Marcin WicharyFeb 15

This is a thread of beautiful or interesting computer-y things I scanned at the Museum of Printing this weekend.

(Eventually all of this will be processed and deposited at Internet Archive!)

1. You don’t see a lot of yellow in computing.

Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 15
2. Autologic had a very good photographer.
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3. This could’ve been me if I played my cards right.
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4. Both of these machines (Linotext MBK 500/600) are very cool-looking.
Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 15
5. Need a typeface fast? Call Type Express.
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6. Some evocative Comp/Edit product photos.
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7. Now LaserMaster™ Compatible
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8. Micomp High Speed Programmable Keyboards.
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9. Charles Darwin would have approved of Linoterm.
Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 15
10. You could have a 1,000 tries, and you would never guess how VariTyper named its Helvetica knock-off.
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11. Holy lord, look at this colour-coordinated Avis setup from 1979.
Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 15
12. This photo from the same Harris brochure is also cool.
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13. Just this aesthetic.
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14. I associate compact cassettes with cheap home computers, but that hasn’t always been the case.
Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 15
15. This cool drawing of a keyboard for a manual, with a lot of corrections and whiteouts (if you look closely).
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16. Bad Boys (1995)
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17. More red computing.
Feb 15 at 1:43amWeb
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18. This company is called G. O. GRAPHICS. Cute.
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19. I would have put this in my book in an instant.
Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 15
20. More cool keys from the Photon.
Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 15
21. The keyboard of Comp/Set 4800, and an 8" floppy disk.
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22. Kinda looks like an Ouija board.
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23. A single stroke of this key.
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24. This keyboard is yet another entry in the classic Return/Enter story!

The main paragraph break (Enter) is a ¶ pilcrow, which is amazing. Above it is QC (Quad Center, or Enter + Align Center) and QR (Enter + Align Right), and even QM (Quad Middle? Not sure what that means).

And you can see New Line, or today’s Return, in the vicinity.

Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 16
25. Not fully altogether onboard with this colour scheme.
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26. A very interesting typewriter wraparound with more function keys.
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27. Super interesting to see Bill Gates like this.
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28. These photos are very regal.
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29. Also, this ligature is kind of nice!
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30. This logo is interesting. 1980s were once the future!
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31. Xenotron went for green.
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32. More brown Linotype machines, in reverse screen size order.
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33. Extreme Severance vibes.
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34. Weird that these promotional photos have blank keycaps.
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35. Loving this green portrait CRT with a key lock in the middle.
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36. I think this machine is really ugly, but the X/Y keys are interesting.
Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 16
37. More red! This is an OCR machine.
Show threadacbFeb 16
@mwichary I like* the pseudo-WYSIWYG on-screen representations. True WYSIWYG was considered beyond the capabilities of current technology (at least, until the Macintosh showed up), but you could get an approximation with several sizes of placeholder pixel fonts.
Show threadNiki TonskyFeb 16
@mwichary that’s the ignition key!
Show threadppk 🇪🇺Feb 16

@mwichary Also, too, rather a lot of keys.

Alphabet-neutral promo photos? Has that ever been a thing?

Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 16
@ppk That’s an interesting idea!
Show threadChancerubbageFeb 17

@mwichary

When I took typing in middle school I sat at a typewriter with blank keycaps. I loved it. Little did I realize a few weeks we were soon to play musical chairs and move to different typewriters. I got one with non-blank keycaps.

My speed and accuracy never recovered. And that was decades ago when only colleges big banks and utilities had computers.

