father's desk was so complicated that it was more a sign of his success in his field than a tool he actually used to its full potential, but boy, did it ever look the business. I eventually mastered it, but used it primarily to generate myriad accusations of plagiarism by turning in what, at the time, were inconceivably attractive papers with fully justified text.
"No, Mrs. Thompson, I did not just photocopy this from a book."
posted by sonascope at 4:45 AM on September 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
My dad brought one of these home from the office so I could type my undergrad thesis, yes it was heavy, and just the sound of the thing as it was turned on and you started typing, sounded like you meant business. For me this was just revolutionary in terms of the typewriters of the day.
posted by carter at 5:22 AM on September 28, 2014
posted by carter at 5:22 AM on September 28, 2014
> Some later models actually had memory cards
The Wheelwriter 10 Series II had a motherboard very similar to a PC, and I think it even had the same processor.
posted by scruss at 6:56 AM on September 28, 2014
The Wheelwriter 10 Series II had a motherboard very similar to a PC, and I think it even had the same processor.
posted by scruss at 6:56 AM on September 28, 2014
I was curious what they cost new, and found this list of prices on the IBM archive pages (which in itself is an amazing resource and probably deserves an FPP of its own). A nice Selectric was selling for almost $500 in 1970, which is around $3000 in today's dollars. So approximately comparable in price to a high end computer now, but with an expectation of many more years of service.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:43 AM on September 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 7:43 AM on September 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I always loved the feeling of typing on one of these things, but you can get a keyboard feel that's almost as good by buying a mechanical keyboard. The key-feel is a remarkably important part of your perception of quality, and using a Model M keyboard or one of the newer versions based on Cherry MX switches really makes a difference.
posted by sonic meat machine at 10:17 AM on September 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by sonic meat machine at 10:17 AM on September 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
> if all human civilization were to fall, leaving behind a lack of electricity and a need for paperwork in triplicate
I wish to read your dystopia.
posted by Monochrome at 10:18 AM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
I wish to read your dystopia.
posted by Monochrome at 10:18 AM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
There was a secretary in my dad's office who could type fast enough to jam it.
This makes no sense to me. What jammed? The paper?
That "Engineer Guy" does not quite understand what is going on in the Selectric. This isn't a DAC in any way. It's a solenoid-driven linkage mechanism.
The original Selectric was not solenoid-driven (at least in the tilt/rotate area), but the 1052 (System/360 console) and the 2741 were. The typewriter whiffletrees were mechanically moved (indirectly) by the keys. And there was no interlock on the typewriter
I was never trained on this machine, but I have replaced a lot of tilt and rotate tapes, and once replaced the cycle shaft.
The ball doesn't seem that much of a breakthrough to me. It's the same idea as the Teletype used, only in the Teletype, it was more of a cylinder shape.
posted by MtDewd at 10:19 AM on September 28, 2014
This makes no sense to me. What jammed? The paper?
That "Engineer Guy" does not quite understand what is going on in the Selectric. This isn't a DAC in any way. It's a solenoid-driven linkage mechanism.
The original Selectric was not solenoid-driven (at least in the tilt/rotate area), but the 1052 (System/360 console) and the 2741 were. The typewriter whiffletrees were mechanically moved (indirectly) by the keys. And there was no interlock on the typewriter
I was never trained on this machine, but I have replaced a lot of tilt and rotate tapes, and once replaced the cycle shaft.
The ball doesn't seem that much of a breakthrough to me. It's the same idea as the Teletype used, only in the Teletype, it was more of a cylinder shape.
posted by MtDewd at 10:19 AM on September 28, 2014
> This isn't a DAC in any way. It's a solenoid-driven linkage mechanism. It's basically digital
The inputs to the mechanism are digital. The outputs are two values (0..3 and 0..21) with more than two possibilities each. Sort of like the output of an electrical DAC before the reconstruction filter, e.g. 16 bits in, 65,536 discrete values out.
Yeah, that's why I am visualizing this function more like a decoder. The Selectric whiffletree mechanism converts a binary number into two integers representing arbitrary positions on the golf ball printhead. This isn't a continuous analog function, it's just converting numbers from a table. It is a clever approach. BTW you should check out the mechanism in IBM typewriters from before the Selectric era.
