DIY IBM Selectric type balls give ’60s typewriters new life (and Comic Sans) | Hacker News Reader

DIY IBM Selectric type balls give ’60s typewriters new life (and Comic Sans)

arstechnica.com

96 pointsrbanffy56 comments

About 10 years ago I started seeing writing as a creative practice very similar to playing an instrument. If you want to get good at playing an instrument there's no shortcut to replace playing a LOT.

I found that when I wrote on a computer I was too distracted by where the writing would go. I was conscious of writing for an audience, and would get too caught up on saying things in a particular way- stopping starting deleting rewriting.

I ended up getting a Selectric III, the pinnacle of mechanical typewriter achievement. It is a beautiful, heavy, loud machine. While there is a corrective function, I've never used it. Writing on a typewriter is like a one way valve- words come out of your hands and can't be put back in. I was focused on pushing out as many pages as I could, practicing on the instrument for an hour a day or more. It changed my writing style and helped me discover a personal voice.

I still use the Selectric for writing letters to friends, and for "daily driver" writing use an Alphasmart NEO (another beautiful purpose-built machine).

Edit to comment on TFA: I use an "IBM Selectric Script" ball. A sort of light cursive.

People really sleep on AlphaSmarts. I first encountered them in middle school and bought one myself as an adult as a zero-frills notepad. It's great.

An amusingly similar and related strategy I've heard is to just switch your word processor to Comic Sans. The unprofessional look of it can have the same sort of effect to short circuit the tendency to second guess as you're writing. It's much cheaper to get started with as well.

* your

No? I used "you're" correctly. You might be parsing my sentence incorrectly.

To defend GP, I don't think you should be using a contraction there. It's a bit like how you shouldn't just say "Will you take the trash out?" "Yes, I'll".

Agree to disagree I guess, because "the tendency to second guess as you're writing" sounds like a totally natural object phrase to me.

To join in the pedantry, I think that the better phrasing would be "to second guess as you write."

The sentence uses "as" as a conjunction, and the former phrase is "it short circuits [...]". That phrase uses the simple present tense, so I think the default parallelism is to continue the tense into the subordinate clause.

In particular, I think that the use of the present progressive in "as you're writing" makes the sentence more imminent, as if it's referring to a specific instance, e.g. "The dinner bell interrupts me as I'm writing this sentence." That's less consistent with "the tendency to," which to me speaks in a more abstract way.

I think bringing it into the first person, by removing the pronoun, is best: "to second guess while writing". I also think changing "to short circuit" to "of short circuiting" reads better, though if that change is made, additionally dropping "sort of" reads best.

"The unprofessional look of it can have the same effect of short circuiting the tendency to second guess while writing."

I can't comment on your grammatical critique. The technical aspects of grammar are taxing to me beyond the 'intuitive' level.

Selectrics also had what is easily my favorite font, Artisan 12, which is kind of like a perfectly rounded (in the case of 'o') Letter Gothic variant to my rather untrained eye. It's so emblematic of an entire era in computing and I use a crude personal version of it regularly to make my terminals feel more retro.

Low res example of the classic: http://luc.devroye.org/IBM-Selectric-artisan12.gif

Very nice font and I know that site: years ago, I stumbled upon an old letter (sent by some insurance broker IIRC) to my old aunt. Maybe sent in the 70s or 80s and the letter was just beautiful. So I set up on a quest to find which font this was and ended up finding it was some Olivetti font and it's on that site you linked that I eventually found it!

I have that letter and that font name "somewhere" but cannot access it atm : (

Excellent! Once in a rare while I bargain hunt (flea markets / garage sale) and was super happy, a few years ago, to find a set of four Selectric balls in their (blue) case for 2 EUR. 3D printing these is next level though!

Besides that I have fond memories of my father endlessly typing on his Selectric typewriter while smoking a cig (this was a thing back then).

The Selectric is a fascinating machine. I highly recommend watching "IBM Selectric Typewriter & its digital to analogue converter"[0] by The Engineer Guy.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRCNenhcvpw

They are - I believe they’re electric rather than electronic, and theoretically can be powered by a hand crank. They also use a neat trick of a tube filled with ball bearings with a one ball gap so only one key can be pressed at a time (it fills the gap while pressed).

