Ode to the IBM Selectric
I recently moved to mid-size town in Wisconsin, and I'm enjoying it. In the course of exploring the area, I kept driving by this real nice Good Will store. I used to stop at various thrift stores to look for books, always a great deal. But, I got out of that habit years ago. I keep driving by this place and the parking lot is always packed, like a Toys 'R' Us on Christmas Eve. So of course I have to stop in, the place is as nice and clean as any Target or Walmart I've ever been in, this is cool.
Looking around and I come across this shelve with four IBM Selectric Typewriters on it. Various models and colors. These were so cool, there was the little golf ball that you could switch out to change fonts, you could do on the fly corrections and I'm sure there were a bunch of other features to make your life easier (but I don't think it had a spell-checker). I had friends that had these typewriters and they loved them, it was one slick typewriter for the time.
Would have loved to have had one of these some thirty years ago, but they cost hundreds of dollars. Here's the choice stereo equipment or typewriter, stereo won.
What is the going rate for this one time technological wonder you might ask, $4.99.
I passed.
1 comment:
Remember when Gary Steele was the first person we knew who owned a Selectric? Oh, sure, businesses had 'em, but he was the first high school student we knew who convinced his parents to spent more than a grand on a typewriter back in the late 1960s. It was a pretty amazing device; who'd have thought you could buy it forty years later for less than the cost of a ribbon back in 1968?...
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