IBM Selectric typewriter review - and how it works!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2024
- Skip to 15:57 for a typing demonstration.
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My other keyboard reviews: • Thomas' Keyboard Reviews
I'm Thomas and I do keyboard videos and reviews. Today we look at the IBM Selectric typewriter, a legendary machine from the era before personal computers. This machine included a digital-to-analog converter that paved the way for computer printers, and is in a way the first step toward a computer keyboard as we know it. This is keyboard genesis, people! :)
The practice sentence was.... well, you can read it for yourself :) .
Engineering genius ! I used to work for IBM in 1979 repairing these machines. Never see them anymore. Died out like the dinosaur. There were over 600 fine adjustments in these selectrics. All had to be perfectly tuned to get it to work properly. In my first few weeks out in the field in Lansing, Mich. repairing them, I managed to drop a brand new machine on the floor from the top of the desk. It tipped over backwards and fell down on the floor, right on its four feet. I had to take it home that very night to set it all up again. Everything got knocked out of wack. It took me the whole night to fix it up again. The woman who used it got it back the next day... Not 100% in order again as I did have to go back to her office several times to adjust and readjust. A true nightmare for my new start on the job. It was something that I never told my boss about.. .. ;-)
I love little anecdotes like this.
That's great!!
Glad you got good genuine excuse to visit that woman more often.
These are so amazing! My school district apparently didn't go digital at all with official documents until just about 2-3 years ago so our school secretary used one of these pretty much every day until just recently. Since she doesn't use it anymore though she donated it to the school journalism club and its an absolute marvel to look at.
I thought about buying one on eBay but you just talked me out of it. No chance it would work correctly.
Those keycaps look as modern as any current keyboard.
I thought this was like a new thing paying homage to typewriters.
ComandanteJ yeah, crazy
It's interesting that he one he has that doesn't work has more "traditional" keycaps too. I think that it might have been a cost thing or a regional preference.
@@elephantofdoomonly the selectric I and ii have spherical
Moderner, even.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ We still Clean, Service, Repair & Sell these IBM Selectrics in 2019
I know exactly what's wrong with your broken Selectric
Long live the Typewriter
Phoenix Typewriter For those of us with interest, what do you think is wrong with Chyrosran22's Selectric?
@@XalphYT There is an interposer in the ball-bearing rack, this is an incomplete action locking KB
Why it is stuck could be multiple things from a sticking part or as serious as a broken motor belt
This is one of the better video's about IBM selectrics on TH-cam !!
Hi Duane, thought I'd find you here!
Where are you and do you still sell the IBM Selectric
Trust IBM to come up with such a delightfully complicated yet reliable design.
I sat behind one of them at work for 25 years. No typewriter ever
compared to it.
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Look up the dot matrix printing mechanism in the IBM 026 card punch! Each key generates a unique combination of 12 holes punched into a column, and two sets of interposers generate a unique combination of +/- X and +/- Y displacements of a printing plate, about the size of a postage stamp. The plate has a pattern of short posts molded into it, with 64 5x7 dot matrix characters interleaved into the total matrix. After positioning, a hammer slams the plate against an expanded 5x7 frame of blunt ends of wires, so as to propel the wires into a curved funnel, where they come out compressed into an area shorter than the gap above the top row of hole positions (known as the 12-row), and narrower than the 0.1 inch pitch of the columns. The wires hit by posts slam into the ribbon and the card, printing (hopefully) the character encoded by the key pressed, and by the pattern of 12 holes in the column.
All totally mechanical, no electronics except the solenoids to activate the punches!
I used to service and repair this typewriter for IBM years ago. It is a complex machine. Well Done instructional video.
ko pi rites0...
What city did you work?
When I was 6 years old (1985) my dad took me to his boss office to show me something cool. They both were in a very good relation so they let me play with a typewriter like this while they were discussing busyness. I only played like 5-10 minutes typing silly stuff but I still remember the feel and sound of it. It was my fist time seeing a typewriter like that, I loved it so much. The next day there were three more machines and people working on all of them. It was so crazy loud. Nowadays we have it so easy. That's why I DO love so much the clicky keys. And OMG you left me out of breath when you were left out of breath :)) . PS : I wonder how expensive the repair would have been in the past.
by 1985 the IBM 95 Memory typewriter had come out and blew this thing away.