The whole history of IBM electric typewriters probably deserves its own FPP. Back when it started, the IBM catalog of Business Machines included butcher's scales and meat grinders. IBM bought the Electromatic typewriter company, and in 1933 the IBM Model 01 Electromatic Typewriter shipped. That was their primary typewriter product until 1948 when the Model A shipped. The typewriter division was a huge amount of business for IBM. Upgrades through the 1960s up to the Model D were built to automate conventional business paperwork and accounting. Like look at this IBM 803 Proofing Machine. That machine sold from like 1950 through 1980. The structure of current generally accepted accounting principles is based on corporate accounting using manual posting and proofing machines like this. IBM could always scale up, from a single posting machine up to an entire accounting division.
IBM's typewriters could scale up too. Once the Selectric shipped, they could scale up from single typewriters to corporate scale document processing with storage systems on mag tape and mag cards. But eventually this would all be computerized and integrate fully into IT networks, starting with the Displaywriter, which was pretty much the end of the era of dedicated typist workstations. Everything after that was PC based word processing.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:28 AM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
The inputs to the mechanism are digital. The outputs are two values (0..3 and 0..21) with more than two possibilities each. Sort of like the output of an electrical DAC before the reconstruction filter, e.g. 16 bits in, 65,536 discrete values out.
Yeah, that's why I am visualizing this function more like a decoder. The Selectric whiffletree mechanism converts a binary number into two integers representing arbitrary positions on the golf ball printhead. This isn't a continuous analog function, it's just converting numbers from a table. It is a clever approach. BTW you should check out the mechanism in IBM typewriters from before the Selectric era.
The whole history of IBM electric typewriters probably deserves its own FPP. Back when it started, the IBM catalog of Business Machines included butcher's scales and meat grinders. IBM bought the Electromatic typewriter company, and in 1933 the IBM Model 01 Electromatic Typewriter shipped. That was their primary typewriter product until 1948 when the Model A shipped. The typewriter division was a huge amount of business for IBM. Upgrades through the 1960s up to the Model D were built to automate conventional business paperwork and accounting. Like look at this IBM 803 Proofing Machine. That machine sold from like 1950 through 1980. The structure of current generally accepted accounting principles is based on corporate accounting using manual posting and proofing machines like this. IBM could always scale up, from a single posting machine up to an entire accounting division.
IBM's typewriters could scale up too. Once the Selectric shipped, they could scale up from single typewriters to corporate scale document processing with storage systems on mag tape and mag cards. But eventually this would all be computerized and integrate fully into IT networks, starting with the Displaywriter, which was pretty much the end of the era of dedicated typist workstations. Everything after that was PC based word processing.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:28 AM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
The whole history of IBM electric typewriters probably deserves its own FPP.
Alright, I triple dog dare you.
Edit: great additional stuff there btw.
posted by stinkfoot at 12:05 PM on September 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
Alright, I triple dog dare you.
Edit: great additional stuff there btw.
posted by stinkfoot at 12:05 PM on September 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
> This isn't a continuous analog function
While maybe technically incorrect, it's common to call a linear digital-to-analog converter without a reconstruction filter a "DAC." E.g. the old-school, pre-sigma-delta Burr-Brown PCM56. It's output is not continuous. I think it works fine as a metaphor to call a whiffle tree a DAC.
posted by morganw at 12:18 PM on September 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
While maybe technically incorrect, it's common to call a linear digital-to-analog converter without a reconstruction filter a "DAC." E.g. the old-school, pre-sigma-delta Burr-Brown PCM56. It's output is not continuous. I think it works fine as a metaphor to call a whiffle tree a DAC.
posted by morganw at 12:18 PM on September 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
Looking for a picture of the purely electro-mechanical, pre-solenoid Selectric I, I found the slo-motion Selectric. Shame there's no video of it. Description of the mechanism
The keys on an ordinary Selectric move down, causing a lever to selectively pull on several rods inside the machine that select the typeball position. These are the tilt and rotate levers, where the lever for an individual key has a hook corresponding to the tilt and rotate rods it should activate, no hook for the others.Thus, movement of a key downward activates these rods. The rods are connected to a clever mechanism that converts a rotate code into the proper amount of movement of a tape that turns the golfball typehead. In the same way, the tilt lever selected swivels the ball up or down the desired swing to bring its row of characters into position.It also had 2 key rollover. Incredible
The inherent speed of the Selectric is more than 15 characters per second, and it has one keystroke of mechanical "stroke storage." That is, if you hit two keys very close together, the first one and the second one will both actuate, each in due time.posted by morganw at 12:28 PM on September 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I don't think it's fair to expect continuous analog functions out of DACs. The very nature of the name implies that a certain amount of bits is mapping into a continuous range. My kneejerk reaction was also "this isn't a DAC dude" but upon further consideration, I can see this as a DAC that maps into azimuthal and polar coordinates.
posted by Standard Orange at 12:56 PM on September 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Standard Orange at 12:56 PM on September 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
It also had 2 key rollover.
