The Bendix G15 Typewriter is Crazy Pants!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 พ.ค. 2024
- As we barrel towards DC full speed ahead, there’s one last large hurdle we have to overcome - the typewriter. This thing is insane on multiple levels. Sure, it weighs about 70 lbs. and some crazy fool slapped a 28” platen on it, but also, it’s been heavily modified by Bendix to send the weirdest collection of data-bits and signals back and forth with the computer. Come on along as we dive down the weird and wonderful rabbit hole of the G15 Typewriter!
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Intro Music adapted from:
Artist: The Runaway Five
Title: The Shinra Shuffle
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Thanks for watching!
Chapters
0:00 Who let me get my hands on a piece of history?
1:25 The story so far
3:07 A normal typewriter you say?
4:15 5-bits is 5-bits is 5-bits
6:34 But wait, there’s more!
7:16 The Monty Hall problem, if it were switches instead of doors
8:53 Scrub-a-dub-dub
10:24 Madness lies that way
12:00 Alright, back to work you!
13:16 Can we make the platen move like it’s supposed to?
16:17 A little more scrubbing
17:33 “Hellorld!”
18:45 This thing is a marvel of mechanical engineering
21:19 VCF and the Open House
22:02 Sue and Mei - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
![BOWKYLION - ส่วนต่าง (do it without me) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/7x-pwcMopzE/mqdefault.jpg)
Regarding the lowercase t, there are two issues. One is, you are correct, the alignment may be out. The faces of the slugs are curved to match the platen, and have to hit the platen at just the right angle. There should be a pair of adjustment screw that set the limits of travel of the typebasket--one for uppercase and one for lowercase. You can tweak them until each letter is uniform from top to bottom.
The other issue is the. Literally, the. As in, the word, "the." "The" is, of course, the most typed word in the English language. And the "t" and "h" are typed with opposite hands, which means that even a moderately fast typist sometimes hits them so fast that they land on top of each other. Most English-speakers type "teh" fairly regularly, regardless of whether the keyboard is electronic or mechanical.
What that means, in practice, is that on old typewriters, the lower-case "t" is often very badly chowdered, as a result of slamming into its neighbor "h" so often. Especially on electric typewriters, where the collision has some force behind it. I got through high school and college with old second-hand typewriters, and I can't recall ever having one on which the "t" was in good shape. So do not use the lowercase "t" to set the typebasket alignment.
This brings back memories, some of them good. I used to repair these IBM Model C typewriters, along with Model D and Selectric, back in the early 1970s. I noticed a few things.
The carriage shouldn't make that grinding sound when you hit return. Your escapement pawl is dragging on the rack. There should be a link from the vicinity of the carriage return cam (possibly the carriage return clutch, I don't really remember) to the escapement pawl that unloads the pawl from the rack when you engage carriage return. Adjust the clevis one-half turn at a time until the pawl stops dragging.
What you called a friction roller is known as the power roll. Yours looks pretty worn, which is to be expected. I don't know if anyone is still making that part, but yours should be replaced if possible.
To remove the power roll, first latch your carriage return clutch. If you don't, the disc will slip out and it's fiddly to reposition. Remove the drive belt from the motor and the big cogwheel from the power roll shaft. You can then remove the screws holding the power roll bearing in place and slide the power roll out of the left side of the machine. You may want to do this anyway so you can clean the old hardened grease from the power roll shaft and the bearing and add new grease.
We used to use 1,1,1-trichloroethane to clean the rubber parts because we didn't know any better. It did a great job but it has been phased out because it's an ozone-depleting chemical and a probable carcinogen. I may or may not have discovered that it also does a great job of killing cockroaches and getting one high. I ain't sayin' nothin'. 🙂
Try to find someone who knows these machines and can assist you. Don't trust my memory. It's been 50 years, after all.
You sir are awesome. Nothing warms my heart more than hearing/reading experts share their knowledge.
Thank you so much for the insight!
I had an inkling that the dragging sound wasn't quite right, but didn't know enough to know how to fix it.
I do still find it curious that the hammer has enough force to imprint a nice letter when it caps, but I can't even hear the hammer strike the platen when in lowercase. Although, I think that bodes well for the power roll being in alright shape, since that's going to be a very difficult part to find a replacement for!