This made me curious. Apparently this part of the machine was called the "compensation tube". But it's much more elegant than you've said. When you press 2 keys in quick succession, the 2nd key press is "saved" temporarily by latching a spring, so that as soon as the 1st key is done, the 2nd key is struck.

It's essentially a 1 character buffer, which is apparently sufficient to give a very fluid typing feel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuPduBVGf8g http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/typewriter/selectric/CE_ins...

Thanks very much for the extra info.

That is correct. The Selectric (and Selectric II and III) are entirely electric. Later Selectric variations, like the Mag Card II, introduced electronics in a separate console or in a board fitting at the back of the machine, but the typewriter proper remained electromechanical, where the only electric part is the electric motor.

The compensation tube is a cool design.

Man was that title a rollercoaster of emotions.

This is fantastic.

As I age ,I've started to like comic sans more for the effect is has on people. I think people should use it as much as possible for it's whimsical potential.

Here's some occasions where comic sans would be a cherry on top. - A Doctor giving bad news to a patient via an email. - A CEO Firing a stack of people and outlining continue strategy to push into VR. - Putting out a high salary job advertisements.

Anyway back to the typewriter. What a cool project.

I mean if you define "whimsical" = "asshole"...

lol, It's such a great font.

Thanks! I'm composing my resignation letter in Comic Sans right now.

I first learned typing on a Selectric. The keyboard felt so nice, then they put me on a Commodore 64 and eww. I remember switching with my parent cause I didn't want to use the Commodore again, but after a few weeks I had to stop that as some assignments had to be handed in electrically (I think on disk, though my memory is fuzzy and network options did exist). I haven't seen a Selectric since, but I still remember how nice it felt to type on.

If you learned to type on a Selectric like I did, a lot of computer keyboards are unpleasant. The C64's and its ilk are especially bad.

The Selectric was the peak of keyboard technology. But it was extremely expensive compared to what you pay for a keyboard today.

I have a model M that I like to use when I can. I normally type of a keyboard with "brown" switches, but it isn't nearly as good. I keep meaning to try out the other options.

I know of a used bookstore that currently types up most of the catalog description sheets for their rare items with an IBM Selectric. The person who types them can use a desktop computer just fine, but insists on still using the Selectric. They generally then retype them so they can list the book online, which I always found both neat and totally insane.

I submit Missouri Sunshine Law requests to local entities on legal letterhead, typed with an IBM Selectric III gifted to me by my grandmother. :)

Putting aside the bizarre fact that the creator is selling these without having tested them (?!)...

I'm genuinely curious if a plastic version of these balls actually works as anything more than a toy? If plastic will quickly wear out unlike the original metal, or if the lesser weight of the plastic has any undesirable side effects?

> unlike the original metal

The correction at the bottom seems to imply that the originals were not metal.

> Correction: IBM's Selectric balls aren't made of metal.

my parents had a selectric which i used as a kid... iirc, the ball had some weight to it, and a metallic finish -- maybe there was a lead weight or something inside of it?

That is correct. IBM type elements are made of plastic, but plated with a very thin layer of metal. From a 1981 article: "the type element was functionally plated using an electroplating process that enabled the metal skin to adhere to the plastic with tremendous tenacity. Even when the plastic contracted at a temperature of -75C, the metal skin did not break off. Selection of the plastic involved extensive tests on no fewer than twenty-five types of plastics for impact strength, resistance to acids, shrinkage, and molding adaptability."

Oh fascinating, thank you.

I wonder then if the metal was just for appearance (looks more expensive), or if it contributed to the longevity of the type ball, or if it improved how the ink transferred to the page?

I doubt it was for appearance only. Your other reasons make sense.

I learned APL on an IBM 2741 terminal[1], a terminal kind of like a teletype but with a Selectric typewriter attached to it for the keyboard and typing mechanism. This APL360 system had APL particular and idiosyncratic symbols on each of the keys (in addition to the regular QWERTY keys). The shift key selected which symbol would be produced. This made learning APL a lot easier.

The Selectric type ball was special and had the APL characters on it. Interestingly, the same kind of a system was available for ALGOL68 programming and provided symbols useful for that language.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_2741

My son has never seen a typewriter in person or a printer that wasn’t inkjet or laser, I think he is missing out.

Didn’t IBM make printers that also used the selectric balls? That would be a great novelty item to have. No idea if you can still buy tractor feed paper someplace to use it.

