4 Feb
2003
4 Feb
'03
1:42 a.m.
On Tue, 4 Feb 2003, Joe wrote:
At 12:36 AM 2/4/03 -0800, you wrote:
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 what these thing was? I think he must
have gotten this after I left home because I don't remember ever seeing it.
Unfortunately he threw it away several years ago.
Joe
Sounds like a Friden Flexowriter, You could punch codes to pause for
user input, or read names etc from an auxilliary paper taper reader allowing
automatic form letter generation. The Flexowriter uses a typebar mechanism
like a normal mechanical typewriter. I used to have the ASCII terminal version
of the Flexowriter (model 7102 - one of the few Flexowriters with built in
electronics)
There is also a Selectric based paper tape word processor called
Mach-10 (AFAICR)
Peter Wallace
Does
anyone remember what was required to convert an IBM Selectric
Typewriter to a computer printer? I seem to recall a kit of some sort
was available, but my memory is
*really* hazy about that.