My buddy will be down here sometime this summer I believe, and he will be able to get this thing humming along perfectly. I mostly wanted it working well enough to proceed with powering the machine, and I think we've achieved that!
@@MarianoLu Thanks. You should hear me when I get going on C programming or flying. You can't shut me up.
@@UsagiElectric Just watching you clean and bring these machines back to life requires a special dedication and skill altogether, and you have done Very Well !
@@johnopalko5223 ohhh I bet I would and I will join you on the C programming one.. actually on soft dev as a whole
When you press that DC button it's going to be a huge moment, I think everyone is going to have to cross their fingers, but looking forward to it and best of luck.
Worthy of a “2001 a space odyssey” intro
Cross their fingers, and their toes, maybe? :D
Dave: *presses the DC button*
Every artificial light on Earth: *dims*
I'm super excited for it!
No clue what's going to happen, but whatever does should be interesting to say the least!
Ok so there is a clip from titan ae where the "smart alien" wants to push a button on the device he designed in his dreams but he doesn't know what it will do.... I imagine it's exactly like that
i love how the table rocks when the carriage hits the end stops
That thing creates seismic events
Steelcase desks make so much more sense now.
We once had a Bendix washing machine. It had to be bolted down too.
That's a lot of mass picking up a lot of momentum!
Dazzy, dazzy, you know the song. I won't annoy you about the carriage. But it would be sweet! PRESS THE DC BUTTON!!
9:11 - "RELEASE THE PLATEN!!"
I wavered so much on whether to slip in that clip or not, lol.
I can't believe that I now live at the time when there are 70 year old computers
Probably the *upper and lowercase stops*, if its anything like a normal typewriter it would be a pair of 2 large bolts that have several adjustments on them, and generally have rubber rings to cushion the rise and fall of the basket. However those rubber rings degrade and it gets out of whack. The manual would tell you how to adjust it, especially equipment from IBM. Cryptic language from the ancient engineers aside, it wouldn't be that bad.
This thing is basically an IBM Executive typewriter, the predecessor to the Selectric. The leaf switches on the keys and the solenoids to trigger the type bars were added, but otherwise it is pure Executive, and I'm pretty sure has almost all of the same parts and adjustments.
@@lwilton right
It looks like the friction drum is worn more for frequently used letters. Id guess that would be the best place to start to get the lower case letters working well again. Thanks for the video, its fun to see the old school tech. 😊
I was thinking the same thing, and that some positions looked damaged.
Wouldn't that affect the corresponding upper case letters as well?
I don't know if it's a good idea, but I really want to stick it in a lathe and even it out
When I worked for Xerox we used a spray rubber restorer that was actually just straight D-limonene. The stuff works amazing, smells great, and won't try to kill you.
I typically work a Sunday through Thursday schedule, so I always start out my week with an Usagi Electric video. Watching David solving problems gives me a lot of motivation to solve my own. This week's problem is trying to get two MCUs to exchange data over a UART connection that suddenly stopped working for no reason. The scope traces seem to match so I am clueless. But I've seen David solve some seemingly unsolvable problems right here on this channel, so I'm confident that I'll figure it out at some point. 🙂
Ah you've found an ultra widescreen typewriter. Nicw
Love this lovely type (hah) of stuff. I am very excited to see the Bendix alive. that thing is a beast.
We had a very quiet day, n I was having a bit of a tiff with my boss. He told me to clean my desk. I will admit it looked like chaos, but I had about 80% of the things I might need within arms reach on on a whole stack of shelves and boxes. instead of touching that, I took him literally and scrubbed the desk. including the keyboard and mouse to a ridiculous level. every key removed and scrubbed. So incredibly filthy. years of workshop filth, every type of grease and solvent, wire trimmings, tiny washers, SMD resistors and capacitors and transistors. and just that grotty human slime that accumulates. I was in a big workshop, everything was filthy, we worked on stuff that was inherently covered in mud and grease, so I didnt really care.
