RetroTech Office

11/20/2020

I have just finished designing and prototyping a set of replacement keys for vintage Smith Corona portable typewriters. These will fit most plastic keyed Smith Corona typewriters. These are round, flat topped 3D printed keys with embossed lettering. These will be $50 dollars a set for anyone interested. Lettering can be painted to color of your choice for an extra fee. Color is black, but I can see about getting more colors if requested. Due to variations in keyboard layouts over time a photo of the keyboard is requested. It currently takes about a day to print a set.

12/02/2017

And here we have another episode of Fringe and an Olympia SM9 in the background.

11/30/2017

This Hermes 3000 was seen recently in an episode of Fringe. Season 4, Episode 5.

02/22/2016

Just found an old Dauphin DTR-1 handheld Windows 3.1 computer. Not a typewriter, but I think, being over 20 years old, it does fit the theme of this page. Will post pictures if I get it up and running. Need a power cord for it. Here is an article on it. http://www.oldcomputers.net/dauphin-dtr-1.html

03/28/2015

Ok, well it has been so long since I was able to work on this that Facebook decided to delete everything. A little pi**ed about that. But down to business at hand. Just had a dream about a brand new typewriter that I stumbled across in a Wal-mart, no that's not right it was Sam's Club. Unfortunately this was entirely a dream (or perhaps this is not a bad thing as I will explain. First of all in the dream I was taken completely by surprise by this find. The typewriter was bargain priced at $249 and it was way up on the top shelf. It was a very flat machine and had a black and red plastic body reminiscent of the Valentine. It was really shaped nothing like this famous typer, but it was what would have been called high design at the time the Valentine made. This was a three bank machine, meaning there were only three rows of keys, in the standard QWERTY layout. It had an oval removable ribbon cover. This was red and the lower body was black except for the bottom edge. The endcaps on the platen were also red. Under the ribbon cover was where things got strange. The segment assembly was divided into three sections. One off to the right, one slightly lower to allow clearance located off center to the right and one to the far left leaving a large gap in the center left position. This was to make room for the escapement. The three bank design meant there were fewer typebars to worry about. While the segment assembly looked strange, it actually worked very well. My OCD mind, never missing an opportunity to come up with even the most minute details, even designed a totally new escapement. But don't get too excited. This design was, to be honest, crap. There was a vertical, toothed cylinder that controlled the advancement of the platen. As you struck a key, a flat toothed arm held against the rear of the cylinder would rotate the cylinder to the left. When the arm reached the limit of travel to the left a little cam would a) lift the arm from the cylinder and b) hold the cylinder in place. The arm would then snap back to the right. But the small diameter of the cylinder meant that the limit of the arm's travel was only about 4 keystrokes. And the cam did not lift the arm far enough away from the cylinder to keep it from hanging up. So every fourth keystroke was usually accompanied by a smack to the side to settle the arm back in place on the cylinder. While I would love to see some new typewriters become available, I really don't want to see anything like this on the market.

08/03/2012

06/05/2012

PRIVACY NOTICE: Warning - any person and/or institution and/or Agent and/or Agency of any governmental structure including but not limited to the United States Federal Government also using or monitoring/using this website or any of its associated websites, you do NOT have my permission to utilize any of my profile information nor any of the content contained herein including, but not limited to my photos, and/or the comments made about my photos or any other "picture" art posted on my profile.

You are hereby notified that you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, disseminating, or taking any other action against me with regard to this profile and the contents herein. The foregoing prohibitions also apply to your employee , agent , student or any personnel under your direction or control.

The contents of this profile are private and legally privileged and confidential information, and the violation of my personal privacy is punishable by law. UCC 1-103 1-308 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE

05/16/2012

A while back I picked up an Underwood Noiseless desktop typewriter for the astounding low price of $2 at an estate sale. It was dirty and not stored in the best of conditions, but it seemed fully functional and completely intact. There are only two things wrong with it that I could spot at the time. The platen was rather hard and the paper bail rollers are beginning to deteriorate.

I gleefully took the machine home and cleaned it up. This is my first noiseless so, I took a little extra time to explore.

First impression. This is an imposing looking machine. It stands quite tall on my desk and the wide carriage lends to it an almost intimidating air. It has celluloid topped, ringed keys which I like. You always know when your fingers are centered on those. It has a standard QWERTY keyboard layout and like many older machines it uses the lower case "L" for the numeral one. It has manual set tab stops on the carriage. But they are readily accessible on a rail at the top of the carriage. Some machines I have seen make you turn the machine around or flip up a panel to get to the tab stops. This is a heavy machine so I'm glad that spinning it around every time I want to change the tab stops is not necessary.

Actual typing. I like using desktop machines, they can take a pounding when writing angry letters, but usually have a light enough touch for casual use. There is no touch control on this machine, but there is an adjustment dial that moves the carriage slightly front to back to allow a darker impression through carbons. This is a necessity on the thrust action machines like the Noiseless. The typeslug just does not strike the platen as hard as a standard machine. The hard platen does not seem to be as much of an issue on the Noiseless for that very reason. I think it could go another twenty or so years as it is. This is a carriage shifted machine and the wide carriage does make for a heavy shift key, but it does have a shift lock on either side.

Noiseless is a relative term. The typeslug striking the platen does not make as much noise as on a standard machine, but the machine is by no means silent.

I love watching the action of this machine while typing. Due to the shorter throw of the Noiseless typebars and the tighter arc of the arrangement the typebars each serve double duty. There are a total for four characters on each type bar. Two slugs with two characters each. Except the "Q" and the "@" key which are selfish bastards and insist on having their own typebars on opposite ends. The arrangement of the keys means that all the upper and lower typeslugs will almost always be typed by the same fingers so this will eliminate possible clashes, say if you were to strike both keys on that typebar at the same time. For example the "X" and the "E" share a typebar so when typeing "text" first the upper half hits the platen, then the lower half.

As far as ease of use it is about on par with other Underwood desktops of the time.

I shot a 29 second video of the noiseless action with the top cover off.

05/10/2012

Olivetti Studio 45