Don't let Drudge fool you - IBM Selectric II has superscript

[SoCalDemocrat]

I learned to type on one of these (both II and III actually). The IBM Selectric II has superscript capability. It was widely available by 1972. Don't let Drudge fool you. He's just trying to confuse the issue until the story loses steam.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter


The Selectric typewriter was first released in 1961 and is generally considered to be a design classic. After the Selectric II was introduced a few years later, the original design was designated the Selectric I. The Correcting Selectric II differed from the Selectric I in many respects:

The Selectric II was squarer at the corners, whereas the Selectric I was rounder.

The Selectric II had a Dual Pitch option to allow it to be switched (with a lever at the top left of the "carriage") between 10 and 12 characters per inch, whereas the Selectric I had one fixed "pitch".

The Selectric II had a lever (at the top left of the "carriage") that allowed characters to be shifted up to a half space to the left (for inserting a word one character longer or shorter in place of a deleted mistake), whereas the Selectric I did not.

The Selectric II had optional auto-correction (with the extra key at the bottom right of the keyboard), whereas the Selectric I did not. (The white correction tape was at the left of the typeball and its orange take-up spool at the right of the typeball.)

The Selectric II had a lever (above the right platen knob) that would allow the platen to be turned freely but return to the same vertical line (for inserting such symbols as subscripts and superscripts), whereas the Selectric I did not.

[EnfantTerrible]

1. Who's going to tell them that?

and quickly. the pundits are going to get alot of mileage out of this.

[Frodo]

2. But it didn't do variable spaced fonts.

And thus could not have produced the memos.

The Elite had some of that.

The Composer may have had all of it - I'm still reading the users manual.

[Teaser]

10. Composer?

Do tell...

[Frodo]

21. Yep - the IBM Selectric Composer

Quite a piece of equipment. Could even justify and center. Of course you had to type everything twice.

[Gloria]

24. Re: The Composer----was this used mostly in printing businesses??

Back in 1972, I worked at a small custom publishing house. I was put on this machine to "set the type"...it justified automatically.

However, one thing I vividly remember: You could NOT make a correction!
If you made a mistake, you had to start all over again!

I didn't last long on that job....But my question is: could these memos all have been typed without a single mistake??? Judging from my experience it doesn't seem likely.

Are we looking at a machine that could be corrected with Kor-rec-tape or White Out???

[dennis4868]

11. this is insane.....

the wackos on the right have us reading frinken typewriter manuals from the 1970s....what have we become?

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SoCalDemocrat]

5. And?

If the document below is not monospaced

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/BushGuardaugust18.pdf

The IBM Executive was a variable spaced typewriter, and was available at that time. Also in the same archive I linked.

http://www.etypewriters.com/history.htm

and

http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1941.html

Maybe it was an Exectutive and not a Selectric II?

IBM’s Magnetic Card Executive Type-writer (1972) had proportional spacing in a single type face, sacrificing the interchangeable type elements of theSelectric. Magnetic Card Selectric Typewriter II (1973)added memory, allowing text to be stored and moved inmemory and only stored on media when editing wascompleted. It also had the double pitch available on laterSelectrics.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

20. Uhhhh

see ya latah, pal. :hi:

[tridim]

4. Read the same page this morning

I was fascinated by the Selectric ball bearing solution that guarantees only one key is pressed at a time. There's a platter underneath the keys filled with a layer of ball bearings. Each key has a thin metal strip that pierces the bearings when pressed. The metal strip is thick enough that it squeezes the bearings together and wont allow another strip to pass until it's released. Cool huh!

Yes, the forgery claim is BS. They're trying to convince us that the early 70's had the same technology as the 40's.

[DBoon]

6. Hell, it had a typeball for the APL programming language

back in 1975. In my intro computer programming class. I let the weenies do BASIC. I did APL

If you've even seen the APL character set, you'll understand that this means a Selectric could do ANYTHING

[GaryL]

7. Damn it!

I was alive and using the Selectric II BEFORE '72 and I used the superscript capability. And the auto-correction tape too. Who the hell are these people saying it didn't exist?

[Cogito ergo doleo]

14. The Weekly Standard

http://weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=4596&R=9FCD2F192

It was linked from Drudge

[Cogito ergo doleo]

8. It had proportional spacing, too

http://www.ibmtypewriters.com/type.html

Scroll to the bottom.

[SoCalDemocrat]

13. Thought so

Thanks. I thought it had proportional type but I wasn't certain after the criticism.

[Cogito ergo doleo]

15. Thank you for clearing up the superscript

That was the one thing I couldn't find.

[Must_B_Free]

16. What is this crap about vertical proportional spacing?

mentioned on talkingpointsmemo.com

Why would you want to do that?

ANyway I don't see that in the pdf and if it is, it is probably from the photocopier or fax.

[GaryL]

22. Your're awesome!

My mother actually brought it home from work and I was facinated by the self-correcting tape.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

9. Thanks...welcome to DU

[Proud2BAmurkin]

12. Good find

:yourock:

[Stephanie]

17. Tell the Washington Post!

It's in LBN. Straight from Freeperville.

[City Lights]

19. I agree.

Bundle up your information, tie it with a bow, and blast away.

[zulchzulu]

18. My Dad worked for IBM for 35 years and I've seen many Selectrics

There were different typeface attachments you could attach to the typeball (sorry, no manual...) where you could have all different types of typeface combinations...mathematical, scientific, accountant or whatever. The guvmint prolly had their own typeballs for their own needs.

This wasn't 1932 typewriters.

[Gloria]

23. I had a Selectric I (used) and had two or three font balls....

worked with the Selectric II and the memory Selectric, too.

I loved my Selectric!! They were great machines....

[girl gone mad]

25. Look at this advertisement.

I'm not sure of the date, but it appears to be late 60s:

[troublemaker]

26. Cool ad. But dammit, no fours in the text

I hope someone will settle this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=781666&mesg_id=781666