Oh man, I used to have one of these! A friend borrowed it 25+ years ago. Still waiting for them to return it.
That typewriter has a really timeless, beautiful design. It still looks modern now.
Industrial design at its finest.
Working in a office full of typewriters would stop all that pointless smaltalk :D
VivaLaRazsa Thats why most offices had doors. The only place you had a bunch of these in one room were in newsroom typing pools.
LOVELY WEATHER WE'RE HAVING, RIGHT!!?
I have met people who would actually do this.
Oh yes, it was very loud working in any office in the 1980s. We thought nothing of it. If you want to get a sense of what it was like, check out the movie All the President's Men for the newsroom scenes. Tons of background noise. It was filmed in the 70s, so true to the era.
@@emmanoey7785 You must be the goddess of movies. Send titles.
@@user-74652 Sometimes it's better to say something like that instead of just staring back at the weirdo who stares at you in complete silence
My stepmother has a Selectric II which she still uses all the time as she can type at 140+wps WHILE DOING SOMETHING ELSE! Not just typing up something pre-written either, I'm talking about say, writing a personal letter while talking on the phone. One of the most amazing things I've ever seen. She should have been a drummer. Anyway, as an old, I got to use one of these at a job and it is, in my opinion, the typing experience I have been chasing ever since!
How in God's green ass did some engineer come up with this design? It's ingenious.
Riflemanm16a2 And complex as AGO.
I feel sorry for the poor bastard that had to repair one of these...
Cocaine is a helluva drug
David Hemphill true. I bought one at a resale shop thinking I could fix it. I opened it, and said "fk that."
Same but its a good display though. i mean the inside is like looking into a damn complicated falling apart relationships.
This is burned into my memory of grade school! Being sent to the principals office you'd sit in the secretarys room waiting your fate. She'd sit there and pound away on a beige IBM selectric. Just hearing you type on this thing brings it all flooding back.
Engineering art. We did definitely lose something in our collective technological advancement. It is good to see people are willing to preserve and maintain such a device. It is good that you are willing to document the device. Who knows how long these will last but at least they are less likely to be forgotten.
It is absolutely incredible to think that someone designed this. Like this was in someone's head, and they built it, and it works. Makes me wonder what I'm doing with my life.
My parents had one of the Selectric II units in Marlin Blue from the mid-1970s for use in their business, with the ANSI keyboard layout. They were the original owners and kept it for over three decades, continuing to use it to fill out forms that couldn't be filled via computer well into the 2000s. I know there was a whole repair industry dedicated to them, but in my experience that monster was as reliable as a wood burning stove, operating flawlessly the whole time. I remember being amazed by its heft and awestruck by the mechanical wizardry going on there even as a young kid. It must have weighed forty pounds and moving it felt like lifting an anvil. Using it was like witnessing the last vestiges of the old mechanical world before the entry of word processing in the new digital world. Turning it on was like switching an electrical disconnect, and I felt like Dr. Frankenstein throwing a giant breaker as it would roar to life and hum away at idle like an electric dynamo.
I want an IBM tie now ...
get the umpa lumpa to get me one now!!
Yes, I can imagine a room full of people typing on these. When I took typing class in high school, there was an entire room full of Selectric I and II typewriters, none of them having the correction functionality that yours has, with students banging away on all of them (I wanna say at least 24 going at once). And yes, it was every bit as noisy as you can imagine.
And those, IIRC, typed on 3 rows on the typewriter ribbon, helping to make that carbon ribbon last as long as possible.
This video has the best explanation of the whiffletree mechanism that I've ever seen. Suffice to say it was fiendishly complex; props to those understood it well enough to be able to repair one. Such folks are few and far between, anymore.
Great video. I worked for IBM US in the Office Products Division servicing these (and many other products). We also had a product in the late 70's called the Office System/6. It was one of the first systems to use a CRT display and it had a MASSIVE inkjet printer. The keyboard for the OS6 was a Selectric keyboard, complete to a cycle clutch and motor, so that it sounded and felt just like a Selectric.
Someone below also mentioned the Soviet (suspected) ability to read what was being type on a Selectric by monitoring the power fluctuations. We had a kit (Tempest certified) to solve that. It involved a heavy flywheel on a new motor (capacitor start, because of the load) and a noise filter. Installed several of those kits, as I had some defense customers.
