5 ms·

Comic Sans typeball designed to work with the IBM Selectric typewriters

160 points by Sami_Lehtinen 1y ago

fitsumbelay 1y ago
This is very cool Had just recently looked up IBM Selectric typeballs and the possibility of 3D print custom ones but did not expect so many active projects around it. Pretty nice time for nostalgic tinkerers to be alive ...
thrownawaysz 1y ago
> I have not yet printed and tested this exact model! Sadly that sums up the 3D printable scene perfectly. So many times I’v seen someone creating X for Y but they don’t have Y to test it but “it should work”.
- hulitu 1y ago
  > they don’t have Y to test it but “it should work”. SW development process 101. What are users for ? /s
- BobbyTables2 1y ago
  Works for shipping commercial software! (Slightly /s)
- cluckindan 1y ago
  It’s not far fetched though. With careful design, prints often do work on the first try.
  - bigiain 1y ago
    Sure. And it's given away for free, so complaining feels wrong. But is it _too_ much to ask that they print their tweaked version 2 and test it before publishing it? :sigh:
    - zevon 1y ago
      Why don’t you print and test it and contribute to the documentation? Too much to ask as well? ;)
      - nomoreofthat 1y ago
        He is not the author. The author’s post would still say I’ve never tested this and leave people uncertain about whether it’s actually a viable design. I feel like as a matter of policy or at least convention, people really shouldn’t be uploading models that they haven’t at least printed. It’s disrespectful.
    - numpad0 1y ago
      Published is better than screenshot
  - SideburnsOfDoom 1y ago
    The article says "I tested a previous revision", so this isn't the first go around.
- fainpul 1y ago
  Yeah, feels a bit like "I'm sharing this code I've written here. I haven't tried to compile it yet, but it should work."
  - microtherion 1y ago
    That approach does work for LLMs, though.
- jy14898 1y ago
  Fair enough, but this isn't that case. They have Y (it's in the first photo) and tested a previous version of the model. The changes are predictable (rotating letters and slight scaling) so I don't think it's unreasonable to be confident and not waste plastic.
- mbreese 1y ago
  Amazingly, I think you’re right, but not for (negative) the reasons you state. I see the 3D printing scene a remix culture where you’re supposed to try new things. If you want something to work exactly for your situation, you might have to do a little work yourself. In this case, here we have an idea of making new typeballs for IBM typewriters. Here is one post where someone is playing with the idea. At the top of the page, there is a link to a GitHub page for you to adapt it as you see fit. But then there’s also a link to a new page: https://selectricrescue.org/ https://selectricrescue.org/ where someone makes many more varieties, also with code for you to try yourself. I see 3d printing much like the world of early open source coding. Sometimes you get a completed project that works out of the box. But often, you’ll have to tinker and adapt it to your exact hardware. Once a new 3d model is shown to be viable, it can be mixed and matched to make something new!
- alnwlsn 1y ago
  I have, along with some other ones I created from different fonts. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kXnsvYfaF4&t=2160s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kXnsvYfaF4&t=2160s (it was an aside to a longer Selectric project I did; this typeball project came out around the same time so I decided to make a few of them). Watching this back, it partially works but some of the letters clearly need their positions adjusted, and some of them seem to have trouble imprinting fully on the page. That's besides the fact that the proportional fonts look pretty weird when printed monospaced. I didn't really go further with this because the resin printed balls didn't hold up very well. A slot near the hole would always break open, and then the ball would spin freely instead of being indexed like it was supposed to. These days I've pretty much abandoned home resin printing entirely since it is extremely messy, and I've never been able to make parts with it that weren't ridiculously brittle, even with the supposedly "strong" or "tough" resins. I've used commercial resin prints that Shapeways/Xometry/PCBWAY have and they are a lot tougher, so maybe they would work well.
- omoikane 1y ago
  Looks like the same person made a typeball for Cherokee, and that comes with a picture of the printed output: https://www.printables.com/model/441262-cherokee-typeball-for-the-selectric-typewriter https://www.printables.com/model/441262-cherokee-typeball-fo... So maybe Comic Sans (and Wingdings) will work as well.
- djmips 1y ago
  They also link a version that works they say. https://selectricrescue.org/ https://selectricrescue.org/ Also includes Papyrus!
voxadam 1y ago
Bill Hammack (engineerguy) has an excellent video on the IBM Selectric titled IBM Selectric Typewriter & its digital to analogue converter.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRCNenhcvpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRCNenhcvpw
- chiph 1y ago
