Selectric Typewriter

The IBM Selectric typewriter used an interchangeable "golf ball" for its typeface, unlike traditional electrics with normal flying hammer arms corresponding to each key.

Typewriters co-evolved with ReallyOldIron, but somehow the thought of having a special character set for a programming language (AplLanguage, SmalltalkLanguage) never stuck.

The Selectric "golf ball" was sort of the same conceptually as the DaisyWheelPrinter?, which gave excellent print quality for its time, but fell out of favor for probably the same reasons. Of course, that was just "old iron" not ReallyOldIron.

I have an antique portable typewriter called a "Junior" - it has the letters (uppercase only) on a hard rubber cylinder that's inked by two fuzzballs on wire arms. Patent date is 1916. This is the earliest implementation of the Selectric golf ball principle I have run across. -- RickFrancis?

The Selectric typeball predated DaisyWheels? by quite some time. Can anyone remember the small company that first developed the DaisyWheel? - was it Diablo? The company I worked for at the time was a very early customer, their interest, in addition to the higher speed and better quality, was the changeable typeface - I wonder if I couldn't find APL golf balls and daisywheels both in the attic somewhere.

Actually you could change your typeface on the Selectric too - I used one for over a decade and had four "golfballs" of different typefaces - didn't take any longer to switch them than switching the later daisy-wheel.

Also the Selectric "golfballs" were more robust than the daisywheels - daisywheels could go out of alignment and need replacing. - (Lyn Hardy - N.Z.)

Yet another thing about the SelectricTypewriter. I learned to type on one of those things, and to this day I still miss the feel of that keyboard. I think that it was the way that when your keypress reached a certain limit of pressure that the key was yanked down the rest of the way. It's kind of like wearing some kind of typing exoskeleton. I've never liked any computer keyboards as much. Now if I could just combine the feel of that keyboard with the layout of my Microsoft Natural Keyboard...

-- KyleBrown

It had a wonderful feel. I used to crank out quite a few term papers on it. -- David Brantley

Diablo was the first company with daisywheels. I too miss the SelectricKeyboard? and have not used anything even close. The original IBM PC and AT keyboards were not too bad either.

Heh. I've got one of those in front of me. It weighs about 8 times the cheapo thing the company supplied for me. All my colleagues think I'm a raving lunatic (ok - they may have a point) but I'll sure be sad when that thing dies... -- AlainPicard

When I have a lot of typing to do, I often wander over to an old sparcstation2 I have in the corner - Nice keyboard. Besides, it has the capslock and ctrl keys in the right place! Using it as an xterm works just fine.

IBM still makes Selectric Typewriters today (as of 2004), though they have changed greatly.

The daisywheel was a Diablo Hightype I. I used to repair them in the Field, as well as the Selectric and Teletype.

The Diablo was available in both the KSR and R/O versions (Keyboard Send/Receive and Receive Only).

The KSR had a distinctly Selectric style keyboard (with the Ctrl key where it bloody belongs). It made a very serviceable typewriter, as well as a hard-copy terminal.

I have (still today) a clone of the R/O version.

I dearly love those original IBM keyboards, and they're still available (even with APL keycaps) from Unicomp. I recently bought an APL keyboard just to have one; I used to program in APL but I never got to use a "real" keyboard. (I also have an APL Selectric typeball but I never had an opportunity to use it either.)

A few years ago, I started at a new job as a programmer and I had a temporary cube in the board designers' area. I can type 100wpm pretty easily and, as you might guess, the EE types typically aren't that good at typing. Plugged in my trusty "clicky" IBM keyboard and fired away... about five minutes later, I sensed something and turned around only to see four guys crowded around my cube, staring in awe. One of them said, "Thought you had a machine gun or something."

These days I use a laptop exclusively, so I no longer get to hear the trusty click of the keyboard. More's the pity.

CategoryHardware CategoryHistory