WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.070 --> 00:00:03.534
Y’know, sometimes, as I desperately look
for a topic to cover…

00:00:03.534 --> 00:00:07.575
relatively quickly after realizing the one I’ve been working
on needs to be delayed indefinitely

00:00:07.575 --> 00:00:10.676
thanks to a thing I just discovered and need to investigate
further,

00:00:10.676 --> 00:00:14.570
I find myself pursuing the bowels of my storage area.

00:00:14.570 --> 00:00:17.721
My hope is that between bouts of getting mad
at myself

00:00:17.721 --> 00:00:20.152
for letting it deteriorate into the state it’s become,

00:00:20.152 --> 00:00:24.480
I’ll find a thing which gets me out of this jam and hammering out a script.

00:00:24.480 --> 00:00:28.899
Fittingly, I glanced at my collection of typewriters
sitting on the bottom shelf

00:00:28.899 --> 00:00:31.477
(are you really surprised I have a collection of typewriters?)

00:00:31.477 --> 00:00:35.138
and I realized I think it’s time for a Technology…

00:00:35.138 --> 00:00:36.789
Correction!

00:00:36.789 --> 00:00:42.240
See, I’m just old enough for typewriters
to have been lingering on in my childhood.

00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:44.974
Even as personal computers, mature word processing,

00:00:44.974 --> 00:00:48.067
and consumer printers made them seemingly irrelevant,

00:00:48.067 --> 00:00:50.300
they were still handy for certain things.

00:00:50.300 --> 00:00:53.192
Like, for instance, addressing an envelope.

00:00:53.192 --> 00:00:55.555
Do you really want to faff with Word 95,

00:00:55.555 --> 00:00:59.182
figure out how to get your crappy inkjet printer to accept an envelope,

00:00:59.182 --> 00:01:04.068
probably experience a multitude of paper jams because you didn’t realize it’s gotta go sideways,

00:01:04.068 --> 00:01:07.834
only to finally have what looks like success at last...

00:01:07.834 --> 00:01:12.818
until you see that the text is sideways because you didn’t
do the page setup correctly, or…

00:01:12.818 --> 00:01:15.542
do you just stick the envelope in a typewriter and have at it?

00:01:15.542 --> 00:01:19.157
Lots of people would much rather just do it
the old fashioned way,

00:01:19.157 --> 00:01:20.684
especially for one-offs.

00:01:20.684 --> 00:01:22.884
Once you know your way around a typewriter,

00:01:22.884 --> 00:01:27.741
well you can see exactly where it’s about to slap a letter onto the envelope.

00:01:27.741 --> 00:01:33.487
It’s a much more manual process, sure, but also way more straightforward.

00:01:33.487 --> 00:01:38.125
Of course, eventually the whole “printing onto envelopes”
business would get better,

00:01:38.939 --> 00:01:42.632
and also people just don’t really need to
do that very often anymore.

00:01:42.632 --> 00:01:45.837
Plus, setting aside the decreasing need to mail stuff,

00:01:45.837 --> 00:01:48.983
uh handwriting is and was always an option.

00:01:48.983 --> 00:01:52.207
So the typewriter would eventually fade into obscurity.

00:01:52.207 --> 00:01:56.067
Although a few models are still being made,
believe it or not.

00:01:56.067 --> 00:02:01.637
Anyway, before they all got tucked away into
attics, typewriters gained a very forgiving feature.

00:02:01.637 --> 00:02:04.727
Take a look; make a mistake,
and just like that -

00:02:04.727 --> 00:02:07.216
the mistake is gone.

00:02:07.216 --> 00:02:09.495
Now I’m sure that to some of you watching,

00:02:09.495 --> 00:02:16.986
the idea of a young whippersnapper such as myself being astonished by the correcting feature of a typewriter is laughable.

00:02:16.986 --> 00:02:20.849
But see, it’s not that it can do it that I find interesting—

00:02:20.849 --> 00:02:25.305
it’s that I was completely wrong about how this works.

