IBM Selectric review - and how it works!

[Chyros]

I've been wanting to show you one of these for a long time - and today is the day I do! The IBM Selectric typewriter, and how it works. Hope you enjoy the video, this one was a BEHEMOTH to make! xD

[Elrick]

We had these back in High School and even I signed up for a 6-month course in using these babies only because the whole room had the nicest girls using all of these typewriters.

Through my ignorant lust for them, I signed up just so I could meet some of them and I did. My second girlfriend which I picked up on my third week doing this course had also liked using these typewriters, hence our evolving passion grew.

Since I was the only male who signed up for this course in a sea of females the administrator cast her middle aged eye over me, as some kind of mischief maker because all of my ilk went to technical drawing, art or metalwork.

As much as my hormones were drawn to those very tight skirts in my early years at High School, the IBM Selectric had started something that was almost perverse but enticing. Loved the actual feel of typing and it was maybe the very first time I enjoyed doing something above the belt line, which was strange for a pubescent male.

Whilst doing the Typewriter course I became quite proficient at making a Resume which got me my first job at Coles Warehouse in CanningVale.

Loved using them whilst I was at HS but even I saw what was coming on the horizon but it was a shame they all disappeared in favour of PCs with their own keyboards. It's just not the same,when you first use a Selectric it was so unique it vibrated continuously when you typed in a steady stream, which I couldn't achieve. The girls liked that feeling creeping up their hands and forearms and in fact some said, when you went full speed to 120wpm it was almost like an orgasm.

Too bad we relinquished something unique in favour of flat boring keyboards, that are almost dead compared to a full running Selectric.

[depletedvespene]

Back in the '80s, my mother had one of these, and she would not allow anyone else to use it. For our homework requirements, she'd let us use the older typewriter, but NEVER the Selectric.

[Chyros]

Back in the '80s, my mother had one of these, and she would not allow anyone else to use it. For our homework requirements, she'd let us use the older typewriter, but NEVER the Selectric.

In all fairness, older typewriters are much more mechanically robust than Selectrics.

The Selectric is a stroke of genius engineering, and a very awesome piece of technology, but it was pretty cutting-edge at the time, and relatively fragile compared to typebars. Many that are still around are broken, and now very difficult to fix. If you find a typebar typewriter, there's very little that can go wrong with it, and even less that can't be fixed.

[Wodan]

I got one that was also making strange sounds when turned on and refused to work ...
Sprayed some PTFE spray into the mechanics and let it dry a little, then tried some typing and eventually the typewriter got into a silent-humming working mode again.

[ideus]

Original bar typewriters are a marvel of reliability engineering.

[zslane]

And the amount of force required to register a character with most manual typewriters brings typing speeds down and insures the type bars won't get jammed. At least for those of us who are touch typists and/or are accustomed to only 40-50g of required actuation force with computer keyboards. A well-maintained Selectric can support typing speeds well over 120 wpm; try that with any manual typewriter!

[DustGod]

This is the first Selectric ever that I see sporting the cylindrical IBM keycaps. I've see a lot, but they alway had older spherical one.