1 - dragon typer
- Novice Typer
Offline - Registered: 09-4-2021
- Posts: 33
SG-3 Line lock?
Was told by a reputable authority that the Olympia SG-3 does not have a right margin line lock, and that it will simply keep typing past the right margin, even after the bell sounds. Can any SG-3 owners confirm or disconfirm this? Was very interested in getting an SG-3 but lack of a hard stop and line lock at the right margin would disqualify this machine for me, since I often get "lost" in my writing and the letters would simply pile up and/or I'd type right off the paper onto the platen, warning bell notwithstanding.
- Uwe
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- Registered: 12-3-2013
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Re: SG-3 Line lock?
The SG-3 is a professional-grade standard typewriter and as such it would be unfathomable for it to not have a right margin stop. Did the "reliable authority" explain why the machine has a margin release key if there's no margin stop?
I have experienced a SG-3 margin stop not engage and as a result not activate the key stop, but just like any other machine that this happens with, it usually just requires a small repair or adjustment to the mechanism. I've also found that swapping carriages from different generations caused some issues, but I think that was actually only with the SG-1.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- dragon typer
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Re: SG-3 Line lock?
Hi Uwe, thanks for confirming my premonition. Had this reliable authority not been so well-known and well-respected, I would have dismissed this information immediately. But good to know that, of course, the SG-3 has a hard stop, line lock, and margin release on the right margin. I shall continue my search for one to bring home.
- •
Thread Starter- M. Höhne
- Key Master
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- From: Maine
- Registered: 14-3-2013
- Posts: 637
Re: SG-3 Line lock?
dragon typer wrote:
Was told by a reputable authority that the Olympia SG-3 does not have a right margin line lock, and that it will simply keep typing past the right margin, even after the bell sounds. Can any SG-3 owners confirm or disconfirm this? .... snip ....
This was covered in this forum less than a year ago. See: . This seemed to have cleared up the question completely.
- M. Höhne
- Key Master
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Re: SG-3 Line lock?
Also, would love to know who the reputable authority is so I can check whether I'm wrong.
- dragon typer
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Re: SG-3 Line lock?
M. Höhne:
It is a figure who most would immediately recognize in the typewriter world by name.
In this particular instance, this person and I were both examining an SG 3. I remarked how odd it was that the keys continued to strike indefinitely after the bell sounded and after the right margin. I kept setting the right margin further and further to the left, all the way to the middle of an 8.5 x 11 inch page. Still, the keys kept printing all the way to the end of the paper. Thus, well past the pattern described by you and your interlocutor in the previously linked thread.
I asked the figure about this, stating that surely there was a mechanical defect with the right margin / line lock. The figure replied that this was normal for an SG 3. We then took out an SG 1 for comparison. With the SG 1, the line lock did engage after x spaces past the right margin.
I am now inclined to think that the figure remembered something about the SG 3 (namely, that tab stops and space bar continues after the right margin, and characters start printing again after x spaces with the space bar), but that they mistakenly generalized this knowledge to the defective specimen immediately before us.
My takeaway: even the typewriter gods err from time to time. No harm, no foul.
- •
Thread Starter- dragon typer
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Re: SG-3 Line lock?
Also, when in doubt, consult the user manual:
The language about the margin release, on page 5, is very straightforward, with nary a mention of anything different from how margin releases work on nearly every other manual typewriter in existence. No mention of special spacebar powers to blow past the right margin and release the line lock. No mention of infinite continuation of typing past the right margin. Just a plain old hard right stop with line lock and a dedicated margin release key to overcome it.
So what gives?
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Thread Starter- M. Höhne
- Key Master
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- From: Maine
- Registered: 14-3-2013
- Posts: 637
Re: SG-3 Line lock?
I don't know what gives. All I know is that all three of the SG3s and the one SG1 I looked at behaved the same way, as described last year and as confirmed by van Gaalen. Are you in a position to try more than one SG3? Anyone else on this thread? Certainly it's possible that your SG3 has a right margin stop problem, so let's check more of them. I discovered this behavior during testing of the bell and I invariably do that with multiple spacebar presses just 'cause it's easier. So the carriage didn't stop as expected and I thought the margin stop was not working. (First "failure" I ever observed in an Olympia!) Many days later I tried again but just by chance was using the printing keys, and they locked. You can imagine the ensuing experimentation.
As for the Margin release description that you linked to, nothing in it contradicts the behavior I observed; it just doesn't mention that behavior. Since what it describes is "normal", the manual writer may have just described all that he thought the buyer needed to know. Indeed, in normal use that is all they need to know---get to the margin, keys lock up, press MR, continue typing, done.
Whether pressing MR is easier than typing a bunch of spaces, I don't know, but it is unlikely that a regular typist would be typing multiple spaces at the end of a line and thus accidentally blow past the margin. Tabbing to a note in the right margin would be very useful, for those who write that kind of material, so maybe that's what the engineers had in mind. I just dunno about spacing there. I admit I did not test what happens when your word ends at the space before the lock would occur but you type the space in that spot where a character would lock but because it's a space it doesn't lock. Does the next character lock or not? Remember that we thought it takes several spaces (3 to 8 in the experience quoted) before characters are free again, so maybe a single space there does not free the character typebars but several do. Would love to have been in the engineering meeting where they decided that!
- Uwe
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Re: SG-3 Line lock?
... All I know is that all three of the SG3s and the one SG1 I looked at behaved the same way, as described last year and as confirmed by van Gaalen. Are you in a position to try more than one SG3? Anyone else on this thread? ...
I was thrown off by the OP's report of an authority claiming that there wasn't a right margin stop on the SG-3, and I didn't even think to address the ways that it can be by-passed. I believe the behavior is normal - certainly all of my SG-3s work this way. I type with SGs a lot, and this arguably eccentric system has never been an issue for me. As a touch typist I can imagine that those who once typed for a living appreciated being able to keep their fingers in position (thumbs hovering over the space bar) when they needed to override the margin stop.
[rant] As a side note, I'm wondering if this is an example of how the internet, social media, and self-publishing has contorted our designation of authoritative sources.
For example, the only person I consider to be an authority on typewriters in this forum is Tom (thetypewriterman). He is the only one here (to my knowledge) who has actually been trained as a typewriter technician and has worked in the trade - long before the current crop of self-made authorities 'discovered' typewriters. Tom was actually repairing machines while some of us were still using them for school or work prior to the introduction of the personal computer.
The majority of our forum members might be very experienced, some are self-learned shade tree mechanics, but to my archaic way of thinking this doesn't make someone an authority on the subject.
I apologize for this obvious and distracting tangent. This is a sensitive subject for me because my own trade has been overrun by internet created, so-called experts who lack any formal training or professional experience. I throw up in mouth a little when I read, or hear the word influencer; the digital generation allows itself to be lead by those who talk the loudest, run the fanciest websites, or have the greater number of social media followers. No one seems to care if those influencers have any credentials that would validate their public opinions.
These observations are not meant to slight dragon typer. I don't know who the OP's authority is, nor do I need to; however, I did cringe at the "typewriter god" description and have to wonder if this god is someone who actually worked in the typewriter industry, or is just an enthusiast like most of us here who became an influencer by way of self-promotion. [/rant]
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- Maschinengeschrieben
- Touch Typist
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- From: Germany
- Registered: 09-7-2015
- Posts: 119
Re: SG-3 Line lock?
type letter = stops
type space or use carriage release = dont stops
The sec. can just use space to get past margin and dont have to press the MR. Its for speedz.
Learned watchmaker and office machine enthusiast from Germany.