00:02:25.305 --> 00:02:29.731
You might think, as I did, that this is covering
up the ink with a white substance,

00:02:29.731 --> 00:02:32.900
like correction fluid also known as white-out.

00:02:32.900 --> 00:02:36.195
And, ok, some typewriters did do that.

00:02:36.195 --> 00:02:41.036
But this one works with colored paper, so
that’s obviously not what’s happening.

00:02:41.036 --> 00:02:45.373
What it’s actually doing is undoing what it just did.

00:02:45.373 --> 00:02:53.688
See, typewriters went through a change around the middle of the last century which fundamentally altered how they put letters on the page.

00:02:53.688 --> 00:02:57.151
And it was that change that made this possible.

00:02:57.151 --> 00:03:01.725
Compare the text written by a typewriter before and after this change.

00:03:01.725 --> 00:03:04.272
On the left we have an old-fashioned typewriter,

00:03:04.272 --> 00:03:06.768
and on the right a newfangled one.

00:03:06.768 --> 00:03:12.108
The newer typewriter has a much crisper and
more uniform appearance to the text it produces.

00:03:12.108 --> 00:03:16.353
As a matter of fact this looks like it could
have come from a modern laser printer.

00:03:16.353 --> 00:03:20.981
The other typewriter produced a much more… gritty text.

00:03:20.981 --> 00:03:25.523
It doesn’t have crisp edges, there’s a
vague texture in the solid parts,

00:03:25.523 --> 00:03:28.664
and in general this looks… old-fashioned.

00:03:28.664 --> 00:03:34.348
Nevermind the typeface, this looks like how
I imagine a typewritten document to look

00:03:34.814 --> 00:03:41.073
whereas the other text looks like, well, a printout
of a Word document done in courier.

00:03:41.073 --> 00:03:44.024
What changed between these two typewriters?

00:03:44.024 --> 00:03:45.366
The ribbon.

00:03:45.366 --> 00:03:47.713
OK, a great deal more than that changed

00:03:47.713 --> 00:03:51.704
but the difference in the ribbon is what’s responsible for the dramatically different text,

00:03:51.704 --> 00:03:54.757
and the ability to make it disappear.

00:03:54.757 --> 00:04:00.600
Before we get into that, though,
I should probably give you a brief overview of a typewriter.

00:04:00.833 --> 00:04:01.558
[THUNK]

00:04:01.837 --> 00:04:05.901
Here we have a basic portable, manual typewriter.

00:04:05.901 --> 00:04:09.630
This is what I always thought of when I thought
“typewriter,”

00:04:09.630 --> 00:04:14.629
which makes sense as this design was more or less the standard for half a century,

00:04:14.629 --> 00:04:20.575
with countless typewriters from many manufacturers
all functioning more or less identically to this one.

00:04:20.575 --> 00:04:24.563
Each one of the keys is connected to a metal
arm called the typebar

00:04:24.563 --> 00:04:30.404
which has on its end a small metal casting
with two reversed symbols protruding from its surface.

00:04:30.404 --> 00:04:34.650
Those symbols just so happen to match the ones on the keys.

00:04:34.650 --> 00:04:38.409
Collectively, these typebars are known as the basket.

00:04:38.409 --> 00:04:42.928
This weird thing with the hard rubber roller
bit back here is called the carriage

00:04:42.928 --> 00:04:46.171
and it holds the paper on which you intend to typewrite.

00:04:46.171 --> 00:04:51.822
With paper in place, as a key is depressed
the type bar leaves the basket and approaches the paper.

00:04:51.822 --> 00:04:58.435
As that happens, an ink-soaked ribbon is lifted
upward so that it comes between the typebar and the paper.

00:04:58.435 --> 00:05:05.157
With sufficient force, the protruding symbol
on the typebar presses through the ribbon and contacts the paper.

