Do You Remember the "Selectric" Typewriter?

[bcohen7719]

If yes, and want to see how the heck it worked...

 

BC

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/engineerguyvideo#p/u/14/bRCNenhcvpw

[leigh.bess.toad]

OMG. Thanks so much for that trip down memory lane. I spent several summers working for the S.E.C. as a clerk using the IBM selectric. And it was one of my father's pride and joys, his own selectric.

 

Thanks so much, BC.

[seeker630]

Thanks for the link - I remember how impressive the Selectric was when it was introduced!

[+ Charlie]

I used a Hermes manual when I was in college, but when I needed to type up my senior thesis, which was more than one hundred pages, an old friend who was private secretary to the president of a major corporation offered to type it for me on her new Selectric. My faculty examiners were very impressed with the quality of my presentation.

[Electra 225]

I still have two IBM Selectrics that are in perfect (restored and working) condition. While I don't use them very often, they are still great machines. By the way, I also have two IBM Wheelwriter III's that are also in perfect condition. I use "real" typewriters once in a while for typing labels and for filing in forms and other documents. They are very convenient to have at home and at the office (and the office ones belong to me and no one, I mean NO ONE, is allowed to touch or use them).... The biggest problem is getting ribbons and supplies (I always stock up and have at least a two-year supply on hand now), but I do have a great repair guy (who I am afraid is way past retirement) to keep them going.

[Bosguy]

When I first became the director of the operation I worked at for many years, the company decided to replace the Royal manuals with the new selectrics. My secretary quit because she said things were starting to move too fast. If she could see us now!!!

 

P.S. I only turned 10 when I became director.

 

Bill K.

[+ deej]

I learned to type, as a kid, on mom's old Royal standard typewriter with the huge round keys you needed a running start to hit properly.

 

In high school, I took a typing class to ween myself from the two-finger technique. At the time, we split our time in class between manual typewriters and electric typewriters because prevailing wisdom was that it would be many years before electric typewriters would become common in the workplace.

 

By the time I left college, most offices had electrics and most of them were made by Royal.

 

Selectric changed that. IBM may have invented the electric typewriter (bought the company that did it, actually) but until Selectric they were too expensive for most offices. But once you used a Selectric, you were spoiled for all others. If you started a new job that didn't have a Selectric you'd immediately start lobbying for one.

 

Those were the days!

 

[video=youtube;eB3TuLM-6ys]

[jawjateck]

Ah yes, the good ole days....Through high school and undergrad, my research papers were typed, hunt and peck all the way baby! In the mid/late 80s, desktop pcs were just coming out, but not common at all, and the printers were dot matrix.....yuck! By the early 90s, when I was finishing graduate work, I actually used a PC (286 or 386 maybe) to type my work, and a new fangled thing called a laser printer to print it out. That was cutting edge. HAHA!

[+ deej]

Remember taking a diskette with your word processing documents to Kinko's for laser printing? Remember the disaster days when Everything Came Out Wrong? (Last month I bought a new color laser printer. I spent less than I spent at Kinko's in those days.)

 

That was one distinct advantage of a typewriter over word processing. There was absolutely no guesswork about what the final page would look like when it came out of a Selectric. The words on that page were often a mystery before you started, but hey, that part hasn't changed.

[KMEM]

I still have a Selectric that works although I do not use it any more. When I bought it 34 years ago I thought the $700 I paid for it was a good amount of money.

 

My mom taught me to type on her manual Royal. She made a cover out of an old sheet that draped around my neck and then covered the keyboard. I asked and she provided, like all good mothers should.

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[uwsman2]

This brings back memories. Although I'm old enough to have learned typing on a manual typewriter, I used Selectrics in college and law school and on my first job.

[orbital sander]

I also have a Selectric II, and I do use it from time to time. I got it for free, but had to put $300.00 in it to restore it. I was surprised to find a shop that would do it. Surprisingly, you can still buy new ribbons and parts to work on the things. The guy who did the work had hundreds of them in the back area of his shop. He was hard core for sure.

[+ friendofsheila]

I got into the work world about the time that computers were taking over, but we still kept Selectrics around for the stuff we couldn't do on the printer. And Selectrics performed beautifully and seemed to last. I'm sorry there's not many left.

 

Who knew such a topic would get so many responses!

[OneFinger]

I'm one of those old enough to remember typewriters BEFORE they had electricity. But the Selectric is still one of the best typewriters ever made.

 

While serving in the military (aboard a nuclear submarine), I actually used a "mag card" machine. This was a Selectric typewriter that had a magnetic card reader / writer attached to it. Basically, you'd insert a mag card into the machine and it would record all your Selectric keystrokes. You could then play back and edit your typing.