You mention also, 4 tilt positions and 22 rotate, for 88 characters, but the typewriter that you are showing is a Selectric III, which had 96 characters (note the yellow printer on the type element cap.
Well I doubt that soviets tried to "listen" to clicks on the keyboard. Rather they would convert (recruit) people to spies who were sitting right behind typewriters.
It is much cheaper, faster and safer in terms of disclosure.
@@alexa.davronov1537 maybe as a last ditch effort?
Edit: taking photos through a window with high power photography would have worked better....
@@andrewyork3869 May be, but I think it doesn't make sense cause messages would be encrypted anyway.
@@alexa.davronov1537 encryption back then was radically different than they are today.
Plus it would depend if the typist or the machine was doing the encryption.
@@andrewyork3869 Sorry mate, got no time to talk about this. What I'm sure about is that soviets never had any means to eavesdrop to clicking sounds. It's just economically inefficient.
30-years later I can still remember the key feel while learning to type on one of these. And the deafening clack of 15 others in a concrete-walled classroom with no sound deadening.
Love this in-depth type of video! I can't believe how fast the mechanism acts, incredible design. Also, listening to just the audio of the explanation feels like top-grade techno mumbo-jumbo. :D
back when IBM made AWESOME stuff and wasn't some wannabe cloud computing company. My grandpa and his brother were salesman for them, and my grandma has an IBM Selectric (or a similar model) in her office right by her brand new mac. I find it hilarous how that typewriter is actually in PERFECT condition, and I actually play around with it here and there, yet whatever computer she has will only last 5 years or so. 30-40 years old and in flawless condition. I will say, however, that hers makes a low pitched, gentle hum that I didn't hear on yours, leading me to question if there is something wrong with hers, or it's just a different model.
I just want you to know that videos like this are important. Without knowledge like this we are bound to eventually forget the specifics of advances previously made, and forget how ingenious all the inventions of old really are.
Thank you for this, I feel like I've learned a lot :)
One of my aunts when I was young had one of these in red in her home office, and I can clearly remember the sound as a young child as she typed away transcribing court documents as she was a court reporter when she would babysit for my mother while i was playing in the living room, and the IBM Selectric, and Commodore VIC-20 keyboards where the first 2 I ever cut my teeth on so to speak, so they both hold a special place for me, as my grandfather was very protective of his old 1950's mechanical Smith Corona typewriter I never got to use till after his death in the mid 90's but can also clearly still hear the sound of in my head as well.
I purchased my first Vic-20 and then C-64 based strongly on the quality of the Keyboard and how similar it was to the Selectric.
this is probably the longest single sentence comment ive seen on youtube so far
I learned to type on one of these. Still the gold standard for typist happiness, in my opinion.
god daaamn, that smooth carriage return is pure heaven
There was an express backspace key which pulled the element
back to the left anywhere you wanted until you let the key go.
If you went to the left margin, it happened so fast you couldn't see it
happen.
I'm learning to service these babies at an apprenticeship and I've only been there for two days! But you definitely made me even more excited to go back tomorrow, it was so cool to actually understand a lot of what you were explaining!
It sounds like your selectric has a broken belt. If the belt has broken/come off, it will sound like the motor is running too fast, and nothing will work.
Ah, yes, that sounds logical. Is there a way I could change it?
Chyrosran22 Here is a video on someone that replaced theirs. I will warn you, though, these are extremely complicated machines and it will probably be a major undertaking. th-cam.com/video/Pc5W8Gs_Nhw/w-d-xo.html Also, here's a link to an ebay ad selling a new motor belt. It should be the same belt across the entire selectric line. www.ebay.com/p/IBM-BRAND-Selectric-Part-Motor-Drive-Belt-1124812/1911912303
@@Chyrosran22 It's 5 years later, but you could hop over to the Phoenix Typewriter channel. He has a good instructional video on how to change the belt. It's a fairly involved process, but completely doable if you take your time, have the right tools, and label everything and take pictures as you go.
If you're going in to replace the belt anyway, you should check to see if your center hub is cracked (the big gear that the belt goes around.) It's a very common issue with these. Replacing the center hub is a big job but if you're going in to to replace the belt anyway that's already like 60% of the job.
