A few other characteristics came to mind that also help set it apart: I don't know if it was the first, or not, but something that might not be immediately obvious to some is that the Selectric had ...

IBM’s Selectric line of typewriters were quite popular in the 1960s, thanks in part to an innovation called the typeball which allowed for easy font changes on a single machine. Unfortunately, as if ...

Introduced in 1961 by IBM, the Selectric was the first typewriter to use a golf ball-like type element that moved across the paper, rather than moving the paper carriage past the individual character ...

As Cold War tensions increased throughout the 1970s, the Soviets pulled out all the stops when it came to digging up information from US diplomats. This NSA memo from 2012 explains how several IBM ...

IBM sold 13 million Selectric typewriters which also served as a precursor to early computer terminals It has been retired for 25 years but IBM will celebrate the 50 th anniversary of the introduction ...

IBM's Selectric began its life as a typewriter, but ended it as the first computer keyboard. In the interim, the stylish device became a favored tool of great American writers and dominated the desks ...

IBM engineer Leon Cooper helped develop the Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter, or MT/ST, the first electronic word-processing machine, beginning in the late 1950s. The Lexington-made product was ...

With all of the whiz-bang rockets and brain implants we have these days, it’s easy to forget about genius inventions from simpler times. Thankfully, in a video posted to its YouTube channel, the ...

Q: I have an IBM Selectric 3 typewriter. I’m looking for somebody that can service it. The main thing is that certain keys stick. I use a computer for most things, but there are times when I want to ...

Metal plating doesn't have much strength. If a plastic ball would be flattened, as I expect, a plated plastic ball would collapse just about as fast. Plus, I think you can only plate things that ...