  One of the Teletypes I used to work on had an eccentric-driven Wiffletree to position the typebox. This was necessary because of it's high speed[0] to decode the ASCII character set (it wasn't a Baudot machine). The selector cam at the end of the machine would do the serial-to-parallel conversion, then clutches would rotate the eccentrics powering the wiffletree to select the character. If you look at the ASCII chart [1] you can select a character via binary tree - the Wiffletree being a mechanical equivalent. [0] For a Teletype [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#/media/File:USASCII_code_chart.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#/media/File:USASCII_code...
limbicsystem 1y ago
[flagged]
hinkley 1y ago
Doing the devil's work.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
henry0119 1y ago
[dead]
timeon 1y ago
Is this still post-modern or is it post-irony already?
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  It's vintage now and gives me warm feelings.
amelius 1y ago
Every key punch will translate into a bunny punch https://topher1kenobe.com/phlog/graphics/bunnypunch.png https://topher1kenobe.com/phlog/graphics/bunnypunch.png
gruntledfangler 1y ago
“You will live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.”
JCM9 1y ago
Don’t approve of the font but do approve of hacking old tech
treetalker 1y ago
Dave Hayden of Austin Selectric Rescue is working on several type elements for the Selectric II: https://selectricrescue.org/ https://selectricrescue.org/ As I understand, the recent IBM Plex Mono face has been requested too.
- mbreese 1y ago
  It’s even the first link on this page. In addition to Comic Sans, he’s also made a font ball for Papyrus! I can’t imagine using any of these (even when typewriters were king), but I love that they exist.
curtisszmania 1y ago
[dead]
lenerdenator 1y ago
[flagged]
- RankingMember 1y ago
  Definitely public typography enemy number one, followed a bit behind by Papyrus
- mhurron 1y ago
  I too irrationally hate incredibly legible typefaces. https://dyslexichelp.org/why-is-comic-sans-good-for-dyslexia/ https://dyslexichelp.org/why-is-comic-sans-good-for-dyslexia...
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    Cyanide and Happiness reference, for graet justis.[0] (maybe not NSFW, but... eh. edgy. it's up to you.) [0] https://explosm.net/comics/dave-comicsans https://explosm.net/comics/dave-comicsans
josefritzishere 1y ago
Is this intended to be offensive?
lupusreal 1y ago
Comic sans is quirky and wholesome. I'm tired of pretending I don't like it.
buildsjets 1y ago
What do you think you’re running from? The disease is inside you! https://achewood.com/2007/07/05/title.html https://achewood.com/2007/07/05/title.html
rbanffy 1y ago
I couldn't resist. https://github.com/rbanffy/3270_type_element https://github.com/rbanffy/3270_type_element Now I need to get myself an IBM Selectric, or make a daisy wheel printer element for my typewriter (which will eventually become a terminal).
ProllyInfamous 1y ago
The problem with this 3D-printed typeball is that without being injection-molded with an extremely durable plastic, it will not make good strike. I suspect it would also be torn apart (separating at the printed layers), beginning with the smaller common characters (e.g. the period/comma would quickly fail). The typeball hits the paper hard and it is under incredible rotational strains. I've recently retired an IBM Selectric II, only because it is so damn finicky! When it is operating it is a fantastic machine, but it definitely needs a full-time technician to service (and they've almost entirely died off at this point, save for Berkeley). I got tired of the pulley creep [which eventually leads to gibberish output], only solved with continued maintenance (parts too fine for my electrician hands, and my nearsight is antiquating rapidly). For my daily drivers, I still love my Smith Corona "Coronet Super 12", which has individual strikes and a powerful motor (for all your latenight raging / brainstorming). Can't [easily] change the font, though (which is why I have multiple S-C models). ¢¢
- Doxin 1y ago
  > without being injection-molded with an extremely durable plastic, it will not make good strike. I wonder how true that actually is. A properly 3d printed ABS part isn't really much if any less durable than an injection molded part. It's mostly just worse with respect to feature resolution.
  - ProllyInfamous 1y ago
    >Mostly just worse with respect to feature resolution. Inclusive to my injection-molded comment, but could be mitigated (e.g.) with an acetone bath (to "smooth" the layers/resolution). The stress fractures will most-definitely grow parallel to the layers, though... watch a Selectric's mechanism (rotational; linear; impact), in slow motion: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/RTtKaqIpOJc https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/RTtKaqIpOJc https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/izZ02t2UEGc https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/izZ02t2UEGc https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/1ctlRduNCn4 https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/1ctlRduNCn4
    - 1y ago

