Weapon of Choice: 1990 NTS WP-10c SlabTop Word Processor Weapon of Choice: 198x Royal (Nakajima) Alpha 2015 #42320862 ProTip: Peel off that WP-10 sticker and it uncovers the Citizen 10WP that’s actually silkscreened onto the shell. Weapon of Choice: 198x Olivetti 900X #85330822198x Surprise! Looks like the WP-2 also has the option 32k SRAM installed, […]
Search Results for – "Brother"
June, 1981 – Portable Typewriter Distribution in the United States (and the end that was soon coming)
“Portable Typewriter Distribution in the United States.” June 1981 Report prepared for Ing. C. Olivetti SpA by market research firm “INPUT” Part 1: https://archive.org/download/portabletypewritunse/portabletypewritunse.pdf Part 2: https://archive.org/download/addendumportable0000unse/addendumportable0000unse.pdf I dug this report up on the Internet Archive awhile ago because it is a market report compiled for Olivetti in early 1981 detailing the current state of […]
Happy New Year, Typosphere Friends!
Weapon of Choice: 1978 Brother Charger 11 #K83712885
Hookey with a Typewriter on International Typewriter Day!
Weapon of Choice: “Thunderbird 3” 1966 Montgomery Ward Signature 440T #D6216161 Installing the silencer spring (thanks Typewriter Minutes!) – this is the “twisty” spring, and it goes pointy end down into the bottom ratchet wheel groove, so its travel back and forth is limited in the cutout below the loose dog. This is the disengaged […]
UJTU: Three Typewriters Improved In One Evening!
Weapon of Choice: “Starbuck” 1964 Hermes Rocket #6027915 Mmmmmmm, the fresh-baked smell of new typewriter feets! Installation Instructions: Hermes HD2-64 Feets. The original feet? Hard as rocks, crumbly and downright crispy, and still had to be pried off with a screwdriver. Oh, glorious, fresh grippy feets! Weapon of Choice: “Thunderbird 2” 1968 Montgomery Ward Signature […]
A Silenced 747, New Boots for the Paymaster & Mr. Whittles’ typewriter.
Weapon of Choice: 1978 Brother Charger 11 #K83712885 Weapon of Choice: 1970 Webster XL-747 #L0944386 Don’t forget to replace the bumper pads for the space bar and autospacer keys! 1963 Royal Century #RTP 5440198 The original feet were riveted in, so I drilled those out, then realized I had no fasteners suitable for the feet. […]
Mo’ Feets & Mo’ Media – What I Typed During TCL
Weapon of Choice: “Doris Day”, 1966 Olympia SM9 #3098142 Perhaps the last set of Olympia SM-7 feet 3D printed in PLA by Steve Dade (RIP, friend). Raymond’s over in Colorado sent them over so I could replicate them in rubber, because PLA is stiff and not very grippy at all. First step: make a box […]
One last update on soundproofing my JP-1, and a week’s worth of typing
Weapon of Choice: “Starbuck” 1964 Hermes Rocket #6027915 Typewriter Club LIVE 2020-12-27 Weapon of Choice: 1978 Brother Charger 11 #K83712885 One last update to the JP-1 Soundproofing Project – replacing the original foam bottom pad with a denser, colorful blue felt pad. I used a putty knife to gently pry the foam pad off the […]
Requests for Information, Exciting Stapler News and Koyaanisqatsi
Weapon of Choice: “Thunderbird 4“, 1968 Mongomery Ward Signature 440T (Brother JP-1) In process of writing a letter to Joe. While many things are coming apart, there’s a few nice things coming together. (: International Olivetti Valentine survey! Know your machine better & contribute to typewriter history. Gather your data and email it to valentine@oli-type.com: […]
Sundstrand-Underwood Adding and Accounting Machines Dates of Manufacture by Serial Number, and Features and Keyboards Reference
Well, I’ve been making noise about working on adding machine stuff, seeing as I’ve been getting crates of Parts, Service and other dealer documentation on the things lately. This last batch of donated NOMDA Blue Books and an Underwood, Sundstrand and Elliot-Fisher Line Book have given me enough information to finally put together good Age […]
