Typewriter Talk / Friden flexowriter keys

**Posted by Macsimski** 16-3-2013 12:12:21

hello there,

as the first posting in this section, there was no better candidate than the Friden Flexowriter, by far the most heavy desktop typewriter around.

we have one in our collection at hack42.nl and one keycap is wrong. on the spot of the letter v there is a upside down 7 & cap. so i'm looking for a reddisch brown keycap "v"

**Posted by Uwe** 16-3-2013 12:45:09

Macsimski wrote:
the Friden Flexowriter, by far the most heavy desktop typewriter around.

Okay, you sparked my curiousity; just how heavy is a Friden Flexowriter?

My collection is almost exclusively limited to manual portables, so when I recently bought a wide-carriage Remington from Valiant in this forum, I was literally floored by its weight. Here I was grumbling about the carrying weight of an ultra portable when there were monsters out there that could sag a desktop under their imposing mass.

Good luck with your key hunt. Maybe should you also put your request as a "WTB:" in the Buy & Sell section?

**Posted by Macsimski** 16-3-2013 13:37:59

Well, accoding to specs, it's about 45 kilo. and that for a typewriter. I have several telexes, but none come close.

**Posted by Uwe** 16-3-2013 13:48:53

Macsimski wrote:
Well, accoding to specs, it's about 45 kilo. and that for a typewriter.

45 kg!?!?

Is it armour plated? Wow, that really is a behemoth. How big is its travel case?

**Posted by beak** 08-4-2013 04:59:07

45kg! - I had to look that up too - I was google-led to what is clearly a tele-printer (which I'm old enough to remember seeing in operation (clack-clack-clack-clak)) not merely a typewriter alone. Was I misled?

**Posted by Macsimski** 08-4-2013 07:55:32

well, it way look like a teleprinter, but only the most expensive version had some means of in/out. and then only parallel 8bit with clock. no currentloop or serial. they hooked them up to an mechanical calculator to form what they called a "computyper" this was a accounting machine.

this version has those 2x 50pin connectors, but nothing is attached except for jumper-connectors.

i will put online a video of the machine in action

(edit) here it is: https://vimeo.com/79331917

Last edited by Macsimski (29-12-2013 16:07:00)

**Posted by phxxer** 27-11-2013 17:25:26

I have to agree, they are heavy. I have 3 of them, one all caps, one upper and lower case, and I can't remember what the 3rd one is. Fortunately, they put two posts on the back, so they can be stood on their back. I have 2 external readers, but I don't know much about them. They have 10 dials, where you can dial in a number to be printed. These Flexowriters are very noisy.

I also have a Dura Mach 1 (?) which is built around the original IBM Selectric. Dura added a paper tape punch and a tape reader, Much quieter and faster than the Flexowriter, but breaks down often.

**Posted by Macsimski** 28-11-2013 04:21:17

those readers are not only for the adresses in mailmerge, but also data for the date of other numerical info. I think they even could increase a digit per letter printed. be carefull though, here in the netherlands the machines are 230v and have a transformer in them for the relays and they work on 48volt. the 110v version is directly connected to mains. i have one auxilliary reader on 110v and one auxilliary puncher (not inspected yet) and connecting the rweader to my 230v machine did blow the 10ohm 30w resistor in the power supply for the relais.

**Posted by phxxer** 28-11-2013 12:19:48

Thanks for the tip. I used it once to insert the number dialed, but I had to manually increase it each time. Auto advance would be great. Back in the 70's, a Friden tech told me it was a gimmick to win a government contract. A "restrictive clause" which kept a competitor from bidding. But I don't know of any body that competed with the Flexowriter....who could that have been? I have never tried it with mail merge, should be interesting. Except it's hooked up to my all caps machine, so would not be very attractive mail.

**Posted by Macsimski** 29-11-2013 09:39:19

My spd is a very decent machine: it does'nt even have a exclamation mark. :-) could you make pictures of the typeplate on the back of your machines? it would be interesting to see if there were more codebases used other then the regular friden and bull ones