00:05:05.157 --> 00:05:09.963
That will transfer some of the ribbon’s ink to the paper
in the shape of the protruding symbol,

00:05:09.963 --> 00:05:13.568
and the end result is that symbol appears on the page.

00:05:13.568 --> 00:05:15.527
Pretty striking.

00:05:15.527 --> 00:05:20.620
After that happens, the ribbon moves out of
the way so you can see what you’ve just typed.

00:05:20.620 --> 00:05:22.770
The semi-soft surface of the rubber roller,

00:05:22.770 --> 00:05:24.704
which by the way is called the platen,

00:05:24.704 --> 00:05:31.917
helps the ink transfer happen more completely by
allowing the typebar to press into the paper ever-so-slightly.

00:05:31.917 --> 00:05:33.270
You may have noticed,

00:05:33.270 --> 00:05:34.804
possibly because I told you,

00:05:34.804 --> 00:05:39.193
that every typebar has not one, but two symbols on it.

00:05:39.193 --> 00:05:43.411
For the letters of the alphabet, those are
the lower- and uppercase version of each letter,

00:05:43.411 --> 00:05:49.261
and for the other keys… it’s whatever
two glyphs the manufacturer decided belong on that key.

00:05:49.261 --> 00:05:51.930
Selecting between them is accomplished with these;

00:05:51.930 --> 00:05:53.630
The shift keys.

00:05:53.630 --> 00:05:57.916
And pressing them shifts the location of the typebasket into the machine

00:05:57.916 --> 00:06:02.221
so that the top of each typebar is what will hit the ribbon and paper.

00:06:02.221 --> 00:06:07.508
This machine, like most, also features a shift lock
which is simply a latch

00:06:07.508 --> 00:06:09.680
which holds down the typebasket.

00:06:09.680 --> 00:06:13.437
You release it by pressing either of the shift keys until it’s released.

00:06:13.437 --> 00:06:17.482
Because this thing is entirely manual and
the typebasket is, y’know,

00:06:17.482 --> 00:06:22.150
metal and heavy… this is a pretty clunky experience.

00:06:22.150 --> 00:06:24.442
This is just not easy to use.

00:06:24.442 --> 00:06:26.889
Here’s a Technology Connection for you;

00:06:26.889 --> 00:06:31.620
ever wonder why the keys on a keyboard are so weirdly staggered?

00:06:31.620 --> 00:06:35.039
If you’ve never noticed it before, nearly
every keyboard out there

00:06:35.039 --> 00:06:40.948
doesn’t arrange the keys on a neat grid, and instead each
successive row is shifted over,

00:06:40.948 --> 00:06:44.860
and even more weirdly, it’s a different amount from row to row.

00:06:45.209 --> 00:06:48.815
See, the row below the numbers is shifted
over half the width of a key,

00:06:48.815 --> 00:06:52.534
with the second row’s keys centered below the gaps in the
first row.

00:06:52.534 --> 00:06:58.640
That kinda makes sense but the third row is only shifted over 
by half as much from the second.

00:06:58.640 --> 00:07:03.167
That is a relic of the typewriter that lives on!

00:07:03.167 --> 00:07:06.649
Since in a typewriter the keys are arranged in four rows,

00:07:06.649 --> 00:07:10.866
and every key acts upon a single typebar in a linear arrangement,

00:07:10.866 --> 00:07:18.760
every row of keys has to be shifted over a bit to keep the linkages between key and typebar from landing on top of one another.

00:07:18.760 --> 00:07:25.668
Typewriter manufacturers could have designed
the keys with different attachment points to the linkages to get around that

00:07:25.668 --> 00:07:30.382
but that almost never happened,
and the staggered-key arrangement became standardized.

00:07:30.382 --> 00:07:34.247
With so many people used to a keyboard with this staggering,

00:07:34.247 --> 00:07:36.183
it didn’t make sense to mix it up.

