You are not logged in. Would you like to login or register?

Portable Typewriters » Good Olympia SF Review Article... » 25-3-2022 10:18:47

duna
Replies: 3

Go to post

"Though the best "ultra portable" Ive used in terms of comfort & touch is the Lettera 32"
I have used and much appreciated many Olivetti machines, but my take on the Lettera 32 is that it is on the upper side of the spectrum and straddling borders with portable machines. This is why it is so good.. not to mention it obviously is the cynematic upon which most subsequent Olivettis were designed ... Larger carters made machines  beefier but inside there was some kind of 32-35  iteration.
The former 22, on the other side, was definitely a true ultra-portable, and a very usable and nice one. I prefer the action of the heavier 32 but I am more attracted by the looks, polished finish  and weight of the slender 22.
 

Portable Typewriters » Olivetti-Underwood 21 In-Coming... » 11-11-2020 18:53:04

duna
Replies: 7

Go to post

Very nice machine. I have an almost spotless Studio 44, same machine but branded Olivetti and different (Nizzoli) design. Made in (yess) South Africa, it is a regular italian QZERTY  so I wonder how it made the trip back to Italy. Maybe demand was so large that Olivetti imported machines in Italy from their factories with excess capacity in other countries .
As far as I know the cinematic of these machines is unique and very different from those of the Letteras.  The typewriter is strangely bulky for a portable, the closest thing to a portable-standard I have typed on. Mine is nice to work on, very stable, you can go type around the page but if you come back,  characters will still be aligned with no need to release paper and re-seat on platen.  The touch becomes lighter with repeated use. Not noisy, but not as "quiet"  as the marvelous Quiet-Riter.

Electric Typewriters » Selectric vs. Wheelwriter Typing Speed » 18-10-2020 07:18:04

duna
Replies: 1

Go to post

I have my own ideas on this regard, but I have to inform that I am no expert or engineer thus I just happen to be a lay person with an amateurish interest (and knowledge) about some typewriters. So my opinions are mine alone and not supported by strong evidence.
As far as I know, the only quality typewriter left in production today are daisy machines made (supposedly) in Japan - there is a neat video on Youtube describing the last manifacturer (importer, technically) of typewriters in the USA as a sort of curious white elephant.  The internals of these machines  are conspicuous for their absence: the machine inside is almost empty, mechanical parts are few (thanks to the elegance of the rotating daisy concept) and all complexity is left to the electronic to solve. Electronics drive the paper movement, rotate the daisy wheel, stop it precisely, hit it at the right moment for the impression on paper, and move the printing head left or right.  All nice and easy with electronics but very complex if no electronic logic is available. A purely mechanical daisy typewriter would have a been a complex and expensive machine to manifacture and to maintain in 1961. On the contrary, the spool or ball  typewriter was purely mechanical: a Selectric could have been hand cranked without much of a redesign as all the complexity was 'solved' mechanically.  The Hammond , a vintage spool typewriter whose later Varityper iterations evolved into  fierce competitors of the IBM Selectric Composer on the proportional typeface market, was for decades a purely  hand-activated machine.  Selectrics appeared at the beginning of the 60s and took the market (then dominated by more or less traditional Underwood or Remington or European various electric standard machines)  by storm, selling millions of machines to everybody who could afford and wait for one. But no daisy machine (there were a number of patents but no machine on the market)  were built in any number until 15 years later.  Th

Portable Typewriters » What makes a silent a silent? » 16-10-2020 09:53:32

duna
Replies: 15

Go to post

I own a Remington Quiet-riter (an excellent model I always loved for its history and peculiar period design)   and at the time Remington also manifactured the Travel-riter and the Office-riter, that should be respectively the same machine without tabulator and without soundproofing material .  While obviously not silent at all, the Quiet riter is indeed a quiet typewriter, quieter than my Studio 44 and also quieter than my  Olympia Splendid 33 (just to name two respected high-quality competitor I happen to have) .  The name is thus not undeserved, but clearly there was no real silent mechanical  typewriter, ever.  Really quiet writing  machines are the fruit of recent  technology, mostly digital page printing like laser or inkjet and the like.

Portable Typewriters » Which one: Olympia SF or Hermes Rocket? » 15-10-2020 16:54:29

duna
Replies: 57

Go to post

Pete E. wrote:

I did solve the "tinny" sounding nature of the SF.  I added felt pads to the ribbon cover and on the interior side of the removable bottom plate.

I also added felt wraps on the hard rubber bumpers of the space bar and also on the travel stops for the space bar.

It is a much more quiet and less "tinny" sounding machine, now.

