Between the typewriter and the word processor there was a time - 1961 to 1975 or thereabouts - when one technology ruled the world of typing: the IBM Selectric!
Let's look back at the future of writing...
The Selectric typewriter, launched in 1961, was a radical departure from the traditional typewriter. Out went the individual type bars striking an ink ribbon...
...and in came the revolutionary golf ball typing head! Initially called a 'mushroom head' the golf ball tilted and rotated to match the right character with the right keystroke.
The golf ball was designed to do many things by IBM. Firstly it would speed up typing: removing key jams and producing cleaner, evenly spaced type. It was almost impossible to jam.
Secondly it would allow you to change fonts or even alphabets by swapping between golf ball heads. Scientific notation, Cyrillic script, italics - all were now easy to incorporate into your typing.
The Selectric was an instant success and would eventually capture three quarters of the US business typing market. Later models allowed immediate corrections to be made by incorporating correcting fluid into the type ribbon cartridge.
The Selectric, in the guise of the IBM 2741, also became the standard computer print terminal of the IBM range by the mid-1960s.
However the company missed a trick with this...
...as the golf ball head was not compatible with the ASCII standard for computer characters. IBM rejected the idea for unknown reasons.
I know, it's illogical!
In 1964 IBM paired the Selectric with a magnetic tape memory to create the MT/ST (Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter). This was one of the first true word processor, recording keystrokes on magnetic tape so they could be edited and reprinted.
Len Deighton wrote the first published novel on a word processor in 1970, using a hired IBM MT/ST to compose his novel Bomber. The MT/ST was so large it had to be winches into his London home through an upstairs window.
Another notable first for the Selectric was discovered in 1984: Soviet spies had inserted keystroke loggers into the Selectrics at the US embassy in Moscow. Hidden magnetometers in the machines recorded and then transmitted the keystroke patterns to the KGB.
In the UK the Selectric golf ball head was turned into the nightmare-inducing character Wordy, in BBC's Look and Read schools programme. Who thought this was a good idea?
So here's to the golf ball typewriter: once the very model of innovation, now just a footnote in the history of type.
Still more fun than unjamming a modern printer though...
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Given the current heatwave, I feel obliged to ask my favourite question: is it time to bring back the leisure suit?
Let's find out...
Now we all know what a man's lounge suit is, but if we're honest it can be a bit... stuffy. Formal. Businesslike. Not what you'd wear 'in da club' as the young folks say.
So for many years tailors have been experimenting with less formal, but still upmarket gents attire. The sort of garb you could wear for both a high level business meeting AND for listening to the Moody Blues in an espresso bar. Something versatile.
Today in pulp I look back at the publishing phenomenon of gamebooks: novels in which YOU are the hero!
A pencil and dice may be required for this thread...
Gamebooks are a simple but addictive concept: you control the narrative. At the end of each section of the story you are offered a choice of outcomes, and based on that you turn to the page indicated to see what happens next.
Gamebook plots are in fact complicated decision tree maps: one or more branches end in success, but many more end in failure! It's down to you to decide which path to tread.
He was the terror of London; a demonic figure with glowing eyes and fiery breath who could leap ten feet high. The penny dreadfuls of the time wrote up his exploits in lurid terms. But who was he really?
Today I look at one of the earliest pulp legends: Spring-Heeled Jack!
London has always attracted ghosts, and in the 19th Century they increasingly left their haunted houses and graveyards and began to wader the capital's streets.
But one apparition caught the Victorian public attention more than most...
In October 1837 a 'leaping character' with a look of the Devil began to prey on Londoners. Often he would leap high into the air and land in front of a carriage, causing it to crash. It would then flee with a high-pitched laugh.