00:07:36.183 --> 00:07:39.935
And even once they had become
simple buttons on computer keyboards

00:07:39.935 --> 00:07:44.141
the staggering was retained to give typists an easier transition.

00:07:44.141 --> 00:07:49.722
And we’re still doing it because the only
thing better than perfect is standardized!

00:07:49.722 --> 00:07:55.348
In typewriters with a typebasket, the carriage
(and thus the paper) moves as you type.

00:07:56.070 --> 00:07:57.913
That's probably why it’s called the carriage.

00:07:57.913 --> 00:08:00.076
This allows a much more compact design

00:08:00.076 --> 00:08:05.576
since the machine only needs to be large enough to contain 
the typebasket and keyboard.

00:08:06.368 --> 00:08:13.632
And really it’s the only practical way to
go about it since the keyboard and typebasket are part of the same bulky mechanism.

00:08:13.632 --> 00:08:17.569
So, a line of text is started with the carriage
all the way...

00:08:18.337 --> 00:08:25.488
to the right, and each press of a key moves the carriage to the left one space
in preparation for the next keystroke.

00:08:25.488 --> 00:08:29.335
The space bar does the same thing but without actually
typing anything,

00:08:29.335 --> 00:08:31.774
allowing you to leave a gap between characters

00:08:31.774 --> 00:08:33.776
because that’s how words work.

00:08:33.776 --> 00:08:39.309
Some typewriters, particularly those that write in languages that used accent or other diacritic marks,

00:08:39.309 --> 00:08:44.257
have some so-called dead keys
which don’t move the carriage when you press them.

00:08:44.257 --> 00:08:49.654
That allows you to, say, type an accented e by first hitting the accent mark,

00:08:49.654 --> 00:08:52.561
which would slap it down but not move the carriage,

00:08:52.561 --> 00:08:54.757
and then hitting the e key.

00:08:54.757 --> 00:08:58.732
That could have been accomplished with a backspace
between two keystrokes,

00:08:58.732 --> 00:09:04.047
but when your language uses those marks a lot,
dead keys are much more convenient.

00:09:04.047 --> 00:09:07.872
Anyway, as you keep on typing and approach the end of a line,

00:09:07.872 --> 00:09:09.819
the carriage will ring a little bell

00:09:09.819 --> 00:09:13.708
[adorable ding] 
to inform you that you have only about ten characters left

00:09:13.708 --> 00:09:19.907
before you hit the right hand margin, so either finish this word
or get ready to hyphenate and start the next line.

00:09:19.907 --> 00:09:25.201
Starting the next line is accomplished by
using this chrome bar, called the carriage return,

00:09:25.201 --> 00:09:29.055
which returns the carriage to the starting point.

00:09:29.055 --> 00:09:33.743
And that’s customizable - these little tabs
back here can be moved,

00:09:33.743 --> 00:09:36.236
and they define the margins of the page.

00:09:36.236 --> 00:09:41.985
The left tab defines where the carriage stops when you return it—
really handy for addressing envelopes!

00:09:41.985 --> 00:09:47.844
And the right tab triggers the little bell ten characters ahead of where it sits, 
warning you you’re near the end,

00:09:47.844 --> 00:09:52.507
and then stops the carriage at that point and keeps you from typing.

00:09:52.507 --> 00:09:56.263
This key, labeled M-R, is the margin release key

00:09:56.263 --> 00:10:02.295
which allows you to override the end stop 
in case the word you’re working on is just one or two characters too long

00:10:02.295 --> 00:10:04.482
and you’re willing to break the margin for it.

00:10:04.482 --> 00:10:10.856
The margin-release key also allows you to
go beyond the starting point if you hold it down while returning the carriage.

00:10:10.856 --> 00:10:14.745
Now, before this turns into a typewriter trivia tangent,

00:10:15.187 --> 00:10:16.486
which I suppose…

00:10:17.231 --> 00:10:18.104
too late.