There was a kind of printer that used a ball and could only print letters and symbols on the ball.

Faster than dot matrix for many things.

Amazon sells continuous feed paper.

Recently saw continuous feed paper piling out behind the gate agent at an airport, I wouldn't have guessed it was still in use because it'd been years since I saw any, but now I'm assuming they go through a lot of it

I've seen it in some places still, it's one way to log things and guarantee that it hasn't been messed with (because you can't replace a piece of paper in the middle of the feed).

Thermal printers on a roll serve a similar purpose sometimes, but thermal paper has issues, too.

It's more about the fact that dot matrix / impact printers can print on duplicate/triplicate paper. There is carbon in the paper that leaves a mark on the layer underneath it.

You can't do that with a laser or inkjet printer unless you request multiple copies, and then you can't be sure all copies get made.

Carbon forms are still a huge thing in shipping and logistics industries.

The problem we have with using lasers at work is that they take a few minutes to warm up, and if you're trying to get a fire appliance out the door in under 60 seconds you can't wait for them.

And absolutely no-one has time to run out and get a yellow ink cartridge for an inkjet. Fuck you Epson, you used to be cool.

I'd say that we could use blockchain for this, but then where would we print the hash updates?

We use continuous feed paper - either fan-fold or roll - in the Oki 9-pin dot matrix "turnout printers" in fire stations.

There really isn't a replacement for them, so you can still buy them new.

"Time-to-print" on receipt printers can be quite fast, but again, the thermal paper would have an obvious issue if used for thermal events ;)

(I love the POS acronym - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMgtywYSknk )

The fastest printers from the era prior to laser printers were line printers. I used to work as a field engineer maintaining and repairing these and they could be quite intimidating devices. The fastest I worked on could print ~1500 lines per minute at a large NCR site. The first thing you'd do was remove your tie and apply ear plugs before starting work on these beasts.

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

Here's one in action: https://youtu.be/KnPBWru2Ecg?t=417

lp0: printer on fire.

the noise it makes when going to "ready" makes you realize why things had an 'online/ready' state

buy one today! https://printronixplus.com lol

Anyone old enough to still remember the opening of UFO episodes (1970)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_(TV_series)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpdI-F4-7jM

SHADO

SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ......

ALIEN DEFENCE ORGANIZATION ...

SECRET LOCATION .... BENEATH FILM STUDIO

> Didn’t IBM make printers that also used the selectric balls?

There was the IBM 2741.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_2741

It is based on what IBM called the "I/O typewriter", which was a Selectric variant with switches and solenoids. Pretty cool stuff.

There were printers that used seectric balls and also printers that used daisy-wheels. Early dot-matrix printers had large dots and only so-so precision for placing them so they were not "letter quality" if you see an old dot-matrix labled "NLQ" that's "near letter quality" and was accomplished by using overlapping dot-strikes to significantly improve the quality.

You could still tell it was printed on a dot-matrix though; I had one that was 360x180dpi and from a distance it looked fine, but up-close you could tell it was dot-matrix. The ability to print multiple fonts without stopping for far cheaper than a laser printer was nice though.

>"NLQ" that's "near letter quality" and was accomplished by using overlapping dot-strikes to significantly improve the quality.0

We had a panasonic printer that had the NLQ switch. It worked, but would print each line twice (with a slight offset on the overlap). It was pretty good but really 1/2 the speed.

Goofy story that is unrelated to anything.

UT Austin CS dept. used Apple LaserWriters as department printers for years. IIRC, they were 300x300dpi. Then one day, we upgraded to 600x600dpi laser printers (I forget the brand). I was on staff at the time, and I didn't know it was going to happen.

The next day, E. Allan Emerson, professor and Turing Award winner, showed up at the door of the software staff's cave, very upset. His papers were looking very different even though they were formatted in LaTeX which claims to always produce the same output. (LaTeX was doing its job, BTW; the spacing was identical.)

It turns out that Computer Modern Roman at 300x300 is a pretty reasonable font. At 600x600, it is a thin, spindly looking thing.

I think we dredged up a spare LaserWriter and put it in his office for him.

> My son has never seen a typewriter in person or a printer that wasn’t inkjet or laser, I think he is missing out.

Next time you fly, stay close to the boarding gate when they print the manifest and there's a good chance you'll hear a glorious dot matrix printer in action.

I'm still looking for DIY keycaps.

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