Double-Strike Typewriter Bolding Tests, Part 1
Weapon of Choice: 1972 Royal Mercury – Excellent double-striker! Weapon of Choice: 1970 Royal Sprite – Excellent double-striker! Weapon of Choice: 1978 Brother Charger 11 – Bad double-striker. Weapon of Choice: 1940 Royal Aristocrat – Decent double-striker. Weapon of Choice: 1961 Swissa Junior – Decent double-striker. Weapon of Choice: 1963 Olympia SM-7 – Bad double-striker. […]
One life for yourself, and one for your dreams…
Weapon of Choice: 1978 Brother Charger 11. August, 2016 was the last Quiet-Riter pickup – and I was practically tripping over ’em then.. Don’t wanna wait? Want to do all the cleanup and compiling yourself and print it out for free? Knock yerself out! (: Getting accustomed to a new workflow. I spent a lot […]
Rejuvinating a Cloth Ribbon Cartridge for Electronic Typewriters (Nakajima)
Ahh, Cloth ribbon cartridges meant for electronic daisywheel typewriters, AKA “Multistrike” ribbons. They do exist but are fairly rare, so when you do find one, it’s certainly worth the trouble to restore them to functional condition. The main problem isn’t that the ribbon is invariably dry, though- the biggest problem is that the internal transport […]
Friends from New Mexico & A Surprise Solution to 8-Bit Printing
Weapon of Choice: 198x Olivetti 900X #85330822 Joe Van Cleave’s Blog Post on his trip. WriteElephant’s “Letters From Nakajima“. “Scannin’, Scannin’, Scannin’” Scanned so far: 194x-Rex-O-Graph 194x-Speed-O-Print_Model_L-Instructions 194x-Woodstock-220k_SVC 195x-1962-Speed-O-Print_Parts-PriceLists 195x-Speed-O-Print_Liberator_200-Userman 197x-Brother_JP3-Parts 197x-Brother_JP4-Parts 1947-Woodstock-830k_SVC 1954-Woodstock_PPLnSVC 1955-RC-Allen_M600-M700-PnSVC 1957-1968-Copy-Rite_Duplicator 1958-Everest_K2-Parts 1959-Speed-O-Print-SVC 1962-Adler_Special-SVC 1964-Adler_Junior-10-20-30_SVC 1964-Adler_Junior-10-20-30-Parts 1964-Speed-O-Print_Copier-SVC 1967-Brother_JP2-Parts 1969-Adler_Gabriele_5000-Parts-SVC 1969-Adler_Universal-200-239-400-SVC 1970-Royal_Jupiter-10-12-12-Award-1300-SVC 1969-Royal_Jetstar-SVC 1973-Royal_690-Update-SVC 1972-Royal-590-595-790-795-Functional_Test 1974-Royal_2000_Centurion_Medallion-SVC 1962-Robotyper_Royaltyper-SVC 1955-1973-Royal_Portable_A-Parts 1959-Royal_Diana_Administrator-Parts 1955-1965-Royal_Royalite-Parts 1976-Royal_Sahara_Caravan-Adler_Tippa-Parts […]
Feeling Blessed for The Holidays
Weapon of Choice: 1983 Brother EP-20 “New” Dell Studio XPS from Key Snap. 6-Core AMD Phenom II X6 1045T @2.70GHz, 8gb RAM, Video: EVGA GeForce GTX 750ti w/2gb RAM. All set up and workspace cloned.. The Old machine that the XPS replaces – a 4-Core i5 Intel, 6gb RAM, no video card. I’ll be rebuilding […]
Why You Should Own a Typewriter in 2018
Ahh, The Revolution continues apace, with the Great Propaganda of California Typewriter infecting The Message into the minds of people far and wide. It is always exciting to Hear The Great Story told again by a new convert. This popped up in my Youtube feed tonight, which undoubtedly proves yet again how well Google knows […]
Thermal Wedgies and a box for feeding very skinny thermal paper rolls into same.
Weapons of Choice: 1983 Brother EP-20, 1984 Brother EP-44, 1986 Canon Typestar 4
It’s Autumn Type-In Season in Phoenix!
2018 has been a great year for Type-Ins, not only in the Phoenix area, but all over the country. The Revolution expands and catches fire everywhere it touches, and burns with a ferocity that cannot be quenched. The romance, utility and flexibility of the Typewriter Life reaches deep into the soul and connects with that […]
