@rileycran #MarcinWichary who’s about to publish a book on a book about typewriters would appreciate this
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift-happens
#typewriters #ShiftHappens #keyboards

@rileycran @glennf These were such fun to use. Childhood memory unlocked.

@rileycran pretty impressive feat of engineering, too. That whole system is spectacular.

@rileycran
I grew up in the 90s with microsoft word and hp inkjets, but my father had a typeball from an old selectric, and he went out of his way to explain how genius this invention was compare to the old typewriters, to his unimpressed children. For me all typewriters were old and obsolete. But i do recognize today how cool this design is, and how it solved so many troubles, older typewriters had.

@rileycran I remember using those in the late 70s early 80s transition from typesetters to DTP

@rileycran at first glance I thought they were fancy chocolates 😁

@rileycran I loved the satisfying whirring sound when you typed with these.

@rileycran I thought they were expensive chocs!

@rileycran (pretentiousness klaxon)... hmmmm, the left photo looks like it could be a #minimalist #artwork by Allan McCollum...
#arthistory

@rileycran I remember my Selectric. Loved it, and yet glad I will never have to use it ever again.

@rileycran blast from the past, I remember using them (and the damn ribbons)

@rileycran the way those things work is *incredible* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRCNenhcvpw

@rileycran In my dinning room I have a small manual typewriter which was always in my Grandmother’s dining room- it used ink tape reels (which I too stashed away) that Typewriter typed all my Father’s, Uncle, Aunts term papers for High-school and College and her Church newsletters - #GoodMemories

@rileycran After golfball printing came daisy wheel printers - plastic pinwheels with a letter on each arm - several times faster. At university we had daisy wheel printers & you could request the appropriate wheel, including a mathematical symbols one. Then in 1990 I bought an inkjet with a plug in cartridge of fonts. Then we got software fonts.
Image: Wikipedia

@rileycran a friend who has since passed used to run a private collection he called The Museum of Temporary Art.

These would have fit right in.

@rileycran do you have an old blue meany to fit them in (Selectric)? I think the green used those too.

@rileycran My parents used custom "golf balls" for writing Ancient Greek – until they bought their first Mac in 1987.

@rileycran

@rileycran

What do you do with them, please?

@rileycran Do we have any idea as to what the machine that made these beasts looked like?

@rileycran wow, those are a beaut! I remember using them to play as a kid—my father had two typewriters—and now I regret not keeping them.

@rileycran I had forgotten about those! I had a few for my typewriter.

@rileycran I have one of these, somewhere... And I remember my parents using them.

@rileycran @steph In the 1970s, I built my typing speed to 120 words per minute on one of those. The best typing experience ever! (I now type on a keyboard at the opposite end of the spectrum: the hideous Apple keyboard of my 2017 MacBook Pro.)

@rileycran I remember them well 😂

@rileycran How well I recall typing on IBM Selectric typewriters, with their changeable fonts. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I typed my way to getting the money to go to college on them, even learning to use the IBM MagCard (an early memory card / word processor for the Selectric typewriter). And during college I owned one to take in typing as a freelance typist as well.

What a blast from the past!

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

@rileycran when I was young, we had a printer at home using these!

@rileycran I loved my Selectric when I was at college but I could never find different golf balls!

@rileycran Neat!

@rileycran This is probably how Dennis Ritchie wrote his (math rich) dissertation. Not quite TeX level, but...
https://computerhistory.org/blog/discovering-dennis-ritchies-lost-dissertation/

@rileycran I have such a love affair with my IBM Selectric II!

@rileycran these look like they'd be in blade runner

@rileycran @crista that’s amazing!

@rileycran I fought to keep a Selectric at work. Nothing was better for one-off labels.

@rileycran Wow!

@rileycran
Those are gorgeous!
Reminded (vaguely) of a sculpture I made in school that involved tearing apart a manual typewriter, using it to press a William Burroughs quote into clay, which then had clay heads growing from it, intermingled with metal pieces from the typewriter (including the bell/chime).

@rileycran
Dude sweet! Please post updates for what you do with them

@rileycran welcome to the fediverse, where fonts are stored in the balls

@translator@toot.works fr

@rileycran I know those from using a Selectric Composer back in the late '70s. The Composer could justify text by typing each line twice, with the ribbon switched off during the first go. You then set an adjustment figure on a dial, causing subsequent space chars being augmented by micro spaces during the second run to achieve justification. A bummer when there was a typo during the “blind” run…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Selectric_typewriter#Selectric_Composer

@rileycran If you’re going to start turning them in to xmas ornaments and selling them on Etsy please shoot me a link, I want some.

@rileycran @ACM OMG how cool is this?!

#typewriters #fonts

@rileycran Turn them into Christmas ornaments

@rileycran #IBM #typewriter #designers had #balls!

I spent a lot of my youth in front of a #Selectric, and we still had one until gifting it to a young relative earlier this year so they could have the experience. And that grounding in the keyboard arts may be why I'm tying this on a #ModelM.

@rileycran
Oh man, this is really cool

@rileycran fonts are stored in the balls

@rileycran Ah, the days when we owned typefaces, before licensing and DRM forced us into monthly subscriptions.

@rileycran I've seen this toot boosted a few times now and every time I think they're Ferrero Rocher.

@rileycran Do you have the APL typeball?

@rileycran

I remember this system, my father sold this type of machine in his shop in the early 80s (not the IBM one though. I think Brother and Olivetti also made them). Customers were fascinated when he demonstrated the magic movement of the 'golf ball'. In German it's called a "Kugelkopfschreibmaschine" (literally, "ball head writing machine" (; ).

@rileycran
I always preferred balls to daisy wheels.

@rileycran My mom had an old IBM Selectric. It was so supremely loud. I LOVED it.