Yes, that is the beautiful "interposer," which goes back to before Selectrics. You can see it in the Model B repair manual I posted, on page 15 and 16. It is described as an escapement, the pawls have to line up in the notches in the interposer to grab a hammer to strike. If one keypress already had the escapement engaged, the next keypress couldn't move until the old keypress let go of the escapement. This was a revolutionary feature of the early Model A etc, it locked out the next hammer until the previous hammer backed out of position. Otherwise you'd be pounding hammers on top of each other and chipping at the typefaces.
Alright, I triple dog dare you.
Well that was the quickie FPP version. I never had a Selectric, my first typing classes were on a huge manual Olivetti and my personal typewriter was a cheap Smith-Corona. I used an old IBM Executive a lot. But when I first got access to the IBM 2471 Selectric terminal, it was attached to the local university's System/360. Word processing was available through the IBM Administrative Terminal System or ATS/360. It was a line editor, still based on the model of punched cards. Back in the early 1970s I used to type up mailing lists to print sorted mailing labels on the IBM line printer. At first I punched cards and used them as data in a FORTRAN program. Then I discovered I could write the records on ATS and store the data file on tape.
So it was probably obvious to me, long before most, that the old style typewriter was obsolete. Even a simple line editor was revolutionary. And now we have gone full circle. Most new typewriters have an LCD display of a single line. You are using an old school line editor.
posted by charlie don't surf at 2:28 PM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
Yes, that is the beautiful "interposer," which goes back to before Selectrics. You can see it in the Model B repair manual I posted, on page 15 and 16. It is described as an escapement, the pawls have to line up in the notches in the interposer to grab a hammer to strike. If one keypress already had the escapement engaged, the next keypress couldn't move until the old keypress let go of the escapement. This was a revolutionary feature of the early Model A etc, it locked out the next hammer until the previous hammer backed out of position. Otherwise you'd be pounding hammers on top of each other and chipping at the typefaces.
Alright, I triple dog dare you.
Well that was the quickie FPP version. I never had a Selectric, my first typing classes were on a huge manual Olivetti and my personal typewriter was a cheap Smith-Corona. I used an old IBM Executive a lot. But when I first got access to the IBM 2471 Selectric terminal, it was attached to the local university's System/360. Word processing was available through the IBM Administrative Terminal System or ATS/360. It was a line editor, still based on the model of punched cards. Back in the early 1970s I used to type up mailing lists to print sorted mailing labels on the IBM line printer. At first I punched cards and used them as data in a FORTRAN program. Then I discovered I could write the records on ATS and store the data file on tape.
So it was probably obvious to me, long before most, that the old style typewriter was obsolete. Even a simple line editor was revolutionary. And now we have gone full circle. Most new typewriters have an LCD display of a single line. You are using an old school line editor.
posted by charlie don't surf at 2:28 PM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
I was a typewriter technician for IBM in the mid-70s. I only worked for IBM for three years before I left my home town and lit out for the territories, but the training IBM gave me was priceless. I could literally get a job anywhere, because I was a "factory trained" (we actually self-trained in our local offices; but we all went to the Louisville factory for final testing) IBM typewriter tech.
You would not believe the many places repairing Selectrics could take you - they were everywhere, from Navy bases to newspapers to private homes to farms to hot-air balloon builders'. Then I got a job working on IBM 2741s, because it was easier to train a Selectric tech on the electronics than it was to train an electronic tech on the Selectric mechanics, then my employer bought a minicomputer company and I got trained on those, and then we were acquired by an early satellite communications company and I got trained on those. So I went from fixing typewriters to installing satellite earth stations in the course of about ten years.