Also, it's not likely that this is the only problem with the typewriter. Selectrics almost invariably need to be relubricated and tuned at this point, so be prepared for a very long, very educational project that tests the limits of your patience. My source on this is that I also picked up a Selectric for a few bucks at a recycle center and holy crap is there a lot to go wrong in these... but I did eventually get it all working.
Nice work as always! Being from the typewriter era, it's interesting to see someone start a paragraph of any form without an indent. ;)
"in units that do make sense" :D
There are two kinds of countries: countries which use the metric system and countries who have been to the moon.
@@thetman0068 'To the moon, blowing up some ships 'cause of their imperial system'
@@thetman0068 You went to the moon in metric, because that's how you calculate stuff in physics. The question is why bother to convert things to metric to put in a formula, then convert it back to imperial to tell about it on TV. But I'm not going to tell the US to switch. It's only a headache for you.
By the way, the imperial is defined in metrics. Really, look it up.
“...which is about 70g in *real* units...”
Russia, China and India have all been to the moon, and all use SI units.
I took a typing class in high school in 1981. We had a room full of manual typewriters and 5 precious IBM Selectrics. We each rotated through the Selectrics in our turn and looked forward to those days because of the speed and feel of those machines. They were fantastic. I set my personal best speed on a selectric of 140 wpm and, to this day, prefer the feel of the Selectric to every computer keyboard I've tried. Thanks for conjuring that fond memory.
I remember the Selectrics on the other side of the room in 1980s jr high typing class, but we only got to use the manual typewriters 😞
Imagine the silence in news rooms when they took out the typewriters. People must have felt lost without it.
Cherry MX Blue: tap, tap, tap.
Beam-spring: clack, clack, clack.
Selectric: CLACK, CLACK, CLACK.
Remington: KTHUNK, KTHUNK, KTHUNK
hall effect:
Nah, Selectric goes: sherMACK, sherMACK, sherMACK!
The IBM Selectric is what I learned on when I was in the 6th grade. Wonderful typewriter. When we moved to the Apple II's, I kept making mistakes due to not realising I had not fully pushed the key down.
Your explanation of the mechanism is at once concise and very humorous! I thoroughly enjoyed the entire video. Cheers!
Love these archaeological / collector videos! I was in that generation where the boys who were interested in computers learned to type while the girls who were determined not to be secretaries refused. So, there I was in typing class, in the mid-1970s, with an IBM Selectric. Little did I know that it was Genesis, and The End of History in typewriters.
I enlisted in the Air Force in 1971. I worked on the communication system for the Titan II missile complexes. The input/output device used was the IBM Selectric with a data translation pack attached that change the typed letters to an 8-bit code for encryption and then transmission and reception. After a year of electronic and system-specific schooling, I was sent to a 14-week overhaul class for the Selectric. On display, under glass at this school was IBM Selectric Model 0001. The first one that made by IBM for the military. It was an absolute mind-bender to overhaul, rebuild and adjust to specs. On the other hand, it was an engineering marvel and a beauty to watch in action with the punch tape reader pushing it to its limits. bear in mind these were the first IBM Selectrics produced. I do miss those days.
Well, now I know my Correcting Selectric III isn't just red, it's "Autumn Red". Extremely in-depth video, absolutely loved it!
How the honest FUCK did they ever come up with this? Absolutely brilliant, unbelievable engineering. This is a legitimate work of art.
Great explanation of a mechanism more complicated and ingenious than I ever imagined when typing on one. Bravo!
Fantastic video! You may recall me, I commented on your video on the Remington, mentioning that I had the same machine myself. Well, my brother wanted one of these machines, a correcting Selectric II to be exact, but we couldn’t find any Selectrics of any kind at a yard sale or even a local flea market. They aren’t rare, but they also are notorious for being more likely broken beyond repair than fixable. In fact, selectrics are extremely easy to ruin. Any improper or lack of maintenance can destroy one for good. The result, however, is that so long as no one fools you into buying a piece of junk for too much money, you can get all the parts machines you could want. This is great for typewriter repair people, since replacement parts aren’t made anymore. Anyhow, just today, we went to an estate sale, and there, underneath a torn plastic cover, was the exact typewriter my brother wanted, in green, and in good cosmetic shape. We tested it, and well, it didn’t work fully, but it did type. The carriage return had issues, and a horrid noise was going on at first but went away shortly, on a whole it was hopeful but not a solution. He bought it for an appropriate $5, and just this evening took the cover off to look at what things looked like under the hood. Well, things aren’t any better than what we were expecting, chances are well just have the typewriter place do all the work, but I think we should remove all the old grease we can, where it is acceptable without pulling apart the mechanism.
