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For anyone interested in what the guts of a Selectric Mag Card II looks like, here’s a photo gallery I found (not my photos): /
I saw a site where it was stated that the only part of a Selectric that was electrical was the motor and everything else was pure mechanical. He probably never met one of these babies. In fact, the typewriter won’t work without the pedestal — the keyboard does not interface to the print mechanism.
My own Mag Card is currently partially disassembled while I clean and lube it. Still need to source a belt for the escapement drive.
Steve
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That sounds like something I said but if so, it's not an accurate quote. Many newcomers assume an IBM thing must be electronic, but it makes a big difference in typewriters, so I try to clarify things. And I do so by pointing out that most Selectrics, the common ones, the early ones, the office ones, are mechanical, and only some of the later developments for relatively unusual applications have some or a lot of electronics. Not the ones we are finding at yard sales and will have to work on or "repair".
But let's not get into a discussion of which ones are which. Although the proportion of mechanical to electronic that were produced over the whole life of the Selectric line would be interesting to know.
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[size=100][size=125]Took me a while, but I found the page I was talking about:
“The IBM Selectric Typewriter, introduced in 1961, is one of the most important mechanical[/size] inventions of the Twentieth Century. It is, indeed, all mechanical; an electric motor is used only to turn one shaft, and its function can be taken over by a hand crank (and is, during repair procedures). It may be the last major invention that doesn't use any form of electrical control.”
I wasn’t trying to imply anything, and indeed the author may have known of the Mag Card. Just saying, a blanket statement isn’t necessarily always so.[/size]
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Ugh, sorry about the formatting. Editing is weird on an iPad.