160 points by Sami_Lehtinen 1y ago

This is very cool Had just recently looked up IBM Selectric typeballs and the possibility of 3D print custom ones but did not expect so many active projects around it. Pretty nice time for nostalgic tinkerers to be alive ...

thrownawaysz 1y ago

> I have not yet printed and tested this exact model! Sadly that sums up the 3D printable scene perfectly. So many times I’v seen someone creating X for Y but they don’t have Y to test it but “it should work”.

hulitu 1y ago
> they don’t have Y to test it but “it should work”. SW development process 101. What are users for ? /s
BobbyTables2 1y ago
Works for shipping commercial software! (Slightly /s)
cluckindan 1y ago
It’s not far fetched though. With careful design, prints often do work on the first try.
- bigiain 1y ago
  Sure. And it's given away for free, so complaining feels wrong. But is it _too_ much to ask that they print their tweaked version 2 and test it before publishing it? :sigh:
  - zevon 1y ago
    Why don’t you print and test it and contribute to the documentation? Too much to ask as well? ;)
    - nomoreofthat 1y ago
      He is not the author. The author’s post would still say I’ve never tested this and leave people uncertain about whether it’s actually a viable design. I feel like as a matter of policy or at least convention, people really shouldn’t be uploading models that they haven’t at least printed. It’s disrespectful.
  - numpad0 1y ago
    Published is better than screenshot
- SideburnsOfDoom 1y ago
  The article says "I tested a previous revision", so this isn't the first go around.
fainpul 1y ago
Yeah, feels a bit like "I'm sharing this code I've written here. I haven't tried to compile it yet, but it should work."
- microtherion 1y ago
  That approach does work for LLMs, though.
jy14898 1y ago
Fair enough, but this isn't that case. They have Y (it's in the first photo) and tested a previous version of the model. The changes are predictable (rotating letters and slight scaling) so I don't think it's unreasonable to be confident and not waste plastic.
mbreese 1y ago
Amazingly, I think you’re right, but not for (negative) the reasons you state. I see the 3D printing scene a remix culture where you’re supposed to try new things. If you want something to work exactly for your situation, you might have to do a little work yourself. In this case, here we have an idea of making new typeballs for IBM typewriters. Here is one post where someone is playing with the idea. At the top of the page, there is a link to a GitHub page for you to adapt it as you see fit. But then there’s also a link to a new page: https://selectricrescue.org/ https://selectricrescue.org/ where someone makes many more varieties, also with code for you to try yourself. I see 3d printing much like the world of early open source coding. Sometimes you get a completed project that works out of the box. But often, you’ll have to tinker and adapt it to your exact hardware. Once a new 3d model is shown to be viable, it can be mixed and matched to make something new!
alnwlsn 1y ago
I have, along with some other ones I created from different fonts. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kXnsvYfaF4&t=2160s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kXnsvYfaF4&t=2160s (it was an aside to a longer Selectric project I did; this typeball project came out around the same time so I decided to make a few of them). Watching this back, it partially works but some of the letters clearly need their positions adjusted, and some of them seem to have trouble imprinting fully on the page. That's besides the fact that the proportional fonts look pretty weird when printed monospaced. I didn't really go further with this because the resin printed balls didn't hold up very well. A slot near the hole would always break open, and then the ball would spin freely instead of being indexed like it was supposed to. These days I've pretty much abandoned home resin printing entirely since it is extremely messy, and I've never been able to make parts with it that weren't ridiculously brittle, even with the supposedly "strong" or "tough" resins. I've used commercial resin prints that Shapeways/Xometry/PCBWAY have and they are a lot tougher, so maybe they would work well.
omoikane 1y ago
Looks like the same person made a typeball for Cherokee, and that comes with a picture of the printed output: https://www.printables.com/model/441262-cherokee-typeball-for-the-selectric-typewriter https://www.printables.com/model/441262-cherokee-typeball-fo... So maybe Comic Sans (and Wingdings) will work as well.
djmips 1y ago
They also link a version that works they say. https://selectricrescue.org/ https://selectricrescue.org/ Also includes Papyrus!

voxadam 1y ago

Bill Hammack (engineerguy) has an excellent video on the IBM Selectric titled IBM Selectric Typewriter & its digital to analogue converter.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRCNenhcvpw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRCNenhcvpw

chiph 1y ago
One of the Teletypes I used to work on had an eccentric-driven Wiffletree to position the typebox. This was necessary because of it's high speed[0] to decode the ASCII character set (it wasn't a Baudot machine). The selector cam at the end of the machine would do the serial-to-parallel conversion, then clutches would rotate the eccentrics powering the wiffletree to select the character. If you look at the ASCII chart [1] you can select a character via binary tree - the Wiffletree being a mechanical equivalent. [0] For a Teletype [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#/media/File:USASCII_code_chart.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#/media/File:USASCII_code...

limbicsystem 1y ago

[flagged]

hinkley 1y ago

Doing the devil's work.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

henry0119 1y ago

[dead]

timeon 1y ago

Is this still post-modern or is it post-irony already?

