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Genesis of the “Golfball” Selectric
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- AstroJetson 3y agoIn another lifetime the data center had two of these with the APL ball on them. I started a small business typing thesis papers into the computer then printing them off after swapping out the APL ball. It was a boon to candidates, they could get pages remade as they or their advisor made changes. I was careful to work off hours and if a legit APL user wanted time, I quickly got off. I got caught when one night I left a carton of ribbons behind and the ops manager wondered where they came from.
- xp84 3y agoWhile I was searching for what an “APL ball” was I stumbled upon this page which has TTF don’t of several cool old typewriter faces: https://www.selectricrescue.org/ https://www.selectricrescue.org/
- OldGuyInTheClub 3y agoEngineer Guy has a nice video on the whiffletree mechanism behind the Selectric. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRCNenhcvpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRCNenhcvpw
- fuzzfactor 3y agoI used one of these in college that had come from one of the offices closed as a result of the Nixon Recession. Professors loved it with the crisp print, changeable fonts and symbols when most students were still on manual student model typewriters.
- ggm 3y agoThey were brilliant for cutting reno/gestetner machine carbons. I think it is possible following users hated us for doing this but I may just be mis-remembering because the whole process was filthy. you never did agitprop without coming away covered in ink. (I was using this in my student days in the 1970s/1980s timeframe)
- whartung 3y agoFun little Selectric and tech crossover anecdote. Unlike normal typewriters, the Selectric used a single use film ribbon. The letters typed were visible on the used ribbon. So each used ribbon essentially had a copy of every letter typed on it. Because of this, at a defense contractor I was working for, the ribbons were required to be disposed of in a burn barrel. A burn barrel was a locked barrel where sensitive documents were disposed of so they could be securely destroyed. At the time, working with folks on a presentation for a project on a Macintosh, the question came up on whether a LaserWriter cartridge should be similarly disposed of and destroyed. I think at the time it was decided “no”, though I don’t know today if a remnant image of the last few pages could be recovered from a modern cartridge or not.
- gumby 3y agoThis was a plot element in a Colombo episode.
- rvense 3y agoI've had both Brother and Nakajima typewriters that do this, late models from the 90's. (Which is funny, because one of the things I used my typewriter for was writing down the recovery keys for my password manager. In a darkened room with a white noise generator running, natch.)