00:10:18.104 --> 00:10:21.428
Uh, let’s just get back to the meat and potatoes of the ink and the ribbon.

00:10:21.428 --> 00:10:27.693
This typewriter, like many others, uses a simple ink-soaked 
cloth ribbon for making letters happen.

00:10:27.693 --> 00:10:30.713
That’s why the text it produces has that
texture;

00:10:30.713 --> 00:10:33.679
you’re seeing the weave of the ribbon come through.

00:10:33.679 --> 00:10:39.755
And since this is ordinary ink on ordinary paper,
if you make a mistake you have few options.

00:10:39.755 --> 00:10:46.752
Special hard erasers for typewriters were available,
and they would really just sand off the top surface of the paper

00:10:46.752 --> 00:10:48.947
and thus the ink from that spot.

00:10:48.947 --> 00:10:54.208
And of course once correction fluid hit the mainstream, there was that option, too.

00:10:54.208 --> 00:11:00.066
But with a change in the typewriter’s ribbon,
we would get not only crisper, darker text,

00:11:00.066 --> 00:11:05.413
but we’d get the ability to undo our mistakes
without leaving a trace.

00:11:05.413 --> 00:11:09.630
This monster of a thing is an IBM Selectric III.

00:11:09.630 --> 00:11:11.704
That’s right, III.

00:11:11.704 --> 00:11:16.436
The Selectric series of typewriters is as iconic as it is fascinating.

00:11:16.436 --> 00:11:22.339
Instead of a basket of typebars,
these typewriters use an interchangeable typing element,

00:11:22.339 --> 00:11:25.004
known informally as the typeball

00:11:25.004 --> 00:11:28.480
and even more informally as the golf ball.

00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:32.195
The typeball sits inside of a moving type head.

00:11:32.195 --> 00:11:34.700
In this typewriter the paper is stationary

00:11:35.584 --> 00:11:39.034
and the typeball moves along the paper’s length as you type.

00:11:39.034 --> 00:11:44.801
The entire mechanism is powered by an electric
motor, and pressing a key causes an amazingly quick

00:11:44.801 --> 00:11:46.762
and yet somehow still precise

00:11:46.762 --> 00:11:49.228
Rotate, Pitch, Wham maneuver,

00:11:49.228 --> 00:11:55.280
with the exact character you selected slamming into the ribbon 
and making a mark upon your paper.

00:11:55.280 --> 00:12:01.873
It will forever be astounding to me that this machine manages to make all that happen in the blink of an eye,

00:12:01.873 --> 00:12:07.188
and with absolutely no perceptible variation between character landings.

00:12:07.188 --> 00:12:12.827
I mean, the text from the manual typewriter,
which isn’t doing anything near as complex as this,

00:12:12.827 --> 00:12:14.851
is not consistent at all,

00:12:14.851 --> 00:12:21.406
but this whacky ball thing manages to rotate and tilt into place with such consistency

00:12:21.406 --> 00:12:25.399
that fancy script fonts like this one work perfectly!

00:12:25.399 --> 00:12:27.771
Did I mention you could get different fonts for this thing?

00:12:27.771 --> 00:12:31.342
And it can do either 10 or 12 characters per inch!

00:12:31.342 --> 00:12:33.956
Now this video isn’t about this typewriter.

00:12:33.956 --> 00:12:36.628
If you would like a better understanding of how this works,

00:12:36.628 --> 00:12:43.169
you should check out The Engineer Guy’s amazing and also way more concise than I could ever manage video on the subject.

00:12:43.169 --> 00:12:45.287
I’ll put links in all the places.

00:12:45.287 --> 00:12:47.935
What I want you to notice is the ribbon.

00:12:47.935 --> 00:12:52.724
The typewriter has one, of course, but it’s
nothing like the fabric ribbon we’ve been looking at.

00:12:53.306 --> 00:12:55.268
If I remove it...

