Does anyone know for sure what model typewriter was used....

to type those Bush memos?

as long as it was on CBS - it must be true!

Good question...we have amassed every shred of info on typewriters in general...which proves nothing. It would help tremendously if some of these experts could find a tell-tale sign that would give evidence to the make and model of typewriter...

I've got a typewriter in my basement from the iron age. Surely someone's got a Selectric around somewhere; they were the PC of their day, man! (I've got five computers in the basement, too).

So, get it out, type the Killian memo and mail it off to Brit Hume and the others.

By the way, when the forgery buzz is completely debunked, will we get ANYTHING from the media? Guess.

All would produce different results...

How do you know it was a "Selectric"???

that NG units would have the Selectric II typewriter since they primarily typed forms. I would guess that 90% percent of the typing done was on preprinted forms and it would have been a boon to be able to fit text to the space allowed. While one thinks in terms of classy looking letters, the ability to shift pitch to make forms more legible makes the use of Selectric II's for military purposes sound perfectly reasonable.

Speculation 100%

evidence. I'm only responding to the speculation that an NG unit would not have a "fancy" typewriter. I'm listening to a local Los Angeles AM radio station (morning drivetime) with host Ken Minyard, one of the few moderate voices in our mostly RW talk radio diet. They have been beating this around all morning and have yet to mention the content of the memos, only the forgery angle. The main thrust seems to be whether or not Dan Rather will have egg on his face.

The font in teh documents IS NOT the same as Times New Roman from MS Word.

THERE IS A FACT!

I dont need any facts...I'm just commenting on the current line of thinking...which is based on endless speculation...

and featured proportional spacing. It was the typewriter of choice in offices at that time. I know, I was doing temp jobs that used them.

The right wing debunkers are all ASSuming that a mechanical typewriter had been used. The only places you could still find those suckers were in small businesses, home offices, and dorm rooms, and even they had pretty much all made the switch to electrics by the early 70s.

Electric typewriters had been out since 1935 and didn't have to be purchased new.

Save your breath until you have some...

.. they were, before they added memory, the last innovation in typewriters. They are the standard by which other typewriters were made, after them. Each keystroke was as smooth as the next, it was not a matter of pressure....

I can't believe how fucking ridiculous this is... ACTUAL memos, with detais NO ONE could know, except those there at the time, are being pushed as forgeries. Fuck Karl Rove, piece of shit. Kerry's records show that he was a war hero, but that wasn't good enough, they had to trot out the Bush donors to question his records. Now, documents have surfaced to show what a loser and coward Bush was in the Guard, and his documents are forgeries?

This is a smokescreen to divert attention away from the REAL issue, which is NOT in the disupted MEMOS!! It's IN his actual records, which show that he DID NOT complete his training and his committment... regardless of the "CYA" memo. These bastards are shameless and will do ANYTHING to win control again. Did we really think they would go for a fair fight? Do we really believe that when Kerry wins, they will walk away without a million legal challenges. They cannot give up power.. they will not.. they will do anything.

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I can't tell the difference from the endless speculation here...and the endless speculation at FR...niether have any facts...both have their minds made up.

It's pretty obvious to everyone that Mr. Starr practices a "beleive it first - then prove it." approach to scandal mongering. Or did I miss the national headlines about Mr. Starrs hard hitting "Bush Medals" story...?

And go back to the Abu Grabib thread - I never said anything about the pictures being fakes...I quesitoned the usefulness of one persons screen captures of a television broadcast. Sceen captures that - overnight - had been turned into "evidence"

Can you???

That's not the same one.

Do they have word-wrap? Or did they in the 1970s?

That's the one thing that bothers me. Supposedly if you type the contents into MS Word, it word-wraps at the same exact places that the document does. How likely is it that the author would have hit "return" at precisely those locations?

indicating that you should hit the return key. The common practice for a typist is to finish the current word when they hear that bell, then hit return.

Given the same margins, a word wrap would occur at the same point as the bell would ring.

Simple enough.

Exactly - they typist would finish the word...(after the bell) - the computer would not. The computer will put the word on the next line...

The bell would sound on the word the typist was typing close to the end. The word processor would allow the typist to begin the next word, then move it to the next line if it is too long.

Word Processors have no bell.

The bell could ring mid-word...on a space...

if it rang mid word...the secretary would likley finish the word on that line...the bell was just a warning...it didn't force anyone to do anything...

Word wrap is automatic - you cant override it...

Question for Secretaries: Was it common practice to ignore the bell mid-word or if you only had one short word left in a sentence (like "it")???

What you are asking has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the documents at hand.

You are now officially building a strawman.

I always tried to get in as much of a word as i could
either that or you had to hyphenate the word like i as-
sume that no one really wanted to hyphenate anything,
but you would have to. yes decisions made on every line.

You are proving my point...humans would do things that computers would not...there is no bell on word processors...the computer thinks for you...

I think some of these documents should show evidence of human hand...?

Have you ever used a typewriter? The bell would ring a certain number of characters to the left of the margin. The allowed the typist to complete the current word without going past the margin. You are talking about word-wrapping at the margin, which is what word processors do. Those are two completely different issues.

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It has been said that, these documents are justified as if they were done on MS-Word...and the spacing is consisitient with that premise...

Can you guys point to ANY human type of error that would testify to their authenticity???

I'm really trying to help...your argument is weak...

Don't you get it it??? - a human error would weaken the claims that the documents are fake...

Just cuz I'm not on the bandwagon - doesn't mean I'm against you guys...


