A look at an IBM Selectric Composer

[KurtNYC]

I see someone is selling one on Ebay (it was inevitable). I don't advise bidding since the current high bidder is some freep who probably has no intention of actually paying (note the name and the zero feedback). But I thought this was interesting enough to warrant a look.

That machine doesn't look pre-1970 to me but what do I know. Anyone worked with one of these?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41816&item=3839419995&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

[tridim]

1. I guarantee most newspapers have several 70's typewriters sitting around

or in storage.. They just don't want to show us the output because they know it will disprove their case against the authenticity of the docs. That's our "Liberal" media for you.

[Bridget Burke]

2. I used one in the early 70's.

And it looked just like the one on Ebay; quite high-tech for the day. Used it to put copy into right-justified columns for a small newspaper, which involved typing each line twice. Cut & paste was done with an Exacto knife & rubber cement. The "good old days"--huh!

There's no way I'd bid on it--I already own too much junk. Also, the beasts were a bit temperamental--would IBM service it?

I also worked on an IBM Executive typewriter, which had proportional spacing & is another candidate for producing the memos.

[yellowcanine]

3. I think the more likely typewriter was an IBM Executive with a "th" key.

The Executive had proportional type. It is very likely that a "military" model existed with a superscript "th" key. It would have been really easy to do that. All that would have been required would have been to modify the key for the 1/4 or 1/2 - and easy to envision IBM having a military contract for a batch of Executives like that. I would bet there is still some old paperwork around that would prove it. Someone just has to find it. Maybe the specs even included Times Roman Font (invented in 1931, after all)

[immoderate]

4. I worked at a newspaper, used a Composer in 1972.

It was not a new machine then.

I do have a question about whether it was used by the military at that time. This was an expensive machine whose capabilities surpassed what was needed for routine office work. What is needed is the introduction of any other military documents from the same era. That would squelch the main argument against the authenticity of the documents.

--IMM

[kskiska]

5. I'm with you regarding the Composer

It wasn't a machine your average secretary could easily master, or needed to. It was a typesetter. It was cumbersome to use, and was replaced when the first photo-typesetters came out. I remember doing type on the Composer for the paste-up artists. I had to use a special slick paper. The type smeared easily and had to be sprayed with fixative before pasting up. We replaced it with a (Merganthaler?) LinoComp. Those were no breeze to operate, either.