3 ms·
I love the crazy design of the rotating ball mechanism of theses things. For it to be able to do complex typesetting without the appearance of mono spacing is r
by drzaiusx11 5mo ago
I love the crazy design of the rotating ball mechanism of theses things. For it to be able to do complex typesetting without the appearance of mono spacing is really cool. Normally you would need a printing press for it to look this good back then. Naturally it's all solved via software now, but purely mechanical implementations are endlessly fascinating to me.
To see it in action:
https://youtube.com/shorts/D5d_L37Gd8A https://youtube.com/shorts/D5d_L37Gd8A
- TacticalCoder 5mo agoThese "golf balls" are amazing: I found a NIB set (New In Box) of a few of them on a garage sale a few years ago. Bought it immediately: it's one of the geekiest thing I own. I sadly (or thankfully, wife-acceptance-factor would be low) don't have the typewriter to go with it. I've got fond memories, as a child, of my father at home typing on an IBM Selectric typewriter while smoking cigarette after cigarette. Good memories.
- orbital-decay 5mo agoWasn't this used decades before Selectric? The Blickensderfer typewriter, for example. I wonder why single-element designs vanished for a long time.
- drzaiusx11 5mo agoI wouldn't claim that the Bliensderfer's "barrel" design is the same as the "golf ball" of IBMs, but as with all things nothing is created in a vacuum; the IBM Selectric is an incremental improvement. It's like saying an Palm Pilot is the same as an iPhone.