[TELECOM] Technology Re: NYS AG Cuomo settles with VZ Wirelss on "unlimited" da

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posted
16 years ago

Tue, Oct 30, 2007 5:00 PM

I learned to use a typewriter (a manual typewriter--electric typewriters
> were still in the future) when I was probably younger than age 10). I looked at > the works a time or two, as a child and as an adult, and never had the > slightest idea that I would ever understand how it worked. Nor to this day do I > know how all the linkages and springs and so forth work to produce typing.

You didn't need to know the internal springs and levers. BUT, there were many controls on the typewriter you did need to know about; things that today's electronic printers do automatically. (Dot matrix printers carried a few of these features.)

For instance, when loading paper, you had to line it up correctly otherwise it would type slanted. There was a guide to check the alignment and a lever to free the paper so you could slide it about as needed.

You had _two_ roller levers--one kept the registration, useful for subscripts and superscripts and erasing, the other changed the registration, useful for realigning already typed paper.

You could advance the paper through by hand by turning the platen knob.

You could change the ribbon from upper to lower and no ribbon at all. At one time, ribbons came in black and red ink, now they have a correction strip instead of red. No ribbon was to cut a mimeograph stencil.

You could set the line advance for 1, 2, or 3 lines for a carriage return.

You had margin settings.

You had a tiny bar with rollers on it to hold the paper against the platen. This could be lifted out of the way.

You could release the carriage and move it horizontally to any position you wanted, including in-between letters.

Different typewriters had different settings and levels of sophistication in the mechanics. Newer typewriters had half spacing.

Now, as mentioned, today's word processors all of this stuff automatically in different ways.

***** Moderator's Note *****

At the start of my career in the phone company, only top executives could publish memos with a justified right margin: producing them required specially-trained typists with access to 1/2 and 1/4 space enabled typewriters.

At the end of my career, the ultimate executive perk was the ability to have a hand-written memo circulated.

"All is vanity".

Bill Horne Temporary Moderator

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posted
16 years ago

Wed, Oct 31, 2007 11:28 PM

Such typewriters were very expensive. Those typewriters had proportional spacing, that is, an "i" took up less space than a "w". Typing a right-justified document was slow and tedious.

In industry, there was a pecking order of typewriter assignments. The top executive secretaries got the fanciest expensive machines with expensive carbon ribbons. Intermediate secretaries got plain electrics with fabric ribbons. Low level general use had manuals. Good quality office grade manual typewriters were made by Underwood and Remington until the 1970s. While the machine itself was heavy, the touch on it was relatively light and print quality pretty good compared to say manuals from the 1950s.

Generally speaking, only secretaries had typewriters, other people rarely used them. In some places, a general typewriter was on a table available for general use, such as labeling cards and the like. But normally non-secretaries did not do their own typing (or keypunching), the work was handwritten and given to someone else to do by corporate policy.

Today it is different. We do our own typing via a word processor on our own desk. Our secretaries still have typewriters for special purposes, though things like automated form-fill out is removing most of that work.

In the old days using a Xerox machine was serious business. We used carbon paper instead. For quantity reproduction, we used either mimoegraph or spirit/ditto machines. Mimeo required cutting a special stencil on a typewriter but produced readable copies of any quantity. Sprit/ditto machines used a simpler stencil (had a carbon backing) that could easily be handwritten, but copy quantity was limited to about 100. The executive memos would be printed by offset which was much higher quality, but required high volume runs to be cost justified. Copier method depended on the audience, internal documents in a factory could be ditto, while external documents to customers would get a better quality.

It's hard to believe how much effort went into producing a simple message from one person to another. The memo was handwritten and given to a secetary. She would type it up, get the boss to sign it, put it in company mail. The recipients' secretaries would get it and sort it with other mail. Today a quick email is typed up and sent.

Let's not forget business telephones were often restricted, only select phones could dial 9 for an outside line. Even those could only dial local calls, we had to go through the company PBX operator to make a toll call. Businesses usually had pay phones all over the place for employees to make and receive personal calls and not use company phones. Today an entire building might not have a single pay phone in it all. Years ago a building lobby would have several phone booths for visitor use, today the company provides a free phone for visitors for outside local calls. Keep in mind the message unit cost, about 7 cents, has remained unchanged for 40 years. Today 7 cents is nothing, 40 years ago it could add up quickly.

As an aside, there are still many street corner pay phones in New York City, but they are there mostly to carry ads on the side panels which is where the profit is, not from providing phone service. However, the phones still get plenty of use. In NYC, you can use coins for long distance calls which is hard to do elsewhere.

Today we have a big problem with computer security, with viruses easily entering corporate email networks and causing all sorts of problems.