But it was SO NICE to have such a clean keyboard. its was cleaner and shinier than when they are new (It was *my* keyboard, I have a particular IBM model from around '98 I love, and bought a box of them from a surplus store. I've worn out 4 of them so far, but they type so nice) Id moved stuff out of the way to scrub the desk, but put it right back. so the desk itself was absolutely gleaming, but the chaos surrounding it was still all there. Very satisfying. especially when the boss came by a few hours later just before knockoff. see, the 'Desk" is clean! he was an asshole, so I played his game.
My 4 year old “why did he shave his beard off?”😂
"Did Dave land a corporate job?"
Just kidding!
So it won't get caught in that 28" platen!
@@6612770 Very Fozzie Bear of you.
He's just a time traveller, he doesn't shave his beard off!
Hair today, gone tomorrow, as they say.😊
If nobody hasn’t already commented about it, the black roller is the platen. The thing that holds it is the carriage. Still pretty impressive.
My guess on the u-z hex notation is that it was inspired by calculus/algebra and how most variables are a set of those letters
I learned to type on a IBM. (Yes I am that old). The lower case letters are used more often. The ink ribbon has an upper 1/2 for capital letters and a bottom 1/2 for lower case letters. Lower case is used more that capital letters. Perhaps the first thing to check is the ribbon. I don't know what a new ribbon might cost but it could save a lot of time and money
I bet a new ribbon would help too - looks like this might even be a standard half inch ribbon, which you can still get new. (Printing adding machines use the same kind of ribbon but wound of tiny spools.) Around 19:33 it looks like only the top half of the ribbon is used for both lower and upper case letters. So one of those adding machine ribbons that’s half black and half red, from your local office supply store, might even work if you put the black on top.
@@amartini51 probably able to spool it round the other way too , as well as re-inking like was done with the centurion
If it was mostly used as a teletype (so controlled by the computer as a printer), then it's probable that the upper case was used more often?
Interesting as I worked as a typewriter repair engineer back in the 80's & I used to leave the IBM to the person who taught me who is still alive. My curse was to carry these machines back to the workshop.
I sat in anticipation as expecting your issues so good luck & look forward in interest.
I can attest to the fact that these IBMs are heavy machines. Lugging it back to the shop would be exercise for sure.
@@wtmayhewyep but I was very fit as a teenager as I came from farming!
So the ability to throw hay nails & pick sheep up all day gave my muscles.
Just a teenager thing of very little patience & only interest in the electronic ones which the older guys did not like!
~70 odd years of corrosion on those contacts and in those solenoids is going to be so much fun later on.
Watching that carriage return actions puts all kinds of context into the design criteria of the Steelcase series of desks from that era.
Hard to believe all this is from 1956, looks so refined. Finland started building a computer in 1954 and after 6 years of hard labor it was operating but made of leftover bits and trash from other countries. The hard drive had gears from a milk separator.
I love it, especially when you got the carridge moving fully. The whole table moved at each end stop... amazing. Nice work as always
I've seen some matrix printers rocking a table, but nothing to that level, that thing is a hunk of metal with a lot of mass !
What a dapper young man 😂
Lovely! It's neat to see this typewriter working; even if the lowercase letters aren't exactly in line with the platen. This is like the Final Boss of Typewriter World, it would seem!
The parts you call hammers are properly called typebars. Enjoy your vlogs very much. Keep it up.
Thank you for increasing my appreciation of the home computer. I love vintage computers just because they’re complexity, but I’m in all of the home computer for it, seeming some publicity and where it originated from.
I was a draftsman back in the 1970s & 80s, and we had typists, with wide carriage typewriters to type large amounts of text on our drawings. This was extremely helpful to us, otherwise we’d have to hand letter this stuff. It was advanced technology at the time. The carriage allowed a 24” X 36” sheet to fit.
This typewriter seems to be the ideal size for drawing/filling in old weather maps with symbols of meteorological phenomena and information.
I was speculating the same thing exactly, weather maps. However, there are only 16 characters available due to the funky five bit code and there appear to be no graphic type slugs. It’s a mystery.
Hello David,
It's been a blast watching you breathe new life into old computers. It's fascinating for me to witness how it all started from humble beginnings and how much ingenuity went into it. Nowadays, the technology behind it all isn't as visibly intricate. It's almost become my Sunday ritual to tune in.