Interesting. I have a nice Splendid 33 , third-generation round style with plastic paper holders, amazing to  use but remarkably loud with a metallic tone as described.   This by no means makes it inferior  to her 'competitors' in my portable  lineup but  knowing that this muffling technique works is very interesting.
 

Portable Typewriters » Facit TP-2 » 15-10-2020 16:30:43

duna
Replies: 24

Go to post

Hmm on second thought maybe there isn't such a demand for stamped metal  shell-type carrying cases ,like Triumph's, or Hermes . These things are almost indestructible.

Portable Typewriters » Facit TP-2 » 15-10-2020 16:17:23

duna
Replies: 24

Go to post

OMG Why?
They throw them away? There isn't people willing to pay for replacement cases? They could sell them if unwilling to store them. Strange.. the demand should be there as they worn out pretty easily, given enough decades forgotten  in storage  to decay,  or after decades of   (ab)use. I will pay for a replacement case for my Lettera 32 that couldn't survive  56 years , as the machine did .  My aunt, has a still  almost spotless case as her machine was never stored, well cared and  serving her for a lifetime and I always envied her 32 case!

Typewriter Paraphernalia » I bought a typewriter lift desk, now what? » 14-10-2020 14:28:27

duna
Replies: 8

Go to post

Beautiful piece of furniture here, one to be proud of! 
As far as I remember from my youth (when such concoctions were not a curiosity) there should be something else at work here... The plate not only slides into the rails, it should also be (possibly) lowered when the whole table is closed , in order for a tall standard type machine to fit under the closed working top.  Am I wrong?
(probably  I'm just discovering hot water here). Excellent acquisition anyway, one to make all typewriter enthusiasts envious.

Type Talk » Recent Acquisitions Thread » 13-10-2020 17:45:51

duna
Replies: 1977

Go to post

Yes Olivetti had exceptionally smooth carriages , running on roller bearings and a pleasure to use even after 60 years. Strange the Studio 44 isn't easy to spot in Australia, it was the Olivetti semi-standard (still portable but almost as large as a standard) and not unusual in Europe. Maybe not imported? 
I'm told that the Studio 44 wasn't  mechanically an Olivetti machine, was made by another italian company then bought by Olivetti, I cannot confirm if this is true but the cinematic of the Studio 44 is totally different from that of the Lettera 22. 
As it often happened with Olivetti, design was as important as mechanical excellence, and the 22, the 44 , along with the Lexicon 80 standard  and Divisumma desktop mechanical calculators form a formidable range of modern and sculpted designs from Marcello Nizzoli that achieved cult status as design objects. I too bought it only for the aesthetics (and  discovered a pleasurable machine to type on, indeed) as I have other machines. Nizzoli was an amazing artist, some of his designs are so iconic and copied that are now representative of  the xx century visual style. His office buildings for Olivetti Ivrea obtained Unesco world heritage status yet at the time weren't appreciated as a particularly refined or fashionable design: the real stars  were the celebrated Olivetti Shops (mostly Venice and New York) , the one in Venice-Saint Mark Square  designed by Carlo Scarpa is breathtaking and still in existence, meticulously restored.  Sorry for the OT...

Type Talk » Recent Acquisitions Thread » 13-10-2020 06:03:10

duna
Replies: 1977

Go to post

zoom wrote:

.. I wonder if the serial numbers were centrally distributed. Given that the Glasgow and presumably Canada were assembly plants, the answer to that seems obvious, as the parts would have been stamped in Italy. Fascinating. By the way there is a very interesting documentary available on Youtube about Adriano Olivetti and his plant.

I wondered this myself, if serials were to an extent centrally distributed. The 'assembly plants, parts centrally stamped' theory appears to have some merit as I bought months ago a magnificent Olivetti Studio 44 with what appears to be a 1962 serial number but made in..South Africa (!) from a pretty Italian  lady that used it to type her school and university texts and then kept it undisturbed  for decades, and this 'South-African' Olivetti is exactly identical to pictures from these year models  in the typewriter database.  The fact that the keyboard is a regular italian QZERTY keyboard (with accented wovels , shifted numbers and all) adds mystery to it all.. maybe in those years Olivetti re-imported machines from foreign plants to cope with demand? Was it reworked by a reseller to change the layout to QZERTY? Mystery. The machine after cleaning (was almost clean, just  white Typex corrector fluid seeped inside and stuck until removed) is a joy to write with, the smoothest moving carriage I ever used. Still with its original metal reels.   I have to check if there are letters in front of the serial number but I don't remember any..


 

Board footera

 

Powered by Boardhost. Create a Free Forum