• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

My oldest piece of data processing equipment

mbbrutman

Associate Cat Herder
Staff member
Joined
May 3, 2003
Messages
6,408
Back from the typewriter repair shop today ...

Underwood_Number_5_small.jpg

It is a 1916 Underwood Number 5 typewriter. I have had this for 30 years now - it has been in the family for at least 80 years. After years of storing it I finally had it professionally cleaned and repaired. It still has a few minor glitches, but it works pretty well for a 94 year old mechanical device.

Typing on various computer keyboards for the last 25 years has spoiled me. This unit takes some serious finger muscles to operate, and the results are far from consistent keystroke to keystroke. But wow, what a racket it makes. This one makes a Model M look quiet.

And no, don't anybody even think of suggesting that I should make a steampunk Model M keyboard out of it. That is sinful. ;-0

The typewriter shop was a 3 hour round trip drive for me, so I also had them service my IBM Selectric II too to make the most of the trip. The Selectric is the pinnacle of electro-mechanical engineering - it has a single motor, and the rest is just clutches, levers, cams, springs, ball bearings, etc. There is not a single resistor or capacitor in the entire unit.

Wait until the kids have to write a paper and I make them use one of these!
 
Whats the serial number? It's stamped on the right side at the U shape in the steal. You have to move the carriage to the left to see it.
 
Nice machine.

I would be interested to know how much one of these typewriter's cost back in their day, and how that related to other factors such as wages, cost of living etc. I'd wager they were expensive pieces of equipment.

Would they have been the equivalent cost to a good laptop in today's money?

Tez
 
A beautiful machine!

Typing on various computer keyboards for the last 25 years has spoiled me. This unit takes some serious finger muscles to operate, and the results are far from consistent keystroke to keystroke. But wow, what a racket it makes. This one makes a Model M look quiet.

I worked for a long time in journalism, and most of the time at our college paper and in classes, and even in my first job, I wrote everything on manual typewriters (mostly Royals). To this day, I have a very hard touch and end up wearing out computer keyboards rapidly unless they are very sturdy.

Typewriter keyboards are much better for your hands. No one really got RSI from typing before computer keyboards came along. I am not sure but I think the manual typewriter provides a much more natural range of motion.

It has been so long since I used one of these, but I should do it once in a while. It's like the difference between using a hand saw and a power saw; with the power saw you can get much more done but you lose some connection to the work.

When you mention the Selectric and its mechanical details, I remember the Selectric Composer. I doubt if many people have seen one of them, but we had some for our college paper. They did proportional spacing entirely with mechanical linkages, making them insanely complex. You could type on them normally, but they also could be fitted onto a base unit that could type out articles recorded on some kind of proprietary magnetic tape cartridges. Levers connected solonoids in the base unit to each of the keys, and when it ran it looked just like a player piano. I can't imagine the amount of mechanical engineering to get all of that to work.
 
When you mention the Selectric and its mechanical details, I remember the Selectric Composer. I doubt if many people have seen one of them, but we had some for our college paper. They did proportional spacing entirely with mechanical linkages, making them insanely complex. You could type on them normally, but they also could be fitted onto a base unit that could type out articles recorded on some kind of proprietary magnetic tape cartridges. Levers connected solonoids in the base unit to each of the keys, and when it ran it looked just like a player piano. I can't imagine the amount of mechanical engineering to get all of that to work.
My mother remembers using Selectric Composers in college to write papers, and how awesome they were when you were doing multiple copies with carbon paper -- no retyping the whole thing for one error! IIRC, there was an article published early in the microcomputer revolution as to how you could interface to the keyboard matrix, using the typewriter as a printer for your computer. There were also a few articles about using solenoids to manually strike keys on electric-mechanical typewriters for use with computers.

Mechanical typewriters really are a neat thing. I'm in the process of repairing my girlfriend's typewriter, which sat unused for many years due to a busted carriage spring. I believe it's a 1920's Woodstock model. I've gotten most of the linkages freed from the hardened grease. I've got a Selectric III (one of the models with a type ball rather than hammers or a daisy) -- as mentioned, really incredible all-mechanical devices! Mine got taken to work recently, where it was used to fill out the multipart W-2 tax forms my employer uses (his NEC SpinWriter is out of service at the moment). Very handy for filling out a nonstandard form, or typing up a quick label for an envelope or floppy disk.

Have you seen the typewriter conversion here: http://www.multipledigression.com/type/

The guy uses the actual typewriter action to trigger keypresses to a keyboard controller. He designed it for his wife, who was experiencing stress injuries due to the short travel and sudden stop of modern keyboard strokes.
 
Nice machine.

I would be interested to know how much one of these typewriter's cost back in their day, and how that related to other factors such as wages, cost of living etc. I'd wager they were expensive pieces of equipment.

Would they have been the equivalent cost to a good laptop in today's money?

Tez

I can't comment on the relative cost, but they were designed to last. If you think about the manufacturing techniques they had, they were pretty crude, so everything is far stronger than it probably needs to be.

