- Repartee
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- From: Brooklyn
- Registered: 12-10-2015
- Posts: 683
Re: Throwing and Dragging
TypewriterKing wrote:
... I am reminded of Innocents Abroad. Mark Twain tells some whoppers there but he is so matter of fact about some of their travelling arrangements that I feel they are veracious//.
Another funny thing: Mark Twain was one of the first authors to use a typewriter.
Another funny thing is that I think Mark Twain got me. Now that I think about it the whoppers that I caught were also very matter of fact so the ones I didn't catch were probably similar. I am not sure I believe one damn thing in the book - but I do believe average people were more physically fit and had a better intuition for the physical world in the 19th century.
Yet another funny thing is my use of the slightly uncommon "veracious" - I had recently been reading a reference written by an illiterate who described data as "veracious" when he meant faithful to the originally version and not corrupted - only people can be veracious or mendacious. So when I try to use it in a sentence I have "travelling arrangements" and not Twain being "veracious"! Sloppiness is infectious.
"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton".
- Repartee
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Re: Throwing and Dragging
... If carriages were meant to be hurled then manual typewriters would have been equipped with carriage brakes.
Funny thing: Electric typewriters, especially the big ones, do have brakes.
That's why I specified manual typewriters! 
You forget I was messing around with an IBM model B for some time and most of the moving margin problems would be attributable to the complexity of the brake, after I eliminated the few times the sliding stop actually moved. Sometimes the carriage moves a space beyond the stop and does not bounce back while other times it bounces back too far. I just have not figured out the details, and I have accepted that I will not until I understand the mechanism - if and when. Effective intervention results from clear understanding of the process: all else is Easter egging. True in typewriters as in computers and the rest of the physical world. Any sufficiently advanced technology or the activity of a person who understands a process in order to modify it is indistinguishable from magic. I was a magician when I accomplished rapidly at work something nobody else could pull off by scrounging together a few lines of SQL code, but the cognitive dissonance between ability and the lack of formal training soon proved too great and this was dismissed as a monkey/typewriter fluke.
By the way this model had both - centrifugal governor and carriage brake.
"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton".
- TypewriterKing
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- From: DeepInTheHeartO', Texas
- Registered: 17-2-2016
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Re: Throwing and Dragging
Pardon my forgetfulness. Sometimes these threads get a little bit long and remembering what I had read gets a little tough. I tend to repeat myself at times when that happens. I remember that IBM with the margin problems. I'm still studying on that one. When I find out something, I'll let you know. And you're right--IBM B's have both kinds of brakes.
Underwood--Speeds the World's Bidness
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