Actually, this machine also does have "electronics" inside. A bunch of switches decide if the machine prints or not. Space obviously doesn't print. Also a cascade of switches (cascade of XOR) checks if an odd number of selector switches are active. If not, something went wrong and the machine doesn't print. And if the machine is out of power or during a carriage return, the keys are locked by a solenoid to prevent printing after powering up when someone had played with the machine while off. Imagine you carefully insert and align several sheets with carbon paper and then you turn on the machine and get a random letter...
This thing is ingenuous, they thought of everything. It even stores pressing space in case you press it too rapidly after a letter or twice in a row. Ordinary machines often forget a space, print a letter when switching on, print while the shift key isn't properly pressed, print during carriage return and a lot of other nasty malfunctions due to operator error or mechanical problems. This machine almost never prints a wrong letter caused by improper handling or mechanical glitches.
lapacke jolly v?
sorry, no selonoids in a selectric tyewriter. 100% mechanical powered by an AC motor. i don't mean to sound like a know-it-all, but i've repaired these for 40 years. but you are correct in that this machine was a revolutionary, ingenious design
Everything stated above is 100% false, lol. The only thing that's electronic in the Selectric is the motor, the rest of the device is 100% mechanical.
@@BokBarber and what makes you think that a motor is electronic but switches are not?
@@CC-ke5np All motors are electronic but not all switches are. You can find switches on manual typewriters, manual adding machines, spring wound clocks, etc, and they're clearly not electronic.
With the exception of the power switch, none of the switches on the IBM Selectric have any electronics in them.
This one was how I found this channel! Been a while since I've put this one on, but paused to comment the sounds still trigger a deep sleep faster and thank you 😴
What an amazing piece of engineering! When I was really young my grandfather had a Selectric. I remember typing on it for fun and definitely remember the feel of the keys and how they were "snatched out from under your fingers" when the mechanism tripped.
That sound instantly took me back nearly 40 years I guess. I learned to type on an IBM Selectric at my parents' workplace - a university. Selectrics were not quite on their way out in administrative positions at that point. Those things were solid steel and loud as hell. I had forgotten about those Model M's too. I would get one or maybe a Unicomp, but I would be the only one enjoying my using it. :)
Yes! The sound! I love it and miss it. Mine was a II. I actually think of it occasionally and want to hear it again and that's how I found this video, among others. Sadly, there are no Selectric "ambient office noise" videos on TH-cam, which is a pity because no ticking away at a laptop can compare to the ker-chonks of these battle tanks.
Great overview of the Selectric mechanism! That must have taken some time to put together!
Yes, studying the mechanism and making all the pictures, let alone doing the editing on them, took very long.
Wonderful dive into this feat of engineering! I'd never even heard of this thing but after seeing this I feel safe in saying it could be in the top 5 cleverest designs of all time. Great work explaining it and showing it off!
It may be number one. I own one. It is actually reliable. I use it for work. I am amazed every time I sit down in front of it.
Still have one of these bad boys through my Mother, who worked at IBM her entire career - the 60's through the mid 90's. Did every one of my high school and college papers on it. It still sits under its original dustcover in my apartment so it's in great shape. Odd memory, but these machines had a certain smell that I remember so well.
This is actually so cool!! You always think of the Remington looking typewriters when you think of a typewriter but I had no idea they looked like this and used such cool mechanisms too!! Awesome video
c0mspenny weis!
I spoke to my mom about these and she just loved the sound of golf ball typing.
Honestly it's such a wonderful thing and I'd love to see typewriters come back. If I were to remake one of these the one thing I'd change is put the most common characters on the home row and collum of the ball.
From the days when IBM was awesome. I want that tie for my collection. Also, I think optional solenoids in our keyboards is something that needs to make a comeback.
Who said "you can't have digital controlling without electronics or microcontrollers"? 😀
This is by far one of the cooles mechanics I've ever seen - and it (my own one) feels so nice really no other typewriter does!
Great typewriter and big thanks to this great video about it!