00:12:55.268 --> 00:13:00.150
you can see (after I almost tore it) that it’s very very thin,

00:13:00.150 --> 00:13:03.844
and we can also see the letters that have been typed.

00:13:03.844 --> 00:13:09.387
Not great for sensitive locations; 
destroying these ribbon cartridges was often a matter of national security.

00:13:10.388 --> 00:13:17.916
Anyway, these polymer ribbons are what make the text so crisp 
compared to the cloth ribbons of ye olden times.

00:13:17.916 --> 00:13:21.345
But, yeah, they’re also not what allows
the correcting feature.

00:13:21.345 --> 00:13:24.981
IBM introduced carbon ribbons in 1949.

00:13:24.981 --> 00:13:27.437
Or maybe 1937.

00:13:27.437 --> 00:13:28.727
Yeah it's not clear.

00:13:28.727 --> 00:13:32.385
Also I can’t even tell for sure if those
are polymer ribbons.

00:13:32.385 --> 00:13:39.149
Anyway, it’s not important, polymer film ribbons allowed for 
complete transfer of their pigment material to the paper.

00:13:39.545 --> 00:13:44.777
There’s undoubtedly some fascinating materials
science that went into making the carbon stick to the paper

00:13:44.777 --> 00:13:47.203
which I am not even going to try to explain,

00:13:47.203 --> 00:13:52.388
but the end result was very dark, very crisp text on the page.

00:13:52.388 --> 00:13:56.088
The biggest disadvantage to this was that
the ribbons were single-use,

00:13:56.088 --> 00:13:59.721
though being quite thin they lasted a long time.

00:13:59.721 --> 00:14:06.000
Oh also you can see everything that was written
with that ribbon, which as I mentioned may not be desirable.

00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:09.240
This particular ribbon, though, is different.

00:14:09.240 --> 00:14:11.422
It works just the same as any polymer ribbon,

00:14:11.422 --> 00:14:18.477
but some even more fascinating materials science was done to it
to make the pigment not quite so sticky.

00:14:18.477 --> 00:14:20.523
This is a correctable film ribbon,

00:14:20.523 --> 00:14:25.820
which first made an appearance in the Correcting Selectric II in 1973.

00:14:25.820 --> 00:14:28.300
It does a decently fine job sticking to paper,

00:14:28.300 --> 00:14:33.162
but its adhesion is just weak enough that with a bit of adhesive tape

00:14:33.162 --> 00:14:35.190
it can be lifted off.

00:14:35.190 --> 00:14:38.725
This white tape sitting near the ribbon is
really just sticky tape,

00:14:38.725 --> 00:14:45.263
and when you press this key below the keyboard, the type head
moves back one space and when you next press a key,

00:14:45.263 --> 00:14:48.693
it will lift the sticky tape into position instead of the ribbon.

00:14:48.693 --> 00:14:52.288
By smashing the same letter at the paper through
the sticky tape,

00:14:52.288 --> 00:14:55.856
a very strong bond between the tape and the pigment is made.

00:14:55.856 --> 00:15:00.058
So, the pigment gets yanked right off the paper
like nothing ever happened.

00:15:00.058 --> 00:15:02.620
At least… mostly.

00:15:02.620 --> 00:15:06.189
It usually takes a few hits to completely remove a letter.

00:15:06.189 --> 00:15:11.590
Since this typewriter is purely mechanical,
the correcting feature is fully manual.

00:15:11.590 --> 00:15:14.888
To undo a mistake, it’s best to hold down
the correcting key

00:15:14.888 --> 00:15:18.000
and then hit the erroneous letter’s key a few times.

00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:20.013
Usually after the third strike,

00:15:20.013 --> 00:15:21.812
we have lift-off.

00:15:21.812 --> 00:15:23.964
The typewriter I showed you in the very beginning

00:15:23.964 --> 00:15:27.456
is a much newer, fully electronic typewriter.