I'm aware that the effort might not seem worthwhile and it's a lot of tinkering that doesn't necessarily yield practical results. But it would be intriguing to see the typewriter or the punch card reader in a test environment, perhaps with an Arduino...
Sending warm greetings from Austria!
Also, I must say, you really do look young without the beard! It's funny how shaving and haircuts seem to alternate... almost like my routine!
Cheers!
At Bendix, someone was told that size matters apparently.
What blows my mind is that the 28 inch platen doesn’t have the look of something which was cobbled up for a small order of a handful of machines. 15 inch platters were not unusual, but 28 inch!…. I would have guessed that maybe some sort of chart was printed on this Bendix-ized IBM. I was thinking, perhaps weather maps, but the restriction of only 16 codes available for characters no special type slugs for graphics rules out printing maps. Weird.
A new Usagi Electric video every Sunday is my favorite part of the week! Happy Easter Bunday!
the earth's orbit shifts a little each time that carriage hits home.
At 8:56 I was immediately reminded of the similarity to the construction of IBM's 3270 type terminal keyboards. (IMHO that is STILL, even today, the best terminal ever designed.)
Wide carriages are often used for accounting.
When I had worked for a "math museum", we had quite a collection of desk calculators and typewriter hybrids. Most of them had those huge carriages. They were used for processing spreadsheets. You can perform calculations and label them. There are also were pure calculators and pure typewriters in use back then.
So it's not a "computer thing", maybe they thought converting an accounting typewriter is more versatile and can't do any harm - except for someone sitting on the edge of your desk.
The Zuse Z25 of the museum uses a standard Siemens T100 Teletype with a slight modification. It has a red light when the computer expects you to "type" and a switch which can alter the flow of the program. The light is just the RS232 "Request to send" Line equivalent and indicates that the computer is actually listening. The Z25 is also meant to be used by teletype lines using ordinary teletypes. So the Z25 is actually a "home office" capable computer.
The way this works is absolutely genius! Letters are commands and numbers are parameters. The ABC/123 switching code tells the Z25 that the command is complete and you are now entering numerical parameters. Fpr example, the "copy" command ist "U" (Umspeichern). If you press the command letter twice (e.g. "UU"), the machine automatically uses double-words. So switching from 18-bit to 36 bits was easy. No need to learn new commands. Also the machine does hardware floating point math. And 36-bits floating point precision using simple commands is really impressive and the machine handles this really fast.
Ever since you introduced this printer I’ve been wondering how the paper moves with the platen. Is there a big tray attached to the carriage? I’m guessing it uses some sort of continuous roll or fan fold. Very curious to see how this goes. Thanks for sharing this with us.
It almost certainly uses fanfold. I believe there are adjustable pin tractors on each end of the carriage that can be set to match the paper width. The usual way of feeding was to take the paper out of the box and set the stack in a designated spot on the floor behind the typewriter, which would be on a desk or stand. Then the paper thrashes back and forth as the carriage moves. Generally this worked pretty well, as long as the paper didn't catch on something.
The rubber platen underneath that drives the white cams when a character is selected is called a power roll. It has dried out and become hard causing the white individual cams to slip on the power roll when engaged instead of being grabbed and driven in turn pulling the type bar and type face up to and striking the platen.
The white cams wear as well and may be causing additional slippage when engaging the power roll.
50 years ago you would have the platen and power roll recovered by a company that does just that. New rubber of a specific type, softness etc.
In Canada, back then, it was Randmar Platens in Quebec for us eastern Canadian technicians. Who could do that now I don't know given we live in a throwaway society now.
Very little grease is used on a typewriter rather machine oil is best for what is available to day. Be carefull with using grease of any type as it will cause you a world of headaches if over done.
The alignment of the typefaces to the platen is fine. No problems there but your ink ribbon is done.
In the day we cleaned he platen, power roll and feed rollers with Benzine. Yeap straight out of the bottle onto a rag and wipe thoroughly. Different times.
If you look at the serial number on your unit there should be a letter at the beginning of the number and I think your typewriter is a model B. Whichever letter it is that is the model of the basic typewriter you have before it became a printer.
