Two typewriters were added to my collection this past week.

[whirlcool]

IBM also had mag card typewriters where the document was recorded on magnetic cards. That was a boon for secretaries who had bosses who dumped their typing requests in the secretaries in box on the way out the door for the evening with the comment "Oh by the way, I'll need those ready when I come in tomorrow morning..."

 

[cadman]

And finally, what makes it interesting....

Dig this.... Your choice of both carbon AND cloth ribbons!

 

[cadman]

And can you believe I can't get access to two of my favorites-

The first, the Smith Corona Skywriter. The footprint of this typewriter is only a little bigger than a sheet of typing paper. The metal case snaps over it making the entire package only a couple inches thick. Light enough to take anywhere and small enough to slip into a bookbag. Great 50's styling and the print is acceptable (though it's a fixed basket/alternating carriage machine).

The second was my Canon Typestar. An electronic machine that had a little lcd display that would show you a couple words at a time. It was able to print in up to 4 colors (it would execute at each carriage return). Used film ribbon cassettes (pricey). But you could run it on D batteries and it was almost silent! This thing saw some use in jr. high where I could type up a report in class without disturbing a soul! Take it anywhere.....

I'll upload pics if they turn up! -Cory

 

[petek]

That Remington 26 is really an interesting looking beast

Re the Skywriter.. Here's mine although I'm guessing from your description of the case mine is a little newer? It has a regular vinyl type zipper case and the newer SCM logo

 

[petek]

Here's a nice pristine machine.. I erred earlier,, this is the one that came from the sanitorium in Kitchener Ontario

An Underwood Quiet Tab.. they don't seem any quieter than other machines tabs

 

[petek]

An old Remington Rand portable.. It came with two old typewriter ribbon boxes and canister.

 

[countryguy]

The model D in post #85 - I've never seen a keyboard layout like that before. Looks very strange.

Gary

 

[whirlcool]

You are right, that IS very strange. It looks like it has a 10 key adding machine in it. Or maybe someone took the key caps off and put them on wrong?

 

[macboy91si]

Ohhh

I think I'm about to faint.... Jules, fetch me my smellin' salts....

-Tim

 

[petek]

Geeze I never noticed the keyboard on that LOL

I've read over the years of different layouts, some thought to be superior to the QWERTY. If you look at that one you can see that the majority of letters are all positioned for right hand use. Kind of makes sense in a way.

 

[cadman]

That Model D......

Petek is very close. That is in fact a sanctioned Right Hand keyboard. This particular machine belonged to my grandfather (still kickin'). He lost his left arm in Anzio and after returning from the War, he went into teaching (Jr. High History). This particular machine was purchased for him back in the day but I bet the most typing it's seen was from me playing with it as a kid. I think he probably had other things on his mind than learning a RH layout, haha. -Cory

 

[macboy91si]

Baby Selectrics

I've always been a fan of the narrower Selectric as posted in reply #87. I myself have NUMEROUS SCM Coronets and Electras, and a couple of manual Olympias. My 1st typewriter was a 40's Olympia, grey in color, short and it typed in italicized/spripted font. It was neat. My 2nd typewriter was an Olympia SM9 that I was given when I was about 8, I still have it, but the keys stick so bad it's not usable. Love this thread!

-Tim

 

[lordkenmore]

Another old manual. I've had this one for years, but had half forgotten when I did my epic posting last week. I dug it out of storage and photographed it. This was, as I recall, a yard sale find years and years back.

 

[lordkenmore]

[No message]

 

[lordkenmore]

Finally, the open back. The tabs are set on this back here by manually adjusting metal tabs. If I recall right, they slide out, and one slides them in where one wants them.

 

[lordkenmore]

Incidentally, the typewriter has the word "Silent" on it. It's not silent, although it does seem quieter than the Smith-Corona portable manual I posted last week.

 

[petek]

I was over visiting a friend the other day and happened to mention that the discount store had some really neat fold up computer desks on sale for $39 he might be interested in since he keeps his pc on his diningroom table and it's a big jumble.
Well he tells me to follow him upstairs and in his spare bedroom he had a nice desk setup he doesn't use and lo and behold sitting off to the side was an old top of the line (1980ish) Xerox Memorywriter, the one with the additional 2 5" floppy drives and the little 9 inch tv screen held up by an articulated swing arm. He got it when they remodelled the hospitals office where he worked. Was going to be tossed out..so he said I could have it.. what to do.. what to do..

 

[frontaloadotmy]

What to do , what to do

resistonce is fewtile!!!!

 

[petek]

Well I'll probably end up bringing it home Great planning will have to be done in order to get it out of the car and down into my basement lair sight unseen by the other half.. Once down here amidst the "collection" he'll never know since he rarely comes down.

 

[whirlcool]

Well I'll probably end up bringing it home Great planning will have to be done in order to get it out of the car and down into my basement lair sight unseen by the other half.. Once down here amidst the "collection" he'll never know since he rarely comes down.

Your story reminds me of one I heard back in the mid 80's about computers in the home. I once overheard two women talking about their husband's interest in home computing. One of them was complaining that her husband was spending too much money on "computer junk", and that was money that her could be spending on her! But she said that all this computer junk looks the same so she has to figure out how she can tell if her husband brought something new in the house without her knowing about it.

The other woman told her to "just count the lights when he is using it, if there are more lights on the equipment than before, you know he bought something else!"

Moral of story: Don't buy anything that has a light on it.

 

[autowasherfreak]

I had a Xerox Memorywriter 645s with two built in 5 1/4" disk drives, and a black and white monitor, it last a couple years after I got it then the disks drives failed. It was a fun machine to use, I loved watching it print a document.

 

[autowasherfreak]

Cadman, I have a question about your Remington that use both the fabric and film ribbons, how does the machine determine which ribbon to use? Is there a switch somewhere to tell it which ribbon you want to use?