The characters are lovely and crisp. This truly is the pinnacle of mechanical typewriters.
i get a tingly feeling whenever i see chyro upload a video, i love it !
I showed this to my old mother who enjoyed seeing it. Several decades ago she worked in a bank, her and the rest of the staff used old Remingtons but the managers secretary had one of these machines and it was space age back then and was the envy of the office!
I did my typewriter lessons in school (1987) in a machine black like this one. It was the most smooth experience I've ever had in a keyboard. The bump didn't bother me. And I don't need to imagine, I remember preety well what a room full of those sound like. hehehe good times!
The Selectric is responsible for the 10-finger typing method we all use today, making the 8-finger typing technique (req'd for that Remington) obsolete. There are some successful attempts at turning a Selectric into a printer. Combined with some handmade paper, you could make the business card scene from American Psycho look like amateur hour.
People only have 8 fingers and two thumbs, all of which are used to touch type correctly on any regular typewriter no matter what name or model it is. Don't now what you're getting at.
I believe it was somewhere in either sophomore or junior year of highschool, around 2003, where I learned to type on a typewriter in class. Old lady teacher taught us how to type by her pointing a stick at a poster of hands on a typewriter and she would yell out "A....A....A..." and we had to hit the typewriter with out pinky finger on the letter A. She would repeat that for all fingers and after I figured out the homerow, I just blazed past everyone and treated it like a competition every time there was a test. It was my most favorite class. A room full of typewriters going and it was awesome.
I want that tie
I'm long retired international IT consultant, but I owe much of my successful career to the IBM Selectric. Entering into my year in high school last semester, I had all the graduating requirements, so practically on a lark I took a typing class. First week of which ended up with a test. The class of thirty or so had to be selected based on proficiency for mechanical or electric typewriters for the entire semester. There only 5 Selectric, 5 Olivetti, and the rest were 20 mechanical typewriters. The top 5 five scores got Selectric, next 5 got the Olivetti and everyone else were going to be effectively hobbled on mechanical for the entire semester. I was the only male to get on any electric and I qualified for Selectric. Going into my first year university Fortran and 360 assembly class I found I easily transitioned to the 1401 keyboard and I could "punch up" assignments in a fraction of the time of other students. But the Selectric keyboard is easily the best keyboard ever produced. I've never experience another keyboard that responded as fast. Because of the unique typing element design there was never a jam. Key feel was perfect. It was ergonomically designed enabling the user to know whether their fingers were properly aligned. Even powering it up and its self test was an experience, the sound of which over half a century removed is unmistakable. Fonts, the typing element, could be swapped out faster than selecting fonts on Word. Correction, with the proper ribbon, was nearly as fast. But anyway, because of my experience with the Selectric I had time to concentrate on programming instead of key punching and that made all the difference.
Seldom do I comment on videos, but that was amazing. I can only imagine the hours you must've spent to find words to explain the mechanics of the typeball alone. I know this is not your focus, I wish you would've explored the available fonts a little bit more - since this is one of the machines unique features. I hope you do some more typewriter reviews in the future!
Thank you so much! I just got one of these for free at a garage sale. Didn't expect such an in-depth video on the history of this typewriter while looking up how to use it. I hope I can find more golf balls for different fonts!!
Every time I heard "digital to analog converter", I didn't expect a mechanical lever setup at first. Fascinating.
Was a IBM Field Service Tech on Model C, as well as other current machines in the mid sixties in Toronto, ON. Went to school when the Selectric was introduced and was taught all the fine points of tuning one of these beasts in the field. Also did Time Systems maintenance, i.e. Master Clock and Time Clock Sysyems for factories, schools, public buildings, etc. Fascinating time, got to see inside of hundreds of different factories… The Selectric was the most complex pure mechanical product ever put into common use, as far as I know. Makes a normal typerwriter look truly primitive, as it is.
What a superb video. It brought back lots of memories, I used to train engineers to fix these (but I was never in the field). Thanks for your explanations, although I never heard the mechanism called a “wiffle tree”.
I learned to type on an IBM Selectric in 1986 in a public school in Texas, USA. The typing feel is still what I crave in a keyboard, probably because it's what I learned first. Modern realities mean that I have to settle for something less loud and no one really makes an effort to emulate the shake that you got from the mechanical motion of the impact from the ball (the keyboard you showed with the solenoid intrigues me, but I doubt my wife wants to listen to that - she already dislikes my clicky keyboards). These are from an era when engineers were permitted to design superior quality into a product for mass production (an era when corporations such as IBM, Bell Labs, Xerox, Kodak, and Westinghouse funded basic science research - often to spectacular result). I loved the Selectric.
