Hi there!
I've bought a royal with a strange serial that I can find reference on the interwebs. The serial is CG 88-2436678. On the typewriterdatabase it seems to be a companion because of the CG prefix.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DPhI7A1NlXaQdOUjy2PN34hKiFPTT9z8/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v8PQSZvDCWlQrXNcTuGY5c_4ChydBpNf/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NC-f3DlBqHiu9_jyM4fO_RrkjU0jooHr/view?usp=sharing
(Sorry about the drive links, I'll have to figure out about the hotlinking of pictures)

Hi and thanks for the response.

I definitely must take new, higher quality photos and perhaps a small movie. The thing is that when I reverse, nothing pops out of place, everythiing looks like it is where it belongs.

On another note, from reading back topics, just realized that the ribbon should have eyelets to engage the automatic reverse.

Hi there!

Finally got a SG1 and it's a beast! Needs a good cleaning althought the few sticky keys are slowly freeing themselves up from use! Now It's not winding into the left spool. And the platen is rock solid! The ribbon is getting cut from the keys impact! 

Greetings everybody!

I come to you, after searching the interwebz for a solution,  with an intriguing question: My Olympia SM3 #1156361, german keyboard,  moves back 2 letters when I use the backspace. I thought this was a Olympia thing until I bought another SM3 that doesn't do this double backspace gimmick, just a single letter as it should do.

I'm used to it now because of the "Ç" that has to be made with "C" + "," overlayed. But it's a little distracting this two-step operation.

I wonder if I'm missing a lever that controls this, a screw that's loose or it's a real "problem".

 

Hehehe no it's not a shaddy repair but it does look like it. If you can find a good and cheap one, I do recommend the experience of not having a single key on the same place as a regular keyboard. Sorry, I lie! The "L" is in the same place. Have fun :D !

which layout was used before HCESAR? What you wanted! Only after the 1937 decree that Hcesar became available and soon after mandatory. From the ads on olx.pt, you see a lot of German and french but not much of the QWERTY keyboards for pre-war typewriters. The Hcesar is always there. I have my sights on a SG1 but they are only with this keyboard. i've seen them with AZERTY and a really bad one with QWERTZ but 90% are with HCESAR.

does it have much impact changing layouts? To me yes. When using this keyboard I'm more concerned about key placement than writing. I'm a clumsy typer because of bad habits from the pc. Having that for me to worry is tiresome. And them go back to a pc keyboard. All the muscle memory I learned is lost. If I wrote every day, of course it would be easier but I write very seldom on my typewriter.

If it's faster? Maybe... I really don't have the experience to say it. By logic and definition the keyboard as it is, was setup to place the most used letters on the top row and center and spreading out as they less likely to be used, so to speak. Below is the Portuguese Language letter frequency percentage:

Letter Frequency:
A 14,63%
E 12,57%
O 10,73%
S 7.81%
R 6.53%
I 6,18%
N 5,05%
D 4,99%
M 4,74%
U 4,63%
T 4.34%
C 3,88%
L 2,78%
P 2,52%
V 1,67%
G 1,30%
H 1,28%
Q 1,20%
B 1,04%
F 1,02%
Z 0,47%
J 0,40%
X 0,21%
K 0,02%
W 0,01%
Y 0,01%
Source: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfabeto_portugu%C3%AAs ( in Portuguese)

As you can see the top 5 are arranged in the top row of the HCESAR keyboard. In theory It should be but I think that it all comes down to the person at the machine. In Spanish, this frequency shouldn't be that different.