I loved Selectrics. They were so intricate and so elegant. Regarding the slo-mo Selectric: at the right end of the operations shaft (that's the one on the right, which controls the backspace, space, and shift) is a threaded hole where you can insert a tool called a hand cycle wheel. This wheel allows you to slowly cycle through an operation so you can see what's wrong.
posted by caryatid at 8:07 PM on September 28, 2014 [8 favorites]
You would not believe the many places repairing Selectrics could take you - they were everywhere, from Navy bases to newspapers to private homes to farms to hot-air balloon builders'. Then I got a job working on IBM 2741s, because it was easier to train a Selectric tech on the electronics than it was to train an electronic tech on the Selectric mechanics, then my employer bought a minicomputer company and I got trained on those, and then we were acquired by an early satellite communications company and I got trained on those. So I went from fixing typewriters to installing satellite earth stations in the course of about ten years.
I loved Selectrics. They were so intricate and so elegant. Regarding the slo-mo Selectric: at the right end of the operations shaft (that's the one on the right, which controls the backspace, space, and shift) is a threaded hole where you can insert a tool called a hand cycle wheel. This wheel allows you to slowly cycle through an operation so you can see what's wrong.
posted by caryatid at 8:07 PM on September 28, 2014 [8 favorites]
I still have my hand cycle wheel. (Lord knows why...maybe some day I'll need a left-handed thread for something)
I was looking for a jpg of one yesterday; couldn't find one, but I had always called it a cycle shaft tool. (I was not factory-trained, just field trained on the 1052)
Using the proper name, it shows up on the first picture on Google Images, but the link doesn't get me to a better picture.
Maybe I should sell it on eBay- there don't appear to be any there right now.
posted by MtDewd at 4:51 AM on September 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
I was looking for a jpg of one yesterday; couldn't find one, but I had always called it a cycle shaft tool. (I was not factory-trained, just field trained on the 1052)
Using the proper name, it shows up on the first picture on Google Images, but the link doesn't get me to a better picture.
Maybe I should sell it on eBay- there don't appear to be any there right now.
posted by MtDewd at 4:51 AM on September 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
MtDewd, I still have my IBM-issued grease gun, springhooks, assorted other tools, and a box of Selectric parts, including tilt and rotate tapes and cycle clutch springs. I wouldn't part with the tools, but it looks like there's an eBay market for the parts.
posted by caryatid at 7:51 AM on September 29, 2014
posted by caryatid at 7:51 AM on September 29, 2014
the class was taught by an ex-Army typist who bragged that knowing how to type kept him from getting killed in Vietnam
Either this was a common or my Uncle taught you to type. Both he and my Father enlisted in the military, whereupon he, as he puts it, "Said the magic words: 'I can type,'" and spent his time in Germany acquiring an encyclopedic knowledge of beer styles (and occasionally doing some paperwork).
Dad joined the Marines.
posted by Panjandrum at 7:53 AM on September 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
Either this was a common or my Uncle taught you to type. Both he and my Father enlisted in the military, whereupon he, as he puts it, "Said the magic words: 'I can type,'" and spent his time in Germany acquiring an encyclopedic knowledge of beer styles (and occasionally doing some paperwork).
Dad joined the Marines.
posted by Panjandrum at 7:53 AM on September 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
I think the topic of Selectrics draws people in because it represents a wider cultural trend. The Selectric is iconic in shows like Mad Men, as symbols of a professional "women's work" career track. In the early 1970s, my typing classes in junior high school were considered a vocational education track for women and I was discouraged from taking the class. Some jobs like accounting clerks, telephone operators, etc. were almost exclusively working class women. Professional secretaries were the most public-facing job for women that were usually kept away from customers and clients, doing the back-end accounting and paperwork. I keep seeing photos like this 1924 Computing Division or this 1950 IBM 803 Proofing department. Major business sectors like banking hired primarily women to do the basic data processing, which today we would probably classify as Information Technology jobs. And those business sectors grew around the workforce, since you can only implement as much IT as you have a workforce to execute it.
The Selectric was built for a similar class of professional typists. The Selectric was a symbol you were a serious pro, it was expensive enough that only a skilled operator could make it a profitable investment in office equipment. Look at some of the jobs I uncovered in a random 1972 classified ad pulled off Google. The category "Employment Women" includes keypunch operators, stenographers, typists, bookkeepers, payroll clerks, and switchboard operators. But in the column just to the left, IBM 803 operators are listed under "Employment Men-Women." Working as a data processing clerk was the low end for professional men's jobs, and the glass ceiling for most women.