Fascinating and really clever in its complexity! A thing of beauty, a joy for ever. I'm just a step from getting an autumn red Selectric III for myself. These machines can still be had quite cheap here.
The key lever - interposer - cycle bail mechanism reminds me of how the Monotype composing machine (a.k.a. keyboard) is built. That one uses a pair of keybar assemblies translating the keypresses to combinations of valves directing compressed air to cyllinders actuating punches which make perforations in paper tape.
The Selectric uses monospace characters, which makes it somewhat simpler than Monotype - that one also has a unit calculating mechanism which subtracts the width of each character (based on the placement in a matrix case) from the pre-set line length, with a scale that allows the typesetter to decide the width of spaces so that all the lines are properly justified.
As for the noise, it won't beat Monotype; no compressed air hiss here! :D
The Selectric is awesome. I love the old ads for it.
No other typewriter had that FEEL all of us typists loved, it
actually made you a faster typist.
I briefly worked with the IBM Memory Typewriters in 1982 or so. It was used to communicate with IBM 360 systems. Just type in commands like $da, $sprt1, $dn, etc and it would type back the output of the commands. It was very interesting and really fun working with it.
They are nerve-wracking when trying to type quickly. Correcting mistakes was still a drag, and it started to feel like writing with a machine gun. I became fascinated/obsessed with the pressure point when it strikes.
They could have created a universal liftoff character like a big square (M and W sort of worked) but they didn't.
@@raygordonteacheschess5501 my guess is that since golfballs made for correcting selectric IIs were still backwards-compat with s.1 machines that invariably did not have a correction mechanism, they didnt want to take up space on the ball with something that a good chunk of their customers' machines had no use for.
plus all the space + allocated whiffletree fuckery for the elements was taken up precisely by the amnt of characters on a typical QWERTY keyboard
Haha. Writing with a machine gun is kind of how I remember it too.
"I Never worked for IBM, but just twenty years ago, I was stripping these down to the Bare Bones, and Putting them back together again. Loved changing Rotate and Tilt Tapes. Drive Shaft and Helical Springs. New Drive Belts etc..
This machine put me through prep school and built Mom's transcription service, the largest in NYC. The "brilliant" people at IBM, however, didn't think to make a large square "universal liftoff" character (I had to use M or W to come cloe).
This video is so good. well written, filmed and narrated!
My first job when I was 18 was as an IBM CE in The City of London looking after around 1,000 of these (and their associated secretaries 😂). Great piece of kit and not a bad job either. Really enjoyed this video - brought back great memories though I doubt I’d be able to replace a tilt or rotate tape now, let along set up a cycle clutch !!!
I worked on this for years. I loved it.
This is an exceptionally excellent video about a remarkable machine. Thanks!
I've spent about 40 years wondering how these worked. Thanks for showing us and explaining how it works.
its duh pay per [..cent os]...
Fixed these things for a few years at IBM, servicing them wasn't fun, at least not for me or anyone else I knew. All the complications had little to do with fixing them. The problem was the tight adjustment tolerances. In an era when guys adjusted their carburetors with sledgehammers when the manual asked for 35/1000 clearance adjustments and they meant it. And if you didn't adjust it right, you'd break a rotate tape and add 2 hours to job and still have deal that adjustment again and you better get it right the 2nd time.
The worst problem was, of all things, replacing the belt that connected the motor to the mechanics. It was located in the center of the machine. In the factory, they hung that damned belt from a sky hook and built everything else around it. So to replace it in the field you had to disassemble and reassemble lot of things that would need to be precisely readjusted with all the risks that entailed..
This was especially true of Selectric I/O units, these were Selectrics that were attached to computers. I worked in the Computer Division of IBM rather than the Office Products division so we dealt almost exclusively with I/O units.. The I/O selectrics had more more 'electronic' connections to the mechanics and even more stuff that had to be readjusted when you had to replace the motor belt. The first belt replace I did, was at an Eastern Airline ticket counter at MIA on Christmas Eve 1969. I took 8 hours. 50 years later I remember. like it was yesterday. :-)
Office Product guys got lots more experience and were much better dealing with these things. We computer types got less experience but when it came it was often under maximum stress.
