Got a reminder from Joe that the IBM Selectric Typewriter is 50 years old this year. My memories of this is that it was/is a very wonderful and complex machine made up of nearly 3000 separate little bits! I only met it in its adapted use as an I/O console writer on the 360 systems where it caused more down time that any other component or device. This was due to the fact that it got its lifetime predicted use in between 6 to 12 months on a mainframe as it was hammering away all day and night, much faster and higher usage than a typist could give it. The other key factor was that as part of our 360 course we got 45 minutes ‘training’ on it. Just showed us how it worked and the main components, then told us if we were really stuck to call an Office Products typewriter engineer! The OP guys got 5 weeks training on this one box as part of their basic course. We ended up in London having a bay where an OP guy worked all day fixing IO writers and all we did was swap duff ones for repaired ones, thus keeping the mainframe downtime to a minimum.
IBM Selectric (Golfball) typewriter 50 years old
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