@rileycran 🤩

@rileycran Ah, the opening sequence of UFO... Takes me back!

@rileycran I remember those days well. Sometimes we even had to change them in the middle of a page to get a special font, effect, or letter.

@rileycran gorgeous!

@rileycran I feel like fonts were undoubtably prettier in the #Selectric days, but I am confident that's just rose-tinted glasses.

The weight of a Selectric and the noise of each character is something you can never forget.

@rileycran This is fantastic and I love it. 👍

@rileycran I could watch that ball spin to and fro for hours...

@rileycran thanks for tooting, I had completely forgotten about them.

@rileycran I love the image of the owner shoveling them into a box

@rileycran I miss my old Olivetti Lexikon with the interchangeable balls from the 1980s. The typeahead buffer was brilliant! If you were a fast enough typist (I did 80+ WPM back before my arthritis), made a mistake, and backspaced to fix it, that usually caught it before it had been printed. It was a one-line word processor.

@rileycran I remember them well

Retoot si tu as connu la machine à écrire IBM à boule (= avoue que tu es un boomer 👵 👴)

@rileycran Now I want one on the top of a walking stick.

@rileycran I have no idea why this makes me happy, but it does!

@rileycran

still remember dealing with a diablo printer, which was basically a selectric with a computer interface card.

there was a special font ball that had an OCR friendly font that was supposed to be used for all DoD forms.

had to write a raw ROFF macro that would correctly space for that font/ball and deal with boxes/overflow.

and we got to swap balls when it was used for correspondance, because the font was "ugly".

memories. :)

@rileycran beautiful. I still remember the physicality of the object: it was weird for these to be so light and precise.

@rileycran
As a teenager, I repaired typewriters. Mechanical, electro-mechanical and electronic.
I *hated* selectrics. Replacing tilt and rotate tapes was a hideous endeavour.
https://invidious.slipfox.xyz/watch?v=ag-w2aunzCI
Compare to olivetti's ball machine using two simple triangular gears...
I far preferred doing board repairs on electronic things anyhow!
@kranfahrer

@rileycran We had a Selectric at home when I was growing up. It never occurred to me the ball could be changed out for one with different fonts. Very cool.

@rileycran I learned to type on a Selectric. I wish I had the space for one at home!

@rileycran @UntenableWhale A unique sound to them in use…and weren’t we at the forefront of technology!

@rileycran they’d make awesome Xmas tree decorations

@rileycran mmmmm... forbidden Ferrero Rocher

@rileycran there’s a great Technology Connections video about this on YouTube…wild that this stuff worked at all!

@rileycran A good friend of mine’s middle name is Pifont because her dad really loved a symbols-based ball, which he called the “pi font”. Those things were such interesting tangible objects in themselves.

@rileycran oh my goodness, I forgot all about those! Thanks for posting.

@rileycran I remember such things. My parents had a typewriter and 2 of such balls.

@rileycran Awesome collection. I wish I had a place to keep a Selectric. I think they're one of the coolest typewriters ever made.

@rileycran I remember doing a typing class on machines that used these. The question I was repeatedly asked was, why would a boy want to learn to type? I was one of only a few boys in the class.

@rileycran Oh, those are beautiful.

@rileycran There was one at my parents' office. I loved the big clunk on caps lock. Also vivid memories of them appearing in the intro to the TV show UFO. #UFOTVSeries

@rileycran might be worth a fortune someday though.

@rileycran I once has a collection of daisywheels, Olivetti's response to golfballs

@rileycran And to make "bold" you would restrike the same text a couple times over?

@rileycran My parents bought one of those IBM selectric typewriters at a discount when my mom worked at IBM when I was a kid. I enjoyed the sounds it made so much, that I played with it until I broke it. My parents prohibited me from touching it after they got it repaired.

I wish someone would compose and play some awesome rhythmic music on one today. That would crank!

@rileycran
Not many know that IBM building in Israel is designed after this unique shape

@rileycran I loved my IBM selectric. I literally could not work without it. Like a favorite tool, it was an extension of myself. I’d prepare to create content, clear my head, trance-out and let my fingers fly over the keys. Even the sound it made was somehow associated with my own creativity. Still very picky about the keyboards I use. #throwbackthursday #typewriter

@rileycran I'm just going to toot my million-dollar idea here in the Fediverse.
When I first glanced at your photo, I thought they were chocolate candies wrapped in gold foil.
Which means... these SHOULD BE chocolate candies encased in type-set Selectric typewriter wrappers.
Instead of the font description on top, it tells you what filling treat is inside.
Have your people call my people.

@rileycran THOSE bring back memories! 0_o :) also if you aren't familiar with @glennf he has some fabulous content on #typography and a definite follow recommend on the topic. His museum of tiny type is sublime.

@rileycran I would go to my Dad's office after school so I could type my a papers on a selectric.

@rileycran I remember the IBM Selectric. It was a revolutionary technology in the mod-1960s, when I was in college and worked summers in the small as agency my aunt ran. Her secretary was so fast on the keyboard, she could overflow the Selectric's memory with no typos.

@rileycran These are gorgeous. I just want to ink them and hurl them against a wall or roll them on the floor.

@rileycran Ooo, nice. I've got the preceeding variety of IBM, the WheelWriter, where they're on a disk. Not nearly as stylish. I'd love to find one of IBMs APL font ones.

@rileycran @jwz There still might be a machine using those in this house where I’m spending Christmas. Even though my dad’s CP/M machine used a typewheel printer, my parents might have kept their old IBM typewriter. Need to ask my Mom, I guess.

@rileycran
Aww, sweet memories... 😍

@rileycran If you're searching for a murder weapon: this is a dreadful choice. Especially the rarer ones. 🕶️