This particular unit has a serial number that indicates 1916, but it has the wrong type of paint on it - it should be a glossy black paint with elaborate gold lettering. The 'crinkle' paint that it has is a 1940s product. The owner of the repair shop found a few other anomalies too - the keys have been replaced, and some of the mechanism is updated compared to an original unit. The theory is that it was sent back to the factory and reconditioned, which was a common thing to do back then. So while it is an old beast, it is not a good example because it has been refinished and some parts were updated.
 
My Dad had one similar to that years ago. Didn't realize how old those were.

I figured that this one came from the 30s or 40s - I was pretty surprised when I found out it was much older.

There are a lot of good resources on the web for vintage typewriters. One of the key things to keep in mind about something this age is that once they had developed the product, they tended to make a lot of them with very minimal design changes. Design changes are always expensive, and back then it would have been far more expensive and it would have intefered with servicing and maintaining a parts inventory. In the case of Underwood they made a gazillion of this particular model. So many that they are on eBay for next to nothing ...
 
A beautiful machine!

I worked for a long time in journalism, and most of the time at our college paper and in classes, and even in my first job, I wrote everything on manual typewriters (mostly Royals). To this day, I have a very hard touch and end up wearing out computer keyboards rapidly unless they are very sturdy.

Typewriter keyboards are much better for your hands. No one really got RSI from typing before computer keyboards came along. I am not sure but I think the manual typewriter provides a much more natural range of motion.

It has been so long since I used one of these, but I should do it once in a while. It's like the difference between using a hand saw and a power saw; with the power saw you can get much more done but you lose some connection to the work.

When you mention the Selectric and its mechanical details, I remember the Selectric Composer. I doubt if many people have seen one of them, but we had some for our college paper. They did proportional spacing entirely with mechanical linkages, making them insanely complex. You could type on them normally, but they also could be fitted onto a base unit that could type out articles recorded on some kind of proprietary magnetic tape cartridges. Levers connected solonoids in the base unit to each of the keys, and when it ran it looked just like a player piano. I can't imagine the amount of mechanical engineering to get all of that to work.

I learned to type on manual typewriters too. I wish I could remember what they were - the school had an entire room of them, and they would have had to have been monsters to put up with the abuse that they were getting. Probably Royals - I would have remembered if they were IBM, and they were definitely manual typewriters.

A computer keyboard has a much lighter touch, but less motion is required. I'd forgotten about the entire 'lift the left arm and swing it hard to the right' to do the carriage return. There is something satisfying about doing a carriage return on a manual typewriter that not even the Selectric can emulate.

I've not seen a Composer directly, but I've read about them. Proportional spacing would have been a very neat trick to pull off on an electo-mechanical machine. I imagine that the Composer probably had some electronics in it though, unlike the standard Selectrics which don't have a single transistor.
 
....
A computer keyboard has a much lighter touch, but less motion is required. I'd forgotten about the entire 'lift the left arm and swing it hard to the right' to do the carriage return. There is something satisfying about doing a carriage return on a manual typewriter that not even the Selectric can emulate.....

I also learnt some basic typing on manual typewriters in my early 20's (I think it was at night school). I also remember the "carriage return". Interesting that that manual operation was used as a metaphor in screen displays.

Imagine the noise a corporate typing pool would have made!

Tez
 
I can't imagine the amount of mechanical engineering to get all of that to work.
And having to design it all on paper, without 3-D CAD. The design of intricate mechanisms has become a lost art.

When my parents moved us into our circa-1920's house in San Diego, 1968, the only item the elderly previous owner left was an Underwood just like that one.

Imagine the noise a corporate typing pool would have made!
I also took a typing class in 1968 summer school - with typewriters not much newer. If I recall the teach played music to type to so all the keys were struck to the beat.
 
Last edited:
I always liked keyboards. Whether on a typewriter, calculator, or computer - I always liked all the 'functionality' :)
My Dad bought my mother a manual portable typewriter from Sears back in the 50's and I used to sit and type the dialog from comic books with it. I just liked to type. In high school I took a typing class. This was back in the very early 60's, so in the room full of manual typewriters there was a room full of girls, how sweet is that :) Me and one other guy, and all the rest were girls. I typed 64 words a minute on those old manuals, which was pretty decent for me, anyhow. I took the class for no other reason than I liked keyboards!
Typewriters are a dying breed, taken over by computers today. I decided, although not in my vintage computer 'line of sight', to collect a couple examples before they are all gone to landfills. Mike's fine 1918 Underwood is a shining example of a 'real' typewriter! Mine are just silly word processors, really - but I get a kick out of playing with them.

Brother GX6750, fairly standard electric typewriter.
attachment.php


Canon StarWriter 30, nice little word processor - with a screen so you can correct mistakes easily.

attachment.php


The Canon even has a 3.5" floppy drive to save your stuff on. Pretty cool.
These keyboards aren't suffering from 'yellowing', I just like the incandescent lighting :)
 
Back
Top