I think Selectric for may rapid transfer in a job where I was responsible for troubleshooting and fixing OS software. Ah, so simple and no grease.
1:16 gave me a chuckle. Take my subscription.
I loved the typewriters of the 69s through mid 80s. The sound of manuals and electrics are music to me. Your review blew several gaskets in my brain.
The choice of words to type made me laugh! I just acquired a reconditioned selectric i and I’m in love. I can totally relate to the typing of random ‘woooo!’ s 😊
I have a Selectric. Use it often for work. It is reliable. With all its complications, it’s reliable. This machine, along with the auto industry and the Apollo program, was peak US ingenuity.
This is amazing!
im sure we all want the tie, but I just want your voice. its so damn amazing
I could listen to your voice for years!
Nice video, A few months ago I became interested in the Selectric II, I found one that was gummed up from nonuse on craigslist for $20. I cleaned it up and got it working again. It was ugly green color so I bought another broken one on ebay for $59 with a red case that I wanted, and swapped the cases. Of course I started buying golf balls on ebay, many were sold broken, but now I have all the ones that I want. Your 196c looks like it uses Selectric III elements, and is really clean. Thanks for sharing.
A mechanical digital to analog converter! Keystrokes converted to mechanical movement of two cables. Considering IBM's previous mechanical designs there would be plenty of expertise to create this stunningly elegant mechanism.
Hi Thomas. I appreciate very much the video of yours. Congratulations. A high professional way to explain a fantastic machine. If I could award the Engineers that designed this device I would give a special gift to make it even. Next video you could post it using the hood for noise suppression. I have two joys from IBM, the wheelwriter 15 series and the Selectric II. both are the masterpieces of engineering. Samples of what a competent mind can gift mankind. Regards From Brazil. Wander
Anyone else love Chyros's constant digs at the Imperial system?
I did not understand anything about the mechanism but this was still very entertaining to watch and listen. With your voice you could read a telephone book and that would be pleasant to listen. :D
These were a huge step up from regular manual or electric typewriters and were considerably more useful and convenient. I remember watching the ball flipping around when these were still new, which would've been in my father's office.
We had a room full of these in high school for writing homework. They sounded wonderful!
Worked on these machines for over 20 years. Best machine ever manufactured. Also worked on the IBM Memory typewriter.
I learned to touch type on an IBM Correcting Selectric in High School. Great Machines!
Wow, a lot of detailed work with those colored annotations, in order to explain the complicated mechanisms within a few minutes - for sure these are done by someone who has a PhD! ;)
Thanks :) .
Gorgeous! Typing classes circa 1990's. Loved those machines.....
Hunter S. Thompson was a huge fan. He wrote all of his books on one, and had one at his desk in his home in Woody Creek. IIRC he took one along when he was covering stories. It was in his contract that he was provided with one.
I can't believe how awesome are both Selectrics and your channel tbh
While in university in the late 80's, I had a job in the library and would frequently use a Selectric to type up index cards, always enjoyed the satisfying sound and feel, so much fun to use! We also had a bunch of PS2s that had wonderful keyboards, a joy to type with.
!Qui
Two years after uploading, I finally stumble across this video.
Considering that I am so old I was a doula for moses’ mother, I worked in a Government office in 1981. The din of the dozens of SELs as deafening. One prayed for the 10 AM break to commence.
Interesting typewriter lesson here. The idea of an easily replaceable type element was by no means new when IBM released the Selectric. In fact, it was almost 100 years old, with machines like the Blickensderfer and Hammond sporting replaceable type wheels and a semicircular "type shuttle" respectively in the late 19th century. In fact, the Hammond Multiplex model in the 1910s had the ability to hold 2 type shuttles at once, which could be switched between by a quick motion of lifting the circular anvil upon which they rested and giving it a 180 degree spin. Hammond was bought out in the late '20s and survived as the Varityper, outliving the Blickensderfer by a few decades, until it was killed by the IBM selectric.
I repaired and adjusted these in the late 1980's. These machines supported me for years, I love them! Though they were complicated, they were fast and durable, just don't grab the ball when its moving the cables will snap.
skrU dry vairs