Cheers 🇨🇦
4:04
"its so big"
"its starting to grow on me"
"How often do you get to play with a 28inch 'platen'"
the 3 contenders for out of context quotes of the day
"Initially I thought it's too big but it's starting to grow on me." ;-)
I love the cantilever braces on each side, necessary because THE platen is SO WIDE!
Remarkable progress on this thingy. You might try finding another ribbon. It looks like it's getting kind of dry. That might resolve the lower-case printing problem without a lot of mechanical stuff. I seem to remember that adjuster on the right for hammer force actually adjusts the distance between the platen and the hammer just slightly... Play with that incrementally until a "best quality" print results. Good work on this, man. I'm looking forward to the day you push the big green button.
Adjusting the print position of the typeslugs is actually pretty simple on this machine. I recommend heading over to Phoenix Typewriter and find his video on that adjustment, they’ll be different brands and models, but the process is the same.
The keyboard and switch layout on the G15 Typewriter Terminal makes it look like a smiley face...that's winking at us! Hahaha! 😂 This must have been the typewriter Andre The Giant wrote his memoir on. 🤣🤣
Cannot wait to get all the currents up!
Beleive it or not, I learned how to program a G-15 in college. By that time, Bendix had been bought by Control Data. So here are some thoughts:
1. As you have seen, the care and feeding of the memory drum is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. As I recall, due to the very tight fitment of the read/write heads warmup and cool off of the drum has precise instructions. The one thing I remember was after use, the computer had to cool off for several hours before restarting or a head crash will occur. I could not help noticing the gouges in the other drum probably from not following those directions. I also know that the sequence for starting the computer required following precisely a sequence of power starts or again there would be head crash. Once gouged, they are difficult to impossible to rebuild.
2. Long programs were never entered on the keyboard. We used a device called a Flexowriter to punch the five level tape. It was also hooked up to the G-15 to use the tape reader on the Flexowriter to input the code. You could also manually pull the punch tape through the upper reader on the G-15. We used that upper reader primarily to load the operating system onto the computer. It was also used to load diagnostics for trouble shooting. The tape cassettes took forever to load and sometimes failed requiring a reload.
3. As mentioned previously, the computer knew no language other than machine language on startup. We had several sets of cassettes with different computer languages to load into the operating system. The only one I can remember was called Algol.
4. Maintenance took a boatload of contact cleaner. The filaments on the dual triode tubes were run lower than manufacturer specifications to increase to longevity of the tubes. That part of the troubleshooting was easy, if the filaments were not lit, that was your defective tube.
They made special pliers to adjust those typebars; they were designed to grip the head of the typebar without damaging the type.
Oh it is you again :) I overlooked it when I saw the thumbnail. It was so much fun to watch. Great recording and narration.
Oh what an over designed monster that typewriter is!
I briefly played long long ago with one of those with a normal width carriage. It was the standard computer console on a CDC-160A minicomputer. The interface electronics were about a tenth of those on this Bendix computer. I wonder how and why they went so bizarro on this interface. I think the default interface, however complex, was still only printing numbers and spaces and newline. They had as an option an alphanumeric options which required considerable rewiring in the computer chassis.
Part of the printing problem may be due to the rubber sleeve on the platen. That hardens up over the years and makes a huge difference in how the letters strike the ribbon and paper. I used to have a Kleinschmidt T-100 teletype back in the 1970’s. A mechanical gem but its printing was almost illegible due to a hardened platen. You might try some rubber renewer on it. An excellent one is oil of wintergreen which does an amazing job of softening up rock hard rubber. It’s great for restoring rubber idler wheels on turntables. A new rubber platen is probably way out of production.
You're right
We even had a special cleaner for this called "Walzenreiniger" in German
I don't know how you call it in English
That contributes, but I think he's right about the hammer carriage sitting too low. You can see it with the uppercase T. The top of the letter hits fine, but the lower third doesn't print. It's off the perfect spot. If the platen was softer and the force wheel wasn't worn, it would print even with that offset, but fixing the offset is much simpler than tweaking those.
Nice cleanup on that old monster!
