Who remembers ditto machines?

[Wicked Blue]

Ah, the smell of ditto fluid. The purple prose and poetry. Typing the teachers' handouts for brownie points.

[Ocelot II]

1. I immediately flashed on the smell of that ink.

You could get high on that stuff.

[Wicked Blue]

3. You certainly could

[William Seger]

32. Yes indeed, because it's isopropyl alcohol and methanol

Last edited Sun Jan 1, 2023, 09:29 AM - Edit history (1)

Isopropyl alcohol was once used as an anesthetic.

Edit: By the way, these days, kids can get their isopropyl kicks sniffing Dry Erase whiteboard markers.

[Lithos]

2. LOL

[sinkingfeeling]

4. I sure do.

[BittyJenkins]

5. And damp paper with friendly pictures.

[Haggard Celine]

6. Is that the same thing as a mimeograph machine?

[Wicked Blue]

7. I think mimeographs were a slightly older technology

but some people called dittos mimeographs

[Haggard Celine]

10. We used to smell the mimeograph ink.

It was really dark, and rather purple. No telling how many brain cells we killed sniffing that shit.

[sl8]

9. Pretty sure they're spirit duplicators.

Mimeograph machines used stencils.

[Wicked Blue]

12. That's the official name for them

[Haggard Celine]

13. Okay, it sounded like something similar.

We sure enjoyed the ink. I wonder if there are still any of those machines around. They're probably still using them in some poor rural school districts like those I attended. Hopefully they've moved on by now, but I wouldn't be too surprised.

[applegrove]

8. I remember the purple ink. Everything was handwritten it seemed.

I never got close to an actual machine.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

11. Ditto (mimeograph) in the movie Teachers...

[rsdsharp]

14. OMG, That's Royal Dano. I never saw him in anything other than TV shows --

mostly westerns.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

15. The character's nickname in the movie was, "Ditto". He hogged the machine.

Yeah, I think he pre-dates even b&w Gunsmoke.

[rsdsharp]

20. The first thing I saw him in was a rerun of the very first episode

of Death Valley Days, which first aired in 1952 — three years before Gunsmoke debuted.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

23. I think wikipedia doesn't cover everything he did...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Dano

imdb has a bio: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0200455/bio

[debm55]

16. I do, I was a teacher for 45 years. When a student, we would smell the purple ink that would come

from the ink on the paper.

[Wicked Blue]

19. There was a mad, crazy day in my junior year

in the school newspaper office, which was next to the English Department office. There was a ditto machine. Everyone hanging out in the newspaper office started drumming with their hands on whatever surface was available.

Someone poured a little ditto fluid into an aluminum pie pan, and lit it. We kept drumming. We felt so wild.

And we didn't get caught!!!

[debm55]

22. I used two types-the oldest was a pan with a jell bad on it. The other used a ditto sheet that you

on a drum and turned a crank. The machine itself had no ink, just a liquid in a can.. The ditto paper was two sheets of paper one white, the other paper was carbon paper. You had to be careful cranking the machine. You would set the machine for the number you needed. Later version used the ditto sheets, and you didn't have to crank. It took forever to run off copies.

[debm55]

26. You're lucky as the fluid was flammable. They had the run off room in a windless tiny room when I

first started teaching. The smell was enough to get you high. It wasn't the ink, but the acid that came in the cans.

[WheelWalker]

17. Indeed I do. Mom was a typing teacher.

[PXR-5]

18. That ink smelled better than the cafeteria food!

[rsdsharp]

21. ANYTHING smelled better than the cafeteria food.

[debm55]

24. It was the fluid from a can that made the purple carbon paper smell. It was a gross smell.

[rsdsharp]

27. I never liked it, but most kids would inhale down to their shoe laces.

[debm55]

29. Well, then they were huffing because the smell was from the flammable acid we added to the ditto

machine.

[Wicked Blue]

35. It was an alcohol blend

Wikipedia;

The duplicating fluid typically consisted of a 50/50 mix of isopropanol and methanol, both of which were inexpensive, readily available in quantity, evaporated quickly, and would not wrinkle the paper.

[debm55]

36. Thanks Wicked. It sure smelled nasty. One thing though, It did wrinkle the paper, if too much fluid

came out and the original wrinkled.

[TexasBushwhacker]

25. I was a teacher in the 80s - so yes n/t

[debm55]

28. Texas, I started teaching in 1978, Finally, school got a Xerox.

[hunter]

33. Our school Xerox machine was protected by school administrators in its own little room.

Teachers had to ask for the key and were limited to 100 copies a semester.

As a science teacher with over 200 students that 100 copy limit was useless. The sacred Xerox machine was safe. No grubby teachers defiled it.

Of course I used the ditto machines, and too frequently the copy shops, paying for copies with my own money.

[debm55]

34. Hunter, same here. However, a teacher was given the key. He was the only male teacher in the school.

We had to go to him for the key and records were kept on how many copies we made. When the teachers complained, the key was
put in the main office. Surprise , they would not buy copy paper. We had to buy ourselves. Happy New Year.

[MyOwnPeace]

30. They would throw the empty fluid cans into the trash......

some kids would climb into the dumpster to get the cans to 'sniff' & get high. One idiot got burned when they decided to light one and it exploded!

Of course, his parents sued the school..........

[LetMyPeopleVote]

31. We used these machines for the college debate squad

[electric_blue68]

37. Looked it up...yeah definitely in grade school - early mid '60's ..

I don't remember the smell at all!

I do remember the purple ink! 😄

[Raine]

38. Picking the printed paper up & smelling it was the first thing

everyone did mmmmmmmm!