+edited for clarity+

of the word. If it is a long word, it will carry it to the next line, if not, it will finish it on the current line, it will NOT just take the word to the next line.

I was a paralegal for 8 years and did word-processing for a while before that (before finally moving on to IT work). I'd say I have a pretty clear understanding of how both typewriters and computers handle text at the end of a line.

Pretty sure it would be a human decision...?

will hit return as soon as they finish the current word after hearing the bell ring.

The bell typically rings 5 characters (this is adjustable) before you hit the margin. (5 characters because that's the average word length, in fact, on old typing speed tests, a word is counted as 5 characters, not as an actual word).

Look: the typeface in the memo, if it were produced by a computer, would obviously match the font on numerous right-wing-nut-job computers and it would be all over the blogosphere.

Some say it is Times Roman. But I understand that it is not.

So, if you can't find the typeface in your font library -- or anyone elses-- how could it be a forgery?

Like I said, look in the basement, for there the answer lies on one of those little balls.

Electric Pencil - a 2 k program written in 1976 did word wrap on the first TRS-80 Model one which just had a keyboard (no CPU box)

At major Financial Inst of the time the execs all had "composers" - often called "mag" word processors.

Besides word wrap just codified in a computer what ones Secr. was doing since the 40's.

They had "typists".

You know that "Enter" key on your PC? Have you ever wondered about that phrase "now hit Return" found in so much documentation? In the days of manual typewriters, you hit a lever on the carriage to begin typing on the next line.

Electronic typewriters replaced the carriage return with a key that fulfilled the same function. A bell "dinged" to notify you the margin you had set was approaching. Screw up the format on a few documents, retype them from the beginning, and you started getting seroius about learning how to format. Word processing software--first on standalones, later on PC's--mimicked the practices of good typists. So the format would be quite similar.

The IBM Executive typewriter I used in the early 70's had proportional spacing. How many of these "analysts" have personal experience with typewriters & early word processing equipment? In those days, it was largely a female field. In fact, some "professional" women of my age prided themselves on lack of typing skills--it proved they were a cut above the chicks in the typing pool.

And stated more clearly than I put it. Thanks.

Good info. Thanks.

One follow-up: wouldn't the margins on the typewriter have to be the same as those in a word processor? Would that also be reasonably likely?

Humans would tend to "cheat"...Secretaries would put a extra word on a line so the whole sentence would fit, or not look funny...Computers would not...

a short word to break the margin if desired. It was the typists choice to hit return or margin break for just that sentence.

As you can tell I still suck at typing.

Don't worry about anything having to do with formatting -- proportional spacing, alignments, centering, etc..

Try to find this type face in an actual TYPED sample.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml

All that matters is basic letter shapes. (Proportion and weight and shapes of strokes cannot be determined from degraded xeroxes. Only the most basic letter forms can.)

We want an IBM type ball face that looks like the memos The face must have a closed top 4 with no foot serif and a 3 with a rounded top (not a flat top)

that you could change out to get the font you wanted. My memory isn't good enough to say much more than that. But I remember how excited we all were when we finally got one of those great new electronic typewriters! Man, it even had an erase key that lifted off the error!

Thats one of the reasons you would have such a hard time trying to find exactly what kind of typewriter that was used. You would have to determine which # ball was used.

1) typed on a typewriter, and
2) in a type face that matches the memos, including the numbers

Selectrics and the subsequent series had elements that could be changed from machine to machine. A quick flip of the cap and it came off. Most Selectrics came with two elements, a Times Roman and a Courier. There were many other styles.

The machine serial number that IBM gave it, AND the base recieving area pasted to the bottom, is somewhere. That is how you will find it. The Base serial number will place it in an office, if not a specific desk.

Unlikely, but not unheard of.

Another possible avenue of exploration.

His "personal file" - what the heck is that?

Sounds like stuff he kept at home - just for fun - that had nothing to do with official military records...so he probably did have his own typewriter...

even with my IBM discount. But there is a very good possiblity he had one.

Again, the only way to find out is to find the serial number records of Selectrics at the base, and compare them with the IBM records. The penalty for not reporting a serial number after installation THAT DAY was instant dismissal. Harsh for IBM standards, but they did not fuck around with things like that.

If he had a personal one, IBM would have the serial number and probably the person who came and took it out of the box.

The practice was that the Selectrics were delivered to the client, and then me, an IBM newbie would go to the account and "install" it. They were bolted by wingnuts to a very hard base in the box, and had explicit instruction that the client not open the box, until the IBM representative came. The vast majority of people complied with this.

I would do this all day, and all Selectrics have a serial number, that was recorded and taken back to be recorded at the branch office.

All military Selectrics were in my experience taken out of the box, ignoring the IBM instructions not to do so. This was because at the recieving area, the military would attach a small metal plate to keep track of it.

All someone would have to do is find the record of the Selectrics at that base, and compare them to the IBM list.

I highly doubt a Composer was delivered to a base at that time. Composers were quite pricey and in my experience the Government agencies did not get anything but the Selectrics. Only later did they even get the Selectric II that had the white-out tape.

Or the FBI. Just grab a ball with a superscript on a model of typewriter that can adjust the spacing of words. Prove that both the model typewriter and ball were made pre-1972. Then prove that the TANG or the writer had that type of typewriter.

This will all come out as a sneaky plan by the shit-eaters.

instead of an electroin scanned copy you pulled off the internet.

:eyes:

10:1 says more documents are fothcoming and they will be unimpeachable.

The real document will have impressions from the typewriter. The ink can be checked. The signature can be examined.

All things will prove to be true.