Look around for a bottle of "platen restorer". The rubber on the platen and drive roller gets hard with age. This was a common problem with all typewriters of this general design, and a stopgap before replacing the parts was to use platen restorer. Getting the drive roller a little less slippery (with the restorer) should give more velocity to the hammers, and hopefully you can run the machine on the default B setting.
You also need a new ribbon. Should be able to find ribbons for an IBM Executive reasonably easily.
I've got a very similar machine. It is still IBM color, and has either a 16- or 18-inch platen, I forget which. It was originally the main output device on a GE computer used for QC inspection on the tin plating line at Kaiser Steel in Fontana, California. It has the same solenoid and key switch arrangement that you have on yours, but the electronics box was separate from the typewriter, and it just had big honking cables running out of it. Back in the late 70s or early 80s I built an interface and software to use it on my KIM-1. Slooow...
Wheeeeeeeee! Wheeeeeeeeee! I'm riding the carriage!
What a beautiful machine :)
It looks like it's badly in need of recapping, to do it true justice. For some reason it impresses me even more than the Selectric! Minty fresh with a hint of Tektronix teal.
Good luck with VCF East, and beat Jeri at pinball this time, haha! CuriousMarc will be there too.
There are a few paper tube electrolytics in there but the really bad-looking cylinders are diodes in a kind of rubber sleeve rather than capacitors (or maybe it was inductors but definitely not caps, the same style is used inside the computer).
This is advanced level vintage computing.
The missing screw-on switch knobs at the front of the typewriter look like they might be the same as the ones for the pickup selector on Gibson Les Paul guitars.
I see later in the video that they're not actually missing - disregard!
My father was a photolithographer and I grew up in a darkroom with ultra large format process cameras. The platen on that IBM typewriter caught my attention because I've seen that sort of thing before. They were on typewriters dedicated to the manually justifying type. So just to let you know its not a feature restricted to first generation mini computers.
It's very odd to see you without a beard yet you look so much younger. I think the beard gives you a level of authority and adds to your wisdom😂
7:04 I am currently playing around on an emulated C64 (childhood memories) and there is a bit of pesky memorizing to do since a modern keyboard is not a C64 keyboard. But when I saw that Bendix keyboard layout, I realized I have nothing to complain about.
Make sure it’s at flaps 40 when you land that thing, those wings need as much help as they can get.
Yeah, I was gonna say.
I don't recognize that airfoil though.
Eagerly awaiting the first power-on of the CPU circuitry within the Bendix G15 computer as once it starts up, it could be one of a very few vacuum tube computers still functioning.
Also, either mechanical or digital typewriters, depending on whenever they're made, made with huge carriages tend to be for budgeting and scientific applications, as it's usually good to have a bit more information printed on the papers.
You also can get the printer to function with digital load drivers (buffers, potentially with beefy MOSFETs, depending on whether they're meant to indirectly or directly drive the mechanism within) and even a $1 Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller or any of your favorite microcontrollers, particularly to test the oldest digital printers to make sure it works all the way throughout, something with the Quick Fox Jumping over The Lazy dog "hello world" to test all alphabets and anything else you want to test, even using them as a proper Linux TTY device if you so desire.
I love that 28" machine, it's the original widescreen format. For when you don't want your spaghetti code to have to conform to that pesky 80 char column limit!
That’s awesome. Not only the resurrection, the unique (did you say, “42 inch platen”?) dimensions! ❤
There is 1 mod’ I recommend. A lamp inside the window of the printer’s power indicator. Maybe a couple of NE-2 lamps, which would be period correct.
Your skillset may not cover fine tuning of typewriters, but your skills and results (with all the beautifully restored equipment behind you), is truly, outstanding and inspirational! I am envious.
I’m looking forward to the next instalment of the Bendix system revival 😍. It will also be impressive, if you can demonstrate a working program (ie, tic-tac-toe loaded from paper tape).
my engineering brain is telling me that you should sand the lower friction roller so it's even all the way across, then wrap it in electrical tape, as there's notches that have worn in from where the bottom of the hammers contact the roller.
Awesome! I can't wait for the DC! See you at VCFEast!
