![]() Without a moving carriage, the typewriter could become more compact and self-contained, its messy machinery neatly enclosed. Instead of a traditional carriage stuttering across the page, this embossed print element, or “golf ball,” rode atop a metal rod, twisting and turning, rocking and rolling with amazing dexterity as the keys were struck. The letters striking its ribbon were installed not on individual keys but on a movable metal sphere. But the Selectric was based on a radically new mechanical system. It was the gateway to, yes, word processing, and the personal computer beyond.īy the 1950s, electric typewriters had become common in offices. From this platform, typing evolved toward a more sophisticated manipulation of text. The first model gave way to the “self- correcting” Selectric II that allowed errors to be removed with a special ribbon. Electric typewriters furthermore accommodated multiple-copy forms, which were critical for bureaucracies in the days before photocopying machines.Īnd the Selectric was only the beginning. With varying force no longer required from different fingers, typing became more uniform, so quality improved, too. It reduced fatigue and increased speed, resulting in greater productivity. It was lightness of touch that made electric typing useful. Whereas automatic transmission in a car was a convenience, an enhancement of an existing technology, electricity gave the typewriter entirely new abilities. The cups made a point about the new machine’s utility. Hamma traveled the country, typing up to 150 words per minute with cups of water balanced on the backs of her hands to show how little effort the machine took. To promote the machine, IBM returned to the publicity techniques of the typewriter’s early days by hiring a champion typist, Margaret Hamma, who set new speed records. In 1935, with the Depression in full swing, IBM introduced the first electric model bearing the company’s nameplate. ![]() During the ’20s, Electromatic’s sales still amounted to only a few thousand machines. The task was so difficult that it was still far from finished in 1933, when IBM bought Electromatic, the company that had been struggling to make Smathers's technology commercially viable. James Smathers, a Kansas City inventor, had been working on an electric typewriter since 1914. ![]() Neither Remington nor Underwood nor any of the mainstream typewriter companies brought it into the world instead, it was IBM, which was better known in those pre-computer days for calculators and card sorters - and only after decades of effort. The idea of an electric typewriter had been around for a long time, but the birth was difficult. When it was new, 50 years ago, the Selectric was a technological tour de force. Its shape seems as classic as a mid-century Saarinen, Eames or Bertoia chair. The slightly grainy surface suggests a serious piece of ovenware. Touch the keys, and they operate with startling suddenness and force.Īppreciate the cast aluminum shell, which radiates competence and something like occasion. Turn on the Selectric, and the motor makes a patient, low humming sound, very different from the burbling of a computer disc drive. The machine’s works are sturdy, and ribbons are not hard to find from either online retailers or the oddball little office machine shops that continue to exist in many towns. Who knows how many Selectrics continue to be used around the world? I would guess in the thousands. I’m grabbing this chance to write about Eliot Noyes, one of the USPS 12, and particularly to praise his IBM Selectric, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. The new postage stamps honoring industrial design have given writers an excuse to bring up old timers.
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