00:15:27.456 --> 00:15:30.430
It uses a daisy wheel for its typing elements,

00:15:30.430 --> 00:15:34.031
a mechanically simpler arrangement than the IBM golf ball

00:15:34.031 --> 00:15:42.350
but which requires electronics to monitor its position as it spins and fire the striking solenoid at precisely the right time.

00:15:42.350 --> 00:15:43.899
Since it has those brains

00:15:43.899 --> 00:15:49.313
(and it uses them for other stuff, too, like spell-checking and line-by-line previewing
if that’s your jam)

00:15:49.313 --> 00:15:51.675
it knows the last letter it punched out,

00:15:51.675 --> 00:15:58.026
and so simply hitting the correct button performs
an automatic backspace and three whacks with the correcting tape.

00:15:58.026 --> 00:16:02.114
In fact if you want you can have it correct an entire word.

00:16:02.114 --> 00:16:06.178
Now you might think that the ability to lift
the words right off the page

00:16:06.178 --> 00:16:10.842
means the documents produced with these typewriters must have poor resiliency.

00:16:10.842 --> 00:16:13.206
But they’re actually quite durable.

00:16:13.206 --> 00:16:17.097
If I use the back of a pen, I can’t rub these markings off.

00:16:17.097 --> 00:16:19.097
They’re really on there.

00:16:19.097 --> 00:16:22.182
Using an X-acto knife blade I can scratch them off,

00:16:22.182 --> 00:16:27.464
but it’s not any easier than scratching the toner 
off of a modern laser-printed document.

00:16:27.464 --> 00:16:34.629
The typewriter can take its words back so effectively 
because it’s not just the adhesion of the correction tape that does the job,

00:16:34.629 --> 00:16:43.480
it’s the fact that in the typewriter the same typing element that left the mark in
the first place also applies the correction tape to the paper.

00:16:43.480 --> 00:16:50.587
That means it’s being pressed *hard* into
the offending letter and, crucially, nowhere else on the paper.

00:16:50.587 --> 00:16:54.489
Only the pigment is getting touched by the correction tape.

00:16:54.489 --> 00:16:59.289
Yes, if you put a piece of Scotch tape,
use something to apply pressure, and lift it off

00:16:59.289 --> 00:17:01.968
you’ll end up with some of the text on the tape.

00:17:01.968 --> 00:17:06.989
But even then you don’t get it all and you’re likely to take some of the paper with you.

00:17:06.989 --> 00:17:11.271
I know I can get fascinated easily,
but I think this is remarkable.

00:17:12.249 --> 00:17:16.874
I never imagined that a typewriter could play
textual take backsies.

00:17:16.874 --> 00:17:20.129
That just seemed well outside of the realm of possibility!

00:17:20.711 --> 00:17:24.969
I didn’t know that these letters aren't made with ink,

00:17:24.969 --> 00:17:28.562
so I thought the only possible cover-up was…

00:17:28.562 --> 00:17:30.165
a cover-up.

00:17:30.165 --> 00:17:38.110
Now, as I said earlier there were correcting typewriters
that typed in ink and did put a white powder atop mistakes.

00:17:38.110 --> 00:17:43.160
As a matter of fact, the Correcting Selectric
typewriter could be used with a standard inked ribbon,

00:17:43.160 --> 00:17:49.595
and a non-adhesive, white correction
tape would simply hide your mistakes.

00:17:49.595 --> 00:17:52.372
But of course that only worked with white paper,

00:17:52.372 --> 00:17:57.298
and I can’t imagine that worked nearly as well as lifting the text off.

00:17:57.298 --> 00:18:03.429
Even if it did a fantastic job, you could
always shine light through the paper and see that mistakes were made.

00:18:03.429 --> 00:18:08.109
Of course, if you were making carbon copies,
well this wouldn’t work.

00:18:08.505 --> 00:18:13.200
I mean, it would for the top one, but all the copies below would be royally…

00:18:13.200 --> 00:18:14.200
messed up.