17:13 No chemicals (e.g. alcohol, petrol jelly, etc.) used to clean the platen. Well done!
Love your channel and videos!
I used to have the basic typewriter that your beast is based on. And yes, it shook the desk every time you hit return. I can almost smell the oil from the electric motor bearings as I watch the machine run.
BTW, I worked in a computer repair shop that resold used computers. To clean them up, we used a SImple Green/Dawn dish soap combo in a spray bottle, with just a little water to thin it down a smidge. The Dawn breaks down the "people grease" (oil from people's hands) better than SG alone.
10:09 even old electronics have screws behind the feet, wait, the feet are the screw themselves? 🤯
just an FYI with these old typewriters, use a backing sheet of thick paper. Especially with such a novel long paten. Old platen can be indented and damaged by the types striking the paper and it. cracks might ensure
I started watching this actually thinking it was an April fool's video. That thing is ridiculous! 😂
My very first job was with the Autonetics Division of North American Aviation at Downey California in 1957.
We had a Bendix G15 computer with an attached DDA (Digital Differential Analyzer) .
Among the idiosyncrasies of the DDA were that you had to keep the keep the curve plotter pens in the cooling fans exhaust port. The warm air kept the pens warm eough to write reliably, otherwise they skip.
Sometimes a vacuum tube or two would get microphonic (an unintended output caused by mechanical vibration).
The standard, but not authorized procedure to detect probems included tapping on the racks where the tubes were mounted. Once in a while it worked.
For the tools, components and knowledge they had, our grandparents were miraculously ingenious.
If you can get the power roller out, you should be able to get in touch with JJ Short Associates to have it redone, they put new rubber on the original parts, platens, paper rollers, and power rollers, you send your parts off to them and they come back with new rubber. Lot of typewriter collectors use them.
Seeing a platen THAT BIG on a typewriter, and an electric one at that, is pretty wild! There's still a typewriter shop in Mesa, not far from me, that's been there since the 1940's, and that's exactly where I'd take it! I still have a manual typewriter that I got at a garage sale many years ago, and I took it to the shop in Mesa for a cleaning; the owner (son of the founder) didn't bat an eye, even though it's about as old as his shop. Good thing you have a guy who can come to you, though. 🙂
Back in the 1960s, I worked on a slightly more modern computer called a LGP-30. It was also a tube computer with a drum. The typewriter was a Flexowriter and the hexadecimal codes were zero through nine, then FGJKQW.
The typewriter also had a tape reader and could be run independently using that reader.
The thing that strikes me about the typewriter in this video is the difficulty of managing paper. It must flop around quite a bit.
Great work looking forward to DC.. As for setting up the mechanics of the teleprinter you did right in passing this to someone tuned into that device, you skills are epic.. I know that teleprinters and typewriters can be a challenge, I remember the Creed 75 RPTK which used an aggregate motion mechanism to translate motion in three planes to the drum type head. Move R and loose the Y and vis a versa. Even a drop too much oil would through the alignment. The IBM Golfball was a dream to set up. Teletype 33 responded well to kinetic adjustment. Best
Thanks for the video.
That terminal is a beast. Looking forward to DC being applied!
Very impressive old technology so much details and mechanics its pure beauty!
I'll bet that typewriter could destroy some of those motorized stand-up desks after a few years of full-width work.
They make specialized cleaning solutions for platens. You should try AF Platenclene Cleaning Solution. It's what I use on the pressure sealing machines we use at work. Simple Green is fab stuff but it is mostly soap and water which could dry out the rubber.
4:03 "It's so biggggg XD ..... But it's started to grow on me" 🤭🤭🤭🤭
The term "Absolute Unit" comes to mind when looking at that thing.
I do love the Russ... IBM green color. The same lovely hue I loved/hated in the DC-9 cockpit
I have a book "Computer Arithmetic" written by Henry Jacobowitz from March 1962. Hexadecimal representation was not set at that time and he wrote of two alternatives: "UVWXYZ" or, his preference, "TEDHFI". It was mean to be Ten, Eleven, Dozen, tHirteen, Fourteen, and fIfteen.
