IBM Selectric - 50 Years Old

It was introduced on July 31, 1961. (I am tempted to ask, "Where's the long form?" but it would only get people riled up.)

Say, how did they get that typeball positioned just where they wanted it to be?

Video: The IBM Selectric Typewriter & its mechanical digital to analogue converter

(Link to that video)

If you've ever opened one up, you were surely amazed at how complex it is. I've rebuilt an automatic transmission, and I think a Selectric is more complex.

This site looks promising: It’s Selectric! IBM’s Classic Typewriter Turns Fifty

And pictures: Happy Fiftieth Birthday, IBM Selectric

a sure A, a quick credit, and the ladies!

when he couldn't get parts for his any more. :)

There are some things you just can't do with a computer and a printer.

before I ran into my first electric, it took a lot getting used to with not having to mash down so hard on the keys.

Geez, makes me feel old old old. I typed many forms/documents/letters/reports/grant proposals, etc. on one of these. I managed to get up to 100+ wpm on it.

However, some 35+ years later now I'm pretty messed up with a torn rotator cuff, severe tendinitis and arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome.

Thank you IBM Selectric!

it's right below all the usb ports

There are two ways a Selectric could be used as a computer printer.

The first is the IBM way: they built a board that fit in the Selectric that allowed it to function as a computer terminal. There were switches under the keys and a mechanism to make the machine print from an RS-232 (serial, not parallel) port. As one would expect from anything made by IBM, this was the expensive way to do it.

The brute force and ignorance method got you a board full of solenoids that you bolted to the case of your Selectric. Each key on the Selectric keyboard had a separate solenoid. A data stream coming from your computer would tell the device which key or keys to push to make the machine type out your data. I don't think this was very popular because if you had a Selectric you probably didn't want to turn it over to your computer, it didn't have a tractor feed, and quite a few other things that really made this a bad solution.

selectric typewriters.....heaven, and wow 50 years old......

I'd always wondered exactly how those things worked, but I never had one of my own to take apart. The offices I worked in would not have appreciated it if I'd dismantled one. Though I was tempted.

When you worked an office job that had a Selectric, life was easier.

I remember being in the middle of typing a sentence in a lesson plan I was writing, when the project manager came in and said "Everybody stop what you're doing right now!"

I stopped, turned the typewriter off, and listened to the boss explain how our contract with a major defense company was in dispute, so work was suspended until further notice.

Six weeks later, when the issue was resolved, I turned it on and finished typing the sentence and the lesson plan that it was part of.

And it's heavy as hell.