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:51 AM on September 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
The Selectric was built for a similar class of professional typists. The Selectric was a symbol you were a serious pro, it was expensive enough that only a skilled operator could make it a profitable investment in office equipment. Look at some of the jobs I uncovered in a random 1972 classified ad pulled off Google. The category "Employment Women" includes keypunch operators, stenographers, typists, bookkeepers, payroll clerks, and switchboard operators. But in the column just to the left, IBM 803 operators are listed under "Employment Men-Women." Working as a data processing clerk was the low end for professional men's jobs, and the glass ceiling for most women.
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:51 AM on September 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
Hey, my Dad was an Army typist too! He served between Korea and Viet Nam, so it's not as dramatic a story. But coming from a very non-military family, we used to joke that's exactly what you'd expect an intellectual Jew From New Jersey to do in the army. Apparently the southern gentleman who was his commanding officer would say the same thing.
And he was very proud of his typing and his typewriter(s). He never got a Selectric for the home; we got by with a Sears model. But it had a similar powerful feeling. When you turned it on there was the constant thousand bee hum, and it felt like an athlete who had tensed their muscles, ready to launch forward when given the signal. I'd feel bad if I sat in front of it and wasn't pressing keys, wasn't letting the type heads crash against the paper in the platen, as they were so clearly yearning to do.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:04 AM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
And he was very proud of his typing and his typewriter(s). He never got a Selectric for the home; we got by with a Sears model. But it had a similar powerful feeling. When you turned it on there was the constant thousand bee hum, and it felt like an athlete who had tensed their muscles, ready to launch forward when given the signal. I'd feel bad if I sat in front of it and wasn't pressing keys, wasn't letting the type heads crash against the paper in the platen, as they were so clearly yearning to do.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:04 AM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
I have enjoyed myself too much while tracking down the loose ends of early IBM equipment. And IBM rapidly acquired quite a variety of machine manufacturing companies. I managed to track down a Dayton meat slicer, the brass crank is marked The Computing Scale Co. Dayton Ohio USA. This would probably date the slicer to around 1911. Back then, the three divisions, Computiing Scale Co of Dayton, Tabulating Machine Co of Washington DC, and International Time Recording merged into the Computing-Tabulating-Recording holding company. But Computing Scale Co. would still ship products with their brand even under the CTR holding company. CTR would be renamed IBM in 1933.
I also found pics of Dayton meat grinder with a brass IBM logo plate attached. This would date to after 1933 since the IBM brand wouldn't exist until then. So this almost certainly is a model from 1933, a year later IBM sold the business to Hobart. The grinder user said it works like a champ, which is pretty amazing for a 75 year old piece of hardware.
Also I found another interesting video of a Dayton Computing Scale which appears to be missing the computing part, and another Dayton meat slicer (plus a Royal coffee grinder that has no reason to appear in our IBM drama).
It amuses me endlessly to think of early IBM making meat grinders and timecard recorders, cash registers, and other devices that are not so much "business" as "commerce." And IBM made a lot of noncommercial machines too.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:25 PM on September 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
I also found pics of Dayton meat grinder with a brass IBM logo plate attached. This would date to after 1933 since the IBM brand wouldn't exist until then. So this almost certainly is a model from 1933, a year later IBM sold the business to Hobart. The grinder user said it works like a champ, which is pretty amazing for a 75 year old piece of hardware.
Also I found another interesting video of a Dayton Computing Scale which appears to be missing the computing part, and another Dayton meat slicer (plus a Royal coffee grinder that has no reason to appear in our IBM drama).
It amuses me endlessly to think of early IBM making meat grinders and timecard recorders, cash registers, and other devices that are not so much "business" as "commerce." And IBM made a lot of noncommercial machines too.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:25 PM on September 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
All this talk about Selectrics and still no mention about Hunter S. Thompson's Selectric fetish?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:24 PM on October 5, 2014
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:24 PM on October 5, 2014
It's just a prop. HST moved on to shooting up Macs. It is well known that in his later years, he kept a Selectric as a prop in his front room but used a Mac in his office.
posted by charlie don't surf at 1:39 PM on October 6, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by charlie don't surf at 1:39 PM on October 6, 2014 [2 favorites]
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