Made my day with this one, wow!! Will you running off some large format ASCII art once you get that bastard operational? I would totally buy a poster of that. Love all the Bendix videos, keep up the good work 👍
Two animals who's names sound like "sue me" right in "lawsuit country" USA 😂😂
This brings me back to the times I had to service Friden Flexowriters that served a similar purpose. A wonder of metal rods, clutches, relais etc etc. Noisy as hell! Some would even do (mechanical) proportional spacing. We even had a model that supported Ascii coding on an attached 8 channel paper tape reader/punch. Ah the good old times ...
I love this electro mechanical stuff. A work of art. Congrats on getting it cleaned up and working. So cool!
For a split second, I thought I saw one or these used on the Loki series. I just looked back and I think it's just a standard IBM electric typewriter but with a large platen. Not a massive one like the Bendix. BTW, check out S2:E6 at 46:32 if you want to see what I mean.
I’m thinking of all the engineers who worked so hard to design this beast and bring it to life even though they’re anonymous and surely all deceased. A moment of silence in their memory on this Easter.
I was thinking the same thing Before I saw this comment, My hat off to those engineers who designed this piece of Marvel machinery
wow, that's a mad machine!
You need a concrete pedestal, there's so much weigh moving there!
Very exciting stuff on the verge of happening🤞
I had one these as a plain short platten IBM typewriter which had been through a flood. It took forever to clean out the mud. My Waterloo was that the motor was a goner and I was never able to find a motor of the correct dimensions even though it was a fairly normal looking fractional horsepower motor. The plastic rollers and internal rotating bar for activating the type hammers were an interesting method , a bit like a piano - not even close at all to the Selectric technology which followed.
I thought the Bendix looked like a (stylish 50s) washing machine when I saw this video. A day later, I was looking in my 50s advertisements book and there was a Bendix washing machine that looked just like a (stylish 50s) mini computer.
From someone who grew up in the typewriter age, that lever at 18:30 that goes from A to F is to adjust the platen for when you are making multiple copies using carbon paper. Some of your viewers may now be wondering, "what's carbon paper?" I will leave it to the Internet to answer that question for them.
Surprisingly enough, at least in Europe carbon paper is still reasonably common. Earlier this week I had a plumber fix a minor leak and when he was done he handed me a clipboard for a signature, tore off one layer and handed me the carbon copy. In commercial shipping it seems they still use dot matrix printers (and you can buy them new) because carbon copies of the papers are a legal requirement.
@@Ragnar8504 That's interesting. I don't think I've received more than one or two carbon copies in the last year, and even those didn't use carbon paper, but rather the "carbonless" paper with the microencapsulated ink. Actual carbon paper is almost extinct in the US, due, I think, to the privacy and security risk the discarded carbon paper presents.
There is a type of paper that works like carbon without the carbon sheets in between, forgot whats called but still have some for printer (with the hole tracks). Oh yes, most printers do have the same lever and for the same reason, to allow thicker paper (multiple layers) in,
@@freeculture Right, I confused two things. The plumber must have had that special paper but I recently watched my dad use actual carbon paper.
Fun!
Really interesting why the owners specified that unusual carriage.
You have some paper tapes with this right?
Can’t wait to see it back to life 🤓
Accounting maybe? I seem to remember that's where extra-wide fanfold paper was used well into the 80s or even 90s.
It looks beautiful and every mark left is like a badge of honor and speaks to is past!
Happy Easter, bunny guy!
That's really interesting that it supports breakpoints. I always assumed that was a convenience of more modern software debugging systems.
It's going to be such a delight seeing this thing code!
I can't wait to see somebody port DOOM to it!
More like Tic Tac Toe... or Hangman.
wow man. brave of you to take that thing apart
This unit is analogous to a player-piano!
I would be surprised if the Bendix character set actually used lower case.... this typewriter probably spent its working life with the caps lock engaged.
hand drawn circuits are pretty.. Always loved the look of curved traces..
You forgot about VCF Southeast which is in Atlanta on July 19 - 21, 2024
Back in the day, that friction roller would be wiped down with Fedron to bring the friction back and rejuvinate the rubber. Fedron was discontinued over 25 years ago due to it's toxicity, and I don't know what could be used today to replace it.