JKCalhoun 1y ago
It's vintage now and gives me warm feelings.

amelius 1y ago

Every key punch will translate into a bunny punch https://topher1kenobe.com/phlog/graphics/bunnypunch.png https://topher1kenobe.com/phlog/graphics/bunnypunch.png

gruntledfangler 1y ago

“You will live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.”

JCM9 1y ago

Don’t approve of the font but do approve of hacking old tech

treetalker 1y ago

Dave Hayden of Austin Selectric Rescue is working on several type elements for the Selectric II: https://selectricrescue.org/ https://selectricrescue.org/ As I understand, the recent IBM Plex Mono face has been requested too.

mbreese 1y ago
It’s even the first link on this page. In addition to Comic Sans, he’s also made a font ball for Papyrus! I can’t imagine using any of these (even when typewriters were king), but I love that they exist.

curtisszmania 1y ago

[dead]

lenerdenator 1y ago

[flagged]

RankingMember 1y ago
Definitely public typography enemy number one, followed a bit behind by Papyrus
mhurron 1y ago
I too irrationally hate incredibly legible typefaces. https://dyslexichelp.org/why-is-comic-sans-good-for-dyslexia/ https://dyslexichelp.org/why-is-comic-sans-good-for-dyslexia...
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  Cyanide and Happiness reference, for graet justis.[0] (maybe not NSFW, but... eh. edgy. it's up to you.) [0] https://explosm.net/comics/dave-comicsans https://explosm.net/comics/dave-comicsans

josefritzishere 1y ago

Is this intended to be offensive?

lupusreal 1y ago

Comic sans is quirky and wholesome. I'm tired of pretending I don't like it.

buildsjets 1y ago

What do you think you’re running from? The disease is inside you! https://achewood.com/2007/07/05/title.html https://achewood.com/2007/07/05/title.html

rbanffy 1y ago

I couldn't resist. https://github.com/rbanffy/3270_type_element https://github.com/rbanffy/3270_type_element Now I need to get myself an IBM Selectric, or make a daisy wheel printer element for my typewriter (which will eventually become a terminal).

ProllyInfamous 1y ago

The problem with this 3D-printed typeball is that without being injection-molded with an extremely durable plastic, it will not make good strike. I suspect it would also be torn apart (separating at the printed layers), beginning with the smaller common characters (e.g. the period/comma would quickly fail). The typeball hits the paper hard and it is under incredible rotational strains. I've recently retired an IBM Selectric II, only because it is so damn finicky! When it is operating it is a fantastic machine, but it definitely needs a full-time technician to service (and they've almost entirely died off at this point, save for Berkeley). I got tired of the pulley creep [which eventually leads to gibberish output], only solved with continued maintenance (parts too fine for my electrician hands, and my nearsight is antiquating rapidly). For my daily drivers, I still love my Smith Corona "Coronet Super 12", which has individual strikes and a powerful motor (for all your latenight raging / brainstorming). Can't [easily] change the font, though (which is why I have multiple S-C models). ¢¢

Doxin 1y ago
> without being injection-molded with an extremely durable plastic, it will not make good strike. I wonder how true that actually is. A properly 3d printed ABS part isn't really much if any less durable than an injection molded part. It's mostly just worse with respect to feature resolution.
- ProllyInfamous 1y ago
  >Mostly just worse with respect to feature resolution. Inclusive to my injection-molded comment, but could be mitigated (e.g.) with an acetone bath (to "smooth" the layers/resolution). The stress fractures will most-definitely grow parallel to the layers, though... watch a Selectric's mechanism (rotational; linear; impact), in slow motion: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/RTtKaqIpOJc https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/RTtKaqIpOJc https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/izZ02t2UEGc https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/izZ02t2UEGc https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/1ctlRduNCn4 https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/1ctlRduNCn4
  - 1y ago