00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:17.036
Then again by the time this feature hit the market,

00:18:17.036 --> 00:18:22.220
photocopiers were common in the office 
so carbon copies weren’t too much of a thing anymore.

00:18:22.220 --> 00:18:28.279
And actually photocopiers were a way to get
around noticeable error correction using white-out.

00:18:28.279 --> 00:18:34.620
Yeah you could see the blob of white goo on the original,
but copies will hide that swimmingly.

00:18:35.039 --> 00:18:37.919
Anyway, I think that’s it for now.

00:18:37.919 --> 00:18:41.504
It may not surprise you to learn that I wrote…

00:18:41.504 --> 00:18:45.706
quite a lot more about typewriters before trimming this down.

00:18:45.706 --> 00:18:49.843
Like, for instance, how it’s actually kind
of strange that this manual typewriter

00:18:49.843 --> 00:18:53.090
has a 1 and exclamation mark key.

00:18:53.090 --> 00:18:55.983
It was common practice for that key to just…

00:18:55.983 --> 00:18:57.394
not exist!

00:18:57.394 --> 00:19:00.760
And a lowercase L would be typed for the numeral one,

00:19:00.760 --> 00:19:05.836
and an exclamation mark was better known as
"period backspace apostrophe."

00:19:05.836 --> 00:19:10.588
I was going into a really deep dive on this
machine and others

00:19:10.588 --> 00:19:14.519
before realizing maybe I should cut to the chase.

00:19:14.519 --> 00:19:17.220
This was supposed to be quick after all.

00:19:17.220 --> 00:19:19.167
At least as quick as I can manage.

00:19:19.167 --> 00:19:23.794
But hey, if you all like this video, maybe I’ll revisit the topic later on.

00:19:23.794 --> 00:19:32.496
It’s genuinely surprising just how many of our modern word
processing conventions can be found right here in mechanical form.

00:19:33.497 --> 00:19:35.987
♫ typographically smooth jazz ♫

00:19:37.477 --> 00:19:39.588
…typewriters sitting on the bottom shelf.

00:19:39.588 --> 00:19:41.048
Are you really surprised…

00:19:41.048 --> 00:19:42.319
*sigh*

00:19:44.298 --> 00:19:46.550
Oh, that’s a live spider!

00:19:46.550 --> 00:19:49.253
I saw that this web was here… ooh.

00:19:49.253 --> 00:19:52.340
Or, doyou just stick it in the env…

00:19:55.064 --> 00:19:55.564
BBPPBP

00:19:55.564 --> 00:19:58.243
Don’t really need to do that much ah haaaa

00:19:58.243 --> 00:20:00.000
That’s obviously not what’s doing.

00:20:02.078 --> 00:20:03.984
This looks like this could’ve been come

00:20:04.333 --> 00:20:05.488
[flailing]

00:20:06.210 --> 00:20:09.662
In typewriters with a typebasket, the carriage and thus the…

00:20:09.662 --> 00:20:10.442
ahh!

00:20:10.954 --> 00:20:15.859
Oh.. Yeah, no thatshoulbe.  Some typewriters...

00:20:15.859 --> 00:20:19.507
But its adhesion is just weak enough [hits typewriter with hand] that….

00:20:19.507 --> 00:20:21.795
Well that didn’t work, did it?

00:20:23.285 --> 00:20:26.019
If you've never used a fully manual typewriter before, gosh is it not fun.

00:20:26.019 --> 00:20:28.990
The key travel is something like an entire inch - your fingers are powering the whacking, after all -

00:20:28.990 --> 00:20:31.365
so I cannot touch type with that thing at all.

00:20:31.365 --> 00:20:34.271
You didn't get to see an electric version of the same design - a motor does the whacking for you!

00:20:34.271 --> 00:20:36.453
If we cover this again I'll show you that fella.

00:20:36.453 --> 00:20:37.908
Much, MUCH easier to use.

00:20:37.908 --> 00:20:38.612
'kay bye