1966 Monkey Wards Signature 440T: Thrift Score – with User Manual!
Weapon of Choice: “Thunderbird 3” 1966 Montgomery Wards Signature 440T My other two previous Signature 440T finds: Return Of The Typewriter Bone: 1968 Monkey Wards Signature 440T (Brother) Deja Vu All Over Again – The Twin Brother and some info I found on the 440T: The 1968 Monkey Wards catalog that shows these 440Ts The spring-loaded […]
The Five-Tape Session: on cassettes and why I still use my tape deck
Weapon of Choice: “Little Jake”, 1933 Monarch (Remie Scout, 10cpi Art Gothic face) Last week’s session with The Brother took up 5 tapes, two 90’s and three 60’s, total 6 hours, enough that I had to dip into a fresh tape pack! Example: “Swing World” uses a sample snippet of The Brother in a song […]
Culling the Herd & Trimmin’ the Fat
1982 IBM Selecrtic III 12cpi Single-Pitch, Correcting. He Gone! 1990 IBM Personal Wheelwriter, he gone too! Probably 1990’s to early 2000’s Swintec 8014-8. Off to Greener Pastures. 1987 Brother Professional 90 (CX-90). Got tired of trying to make this into a printer. Weapon of Choice: 1956 Smith-Corona Skyriter – A Keeper! :D
Ghosts With Machines
Stapler of the Week: 1939 TOT SF Speed Fastener and 60 years of Hot TOTs
The TOT Speed Fastener is of stamped steel construction with Bakelite base and topper. Yet another $2 Goodwill find, the TOT Speed Fastener (middle) was the contemporary little brother of the Parrot Speed Fastener Model 3 (back) and the forerunner of the incredibly common Swingline TOT 50 (front). If you love your old TOT 50 […]
Random Ramblings on DIY Typewriter Platen Recovering – and The Green Selectric Lives Again!
This Selectric @ TWDB 1962 Triumph Perfekt @ TWDB 1978 Brother Charger 11 (International Keyboard) @ TWDB Service manual for Brother JP-1 Typewriter (Brother Charger 11 is a JP-1)
Pencil tips for the Type-O-Graph!
Well, I’ll call the “lead test” a success – and with that concept proven, it seems all you’d really need to build new *pencil* tips is a bit of rigid plastic tube of exactly the right diameter (I’ll need to borrow a micrometer and mic out the dimensions of the original pen cartridge) with a […]
Crank up the Mystery Machine for another TWDB Update – Bennington and Xcel!
Hey kids, want to solve a mystery with me? :D Cue soundtrack (scooby doo) Here’s the mystery: On yesterday’s Fox page update, we see a note on the failed attempt by William H. Bennington of Bennington Typewriter to take over the ailing Fox Typewriter concern in 1922. Well, there’s a thread that needs to be […]
UJTU: The Revolution Marches on
It’s an interesting thing to watch something you have long thought of as a very niche interest, in this case a love and interest in old manual writing machines, burgeon into a cultural phenomena. Today I learned that the Typewriter Revolution has spread to other parts of my state, and an article in the Prescott, […]
Happy Day After Thanksgiving!
Drink from the well of yourself and begin again… -Charles Bukowski
More thoughts on Thermal Baby Wedges: Ephemeral, Schmephemeral!
Tom Robbins’ Remington SL3 Typewriter from “Still Life With Woodpecker”
… was as far as I can tell, a work of fiction. It doesn’t exist and never has. This was surprising to me, as it seems commonly reported as fact that Tom Robbins used a Remington SL3 to write “Still Life With Woodpecker“. Wikipedia proclaims this and even Richard Polt’s “Writers and their Typewriters” page […]
Nothing good is ever easy: Timelines and TWDB Part 2
Well, after 3 tries at finding a visualization library capable of timeline display that is both simple and flexible, it ended up being kind of a Goldilocks situation – Google’s libraries were too dependent on off-site resources and couldn’t do point data display (like a single date such as “company formed” or “merged with so-and-so”), […]
The Silver-Seiko built Royals from the Early 1970’s
The Early Typewriter Collectors’ Association election for new Board of Directors
In my mail today was the official ballot for the ETCA Board of Directors election, which will determine the makeup of the Board for the next 5 years and thus, the direction and focus of the Association and magazine. I will be sending in my ballot and a check for renewal of my membership tomorrow. […]
Typewriter Database News: 3000+ galleries attained – and plans for 2015
Type-Writer.org’s article on The First Brothers (updated with new info!) The Typewriter Database – 3000+ Typewriter Galleries to peruse! :D
Toy Typewriters from Sears, JC Penny, Montgomery Wards, Aldens and Eatons Christmas Catalogs: 1957-1983
As I’ve been researching Brother machines in various store catalogs, I’ve run across a large number of Toy Typewriters. In fact, in some years (notably the mid-70’s) many catalogs had a page for Toy Typers but no page for real ones, which seemed odd to me. Anyway, I know there’s at least a little interest […]