Show threadSYNTAX_ERRORFeb 17
@mwichary This aesthetic... 🤌
Show threadChip UnicornFeb 16
@mwichary 2080s are the future!
Show threadMartin Schröder 🇺🇳Feb 16
@mwichary
What do 1 and i look in that font?
Show threadWhine SpectatorFeb 16
@mwichary I kind of want a ball terminal on the right side of the cap V but maybe that would be too precious
Show threadJohn ParkerFeb 16
@mwichary Love aesthetic of the keyboard in the shot with the three button mouse - you don’t often see the “circular top” key caps in different colours on the same board.
Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 17
@middaparka Here’s a lil close-up if you want!
Show threadJohn ParkerFeb 17
@mwichary Quite likely unpleasant to type on, but it’s a nice look. 🫡
Show threadJoe Cooper 🇺🇦 🍉Feb 16
@mwichary those knobs have to be a problem for touch-typing? I guess your hands are supposed to hover rather than rest at the front of the keyboard, but I'm sure they'd be a huge nuisance for most folks, or hand rests wouldn't be a popular thing for modern keyboards.
Show threadMark J. BlairFeb 16
@swelljoe @mwichary I gather that write rests weren't a thing when manual typewriters were still common, and typists were trained to hover and strike each key like a muscle-bound cobra.
Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 16
@NF6X @swelljoe Yeah, there was a great flattening throughout the 20th century. Selectric is already a lot flatter than the typewriters decades before, but nowhere near what we expect now. I think wristrests maybe only started happening when computers came into offices in the 1980s.
Show threadGareth HalfacreeFeb 16
@mwichary
Before I zoomed in, I thought that was a marble run sticking out of the side...
Show threadMark J. BlairFeb 16
@mwichary The yellow page background looks a bit intense to me, but the machine itself is beautiful!
Show threadJ. PetersonFeb 16
@mwichary Nice wood grain Sol-20 vibe.
Show threadWandreCanadaFeb 15

@mwichary Wow that's pretty awesome. It's what early word processors used as markup for carriage returns as well. I recall this specifically from Wordperfect 2.0.

Was this keyboard made specifically for a computer or was it an evolution of an existent electric typewriter keyboard I wonder?

Show threadMark EichinFeb 15
@mwichary reminded me of the Atex keyboards but the ones I can find online have a single "QUAD" key (and the big arrows on the left.) Feels like that generation though...
Show threadoleFeb 15
@mwichary I do wonder what the Just key does. Just DWIM?
Show threadMonospace MentorFeb 15
@olepbr My bet is on "Justify (Paragraph)" @mwichary
Show threadTuomas Hämäläinen 🇺🇦Feb 15
@mwichary What a lovely thread, thanks for posting. The aesthetic from this era of computing just hits different.
Show threadSecret SquirrelFeb 15

@mwichary It has a dedicated m-dash key?

**Want**

Show threadSt. ChrisFeb 15
@mwichary This needs to be my LinkedIn profile pic.
Show threadN__BFeb 15
@mwichary That’s reminiscent of CADAM, which called the command to move a group of artifacts by mouse DRAGON for “drag on.”
Show threadJ. PetersonFeb 16
@mwichary CAN EDIT - the distinction between "can" (able to do something) and "can" (short for 'cancel') is pretty stark.
Show threadideaPDishFeb 16

@mwichary

Almost like twisted nickers

Show threadIrenes (many)Feb 15
@mwichary oh whoa. very interesting glyphs on some of those keys, we kinda want to dig up a manual and find out what they do
Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 15
@ireneista
Show threadIrenes (many)Feb 15
@mwichary "preview", possibly?
Show threadMarcin WicharyFeb 15
@ireneista I was guessing “blind” something.
Show threadIrenes (many)Feb 15
@mwichary oh, possible
Show threadIrenes (many)Feb 15
@mwichary hmmm bitsavers pretty much just has the brochure. archive.org has some manuals but they're for older, electromechanical devices.
Show threadAccordionBruceFeb 15

@ireneista @mwichary
Hey, just today I was looking at some keycaps that included a bunch of Glasses 👓 bonus caps. (As well as runes — for your Nordic layout?)

I wondered what those were for 🤓
https://drop.com/buy/drop-mito-canvas-xda-custom-keycap-set

Show threadeuroplus Feb 15
@mwichary some special keys for @scream, and early emoji keys! 🕶️
Show threadEndless ScreamingFeb 15
@europlus AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH
Show threadNiki TonskyFeb 15
@mwichary When you need to scream during workday but don’t want to disturb your colleagues
Show threadjooFeb 17
@nikitonsky @mwichary I'd like to order a full set of these keycaps for my work keyboard, thank you  
Show threadKvn WFeb 15
@mwichary Guessing this Photon machine creates film and "NO FLASH" is referring to a technique used for exposing halftones, and that there would also be a "NO BUMP" key as well.