4 Feb
2003
4 Feb
'03
11:28 a.m.
Speaking of interfacing Selectrics. I was talking
to my father
about Teletypes the other day and he told me that he had thrown out an
old "word processor" (my term not his). He said that it was a desk sized
mechanical unit that had a keyboard and mechanical printer along with a
paper tape punch/reader. He said that you could type in a letter and
insert a pause any place where you wanted to insert unique data such as
a name. The unit would save everything on punched paper tape. You could
then feed the PT back into and it would type the letter. When it got to
the pause it would stop and let you manually type in the name or other
data and then it would continue and finish the letter. Does anyone know
Many amchines could do that. One example is the Friden Flexowriter (you
punched a 'stop reader' control code for each pause, then hit the
appropriate button after typing in the name or whatever.
The Flexowriter is a lot smaller than 'desk sized' though.
-tony