 

At the time it was amazing technology and wasthe forerunner of the first word processors.

[leigh.bess.toad]

But today I've discovered I think that the Selectric may be generational. I was talking to my personal trainer about the great video BC shared at the start of the thread about how the Selectric worked. He is a bright 31 year old guy. I might as well have been talking about how to use a buggy whip. He had no idea what a Selectric was. Damn, did I feel old. Of course the fact that I am old certainly compounded that feeling.

[+ deej]

Those of us who remember typewriters, much less Selectrics, are definitely in the dinosaur category.

 

Oddly, one of the most common online questions in Microsoft Word support forums is how to use Word to fill out a paper form. (Answer: if it isn't something you do over and over again use a pen!)

 

The usefulness of the typewriter hasn't gone away. We just don't have them any more.

[Ivan]

Those of us who remember typewriters, much less Selectrics, are definitely in the dinosaur category.

During introductions or discussions at professional meetings, sometimes I mention that I remember when the latest technology was a Selectric typewriter -- the young'uns don't have a clue, and the old geezers and geezerettes with white hair like me chuckle. I also sometimes mention that the first computer-printed book (about 200 pages) I produced used paper tape as a text input, the tape being produced by a key punch operator on a comptometer working from my typed pages, and that the computer ran overnight to process the tape to produce the file for the publisher. And you needed to proofread everything -- no spell or grammar check (most young'uns don't understand proofreading, either).

 

Oddly, one of the most common online questions in Microsoft Word support forums is how to use Word to fill out a paper form. (Answer: if it isn't something you do over and over again use a pen!)

When desktop publishing was still in its infancy, an intern and I struggled to get a graphic into the Word file so that we could print a master file for photocopying. Finally, I printed out the file and took out the page with the missing graphic, substituting a page with a photocopy of the graphic pasted onto it, and we sent the pages to be photocopied for distribution. The intern thought it was sacrilegious, not having the graphic in the file -- she was too young to know that the "cut" and "paste" commands actually referred to things we did with layouts on paper before computers. I tried to explain the old process to her, and she looked at me with a quizzical, you-must-be-kidding look.

[+ deej]

Oh, that's a blast from the past. Yeah, been there, done that. I still have an Xacto knife in my desk drawer for those days.

 

Back "in the day" I used to print to disk and take the resulting file to a service bureau for output on their hi-resolution Linotronic machine.

 

I showed up one morning to pick up the job and there were notes to please call the Linotronic operators. My print job had somehow crashed their expensive machine and they wanted to know what I'd done!

 

There are times when the old way works best.

[KMEM]

Speaking of "old timey" machines or divices, anyone remember or use a Telex? The "real" old ones required the operator to prepare a paper tape which was punched with holes, then fed into the machine when it was "on line" with the recipient's machine. Newer ones (only 35 years old or so) had a memory vs. tapes. You still prepared the message and sent it all at once when connected with the recipient.

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[gp0560]

Anyone here ever verify an IBM punch card? Use a green card (even if it was buff)?

[+ deej]

I did have to use a Telex machine for a time. It was a gift from heaven when those newfangled facsimile machines became available.

 

I was corresponding with customers in Central America and our Telex operator didn't speak a word of Spanish. The typos she'd introduce in my carefully composed telex messages would put today's autocorrect examples to shame.

 

http://damnyouautocorrect.com/

[+ Charlie]

OK, all you communication geezers, I'll go you one better. When I was a schoolkid, the newest writing technology was---the ballpoint pen. When they first became available, my teachers wouldn't let us use them, because they said it would make us lazy. So we continued to write with steel-tip pens which we dipped in liquid ink. (Did you ever wonder why old school desks have a round hole in the upper right hand corner? That was where the glass cup full of ink was held.)

[+ deej]

I'm not THAT old. In fourth grade, the "big thing" was the handing out of the "ink pens" -- a fountain pen fueled by an internal plastic ink cartridge. Boy we thought we'd arrived! And every member of the class wore ink smears for the rest of that week because the first thing you learn after learning how to load a pen like that is how to fling ink. It's in the rule book. Look it up.

 

I did spend many years making beer money as a music copyist so I spent a LOT of time dipping a pen in ink (and honing the tip just so). But that, too, is now done on a computer.

[OneFinger]

Speaking of "old timey" machines or divices, anyone remember or use a Telex? The "real" old ones required the operator to prepare a paper tape which was punched with holes, then fed into the machine when it was "on line" with the recipient's machine...

I used a Telex for a couple of years. When I moved on to another company, they treated me like a king when they found out I could use a Telex.

 

Boy, that brings back a lot of memories.