4 ms·

The Exciting History of Carbon Paper! (1995)

14 points by susam 3y ago

tpetricek 3y ago
Carbon paper was also a key part of Samizdat production in the Eastern bloc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat (which is why my family still has piles of it in the attic somewhere...)
neilv 3y ago
> NCR is ideal for business forms produced in large quantities, but is not economical for small applications. Consequently, it has yet to replace carbon paper completely. There were also "carbon-less" multipart paper/forms that were economical for low-volume business use. Most common I recall: 8.5x11" blank tractor-fed computer paper, two layers of paper, "invisible" perforations for tearing away the tractor hole parts from the sides, which also held together 2 sheets of paper with with a coating that transferred impact to the front sheet to also mark the rear one. Could be used with even an inexpensive 9-pin home-grade printer. But shortly after you got computers in the loop, unless the business process really needed multiple copies of paper coming out at the same time, it was probably better to just use the flexibility of the computer. Example: if you're printing an invoice for a customer, from the computer, you can access that data and reproduce that invoice at any time, so don't need to generate more paper waste and handling cost with more expensive carbon/carbonless forms. Computers were phased into business processes, even when everywhere used a computer to some extent, which extended the life of carbon paper. When I worked as a young teen for a computer retailer&wholesaler, the polymath owner whipped up a bespoke multi-user system for invoices/quotes, inventory tracking, and customer database, which ran on a Seattle Computer Gazelle. But we shipped several UPS packages a day, which wasn't volume enough to justify computer integration with UPS. So, every day, I did the shipping packing and paperwork (precious time away from sales floor commissions), and I had to painstakingly hand-write all the info (address, COD, insurance, etc.). Into the tiny little lines of a page of the book, pressing hard enough to get a legible carbon copy that we'd retain. I'd also have to hand-write any additional stick-on forms (COD, overnight, insurance maybe, etc.), and then tear off the top carbon sheet from the book, and hand it to the UPS driver when they arrived. From there, there'd be a mix of computerization and manual paper processes, including part of the Cash On Delivery tag physically being torn off as a record, when the UPS driver received a check from package recipient and handed over the package. Carbon paper served its purpose at the time, but I'm glad it's all but dead. I still occasionally use paper. For example, last week, to hand over a printout of a confirmation Web page for an in-person event, since the previous time it took them 5 minutes of asking me information and looking it up in their computer. (To show them on my phone instead, I would've had to be sure to have the same information accessible on my phone, and handed over my phone, and it wouldn't be as legible to them, and they'd get their cooties on my phone, if they didn't drop, steal it, or start snooping on it. The paper just got propped agains their keyboard and side of monitor, as they typed in.)
crq-yml 3y ago
The specific thing of "copy the imprinted marks" can be constructed by hand by scrubbing the back of ordinary paper with soft graphite, and this is something still done by artists using traditional workflows. It's helpful when working with tracing paper as a way to iterate on a drawing and to copy it over to an unspoiled final surface.
hnbear 3y ago
Similar old copying technology, I remember in school we had one teacher who insisted on using a spirit duplicator he’d kept. It was pretty awful quality, but kept him happy. He could write out a test then hand crank off 20 copies in a minute or two. All in beautifully faded purple ink and smelling like spirits. The school had plenty of proper photocopiers, this was early to mid 90s. He just liked his old machine from the 60s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator
- euroderf 3y ago
  Ditto machines were the duplication workhorse in the 1960s. Keeping one running that long must have def been a labor of love. Did he get high off the fumes ?
  - hnbear 3y ago
    Well that and I know other students who enjoyed either drinking or peeing into the spare chemical bottles to see what would happen. His room smelled heavily of the fumes, so a couple of decades of teaching must have some something to him.

14 points by susam 3y ago

Carbon paper was also a key part of Samizdat production in the Eastern bloc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat (which is why my family still has piles of it in the attic somewhere...)

neilv 3y ago

> NCR is ideal for business forms produced in large quantities, but is not economical for small applications. Consequently, it has yet to replace carbon paper completely. There were also "carbon-less" multipart paper/forms that were economical for low-volume business use. Most common I recall: 8.5x11" blank tractor-fed computer paper, two layers of paper, "invisible" perforations for tearing away the tractor hole parts from the sides, which also held together 2 sheets of paper with with a coating that transferred impact to the front sheet to also mark the rear one. Could be used with even an inexpensive 9-pin home-grade printer. But shortly after you got computers in the loop, unless the business process really needed multiple copies of paper coming out at the same time, it was probably better to just use the flexibility of the computer. Example: if you're printing an invoice for a customer, from the computer, you can access that data and reproduce that invoice at any time, so don't need to generate more paper waste and handling cost with more expensive carbon/carbonless forms. Computers were phased into business processes, even when everywhere used a computer to some extent, which extended the life of carbon paper. When I worked as a young teen for a computer retailer&wholesaler, the polymath owner whipped up a bespoke multi-user system for invoices/quotes, inventory tracking, and customer database, which ran on a Seattle Computer Gazelle. But we shipped several UPS packages a day, which wasn't volume enough to justify computer integration with UPS. So, every day, I did the shipping packing and paperwork (precious time away from sales floor commissions), and I had to painstakingly hand-write all the info (address, COD, insurance, etc.). Into the tiny little lines of a page of the book, pressing hard enough to get a legible carbon copy that we'd retain. I'd also have to hand-write any additional stick-on forms (COD, overnight, insurance maybe, etc.), and then tear off the top carbon sheet from the book, and hand it to the UPS driver when they arrived. From there, there'd be a mix of computerization and manual paper processes, including part of the Cash On Delivery tag physically being torn off as a record, when the UPS driver received a check from package recipient and handed over the package. Carbon paper served its purpose at the time, but I'm glad it's all but dead. I still occasionally use paper. For example, last week, to hand over a printout of a confirmation Web page for an in-person event, since the previous time it took them 5 minutes of asking me information and looking it up in their computer. (To show them on my phone instead, I would've had to be sure to have the same information accessible on my phone, and handed over my phone, and it wouldn't be as legible to them, and they'd get their cooties on my phone, if they didn't drop, steal it, or start snooping on it. The paper just got propped agains their keyboard and side of monitor, as they typed in.)

crq-yml 3y ago

The specific thing of "copy the imprinted marks" can be constructed by hand by scrubbing the back of ordinary paper with soft graphite, and this is something still done by artists using traditional workflows. It's helpful when working with tracing paper as a way to iterate on a drawing and to copy it over to an unspoiled final surface.

hnbear 3y ago

Similar old copying technology, I remember in school we had one teacher who insisted on using a spirit duplicator he’d kept. It was pretty awful quality, but kept him happy. He could write out a test then hand crank off 20 copies in a minute or two. All in beautifully faded purple ink and smelling like spirits. The school had plenty of proper photocopiers, this was early to mid 90s. He just liked his old machine from the 60s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator

euroderf 3y ago
Ditto machines were the duplication workhorse in the 1960s. Keeping one running that long must have def been a labor of love. Did he get high off the fumes ?
- hnbear 3y ago
  Well that and I know other students who enjoyed either drinking or peeing into the spare chemical bottles to see what would happen. His room smelled heavily of the fumes, so a couple of decades of teaching must have some something to him.