[GreenKeys] Colossus typewriter

[Jim Haynes]

About the typewriter on the machine.  I assume this question is prompted
by the newly-released photos of a Colossus machine that were announced
on slashdot today, or somewhere else earlier.

The machine in the picture looks too modern to be 1945 vintage, but
then the pictures are of a machine that may have been preserved until
1963 or so.  And by then the original typewriter may have worn out and
been replaced by a new one.

It looks like an IBM electric typewriter to me - it appears the IBM
initials are on the front face of the machine, and that is where IBM
typewriters had them.  The typewriter is sitting on top of a rectangular
box, partly submerged in it.  This suggests the box contains solenoids
to pull down on the keys to make the machine type.  Which could have
been made by IBM or by any third-party fabricator.

At the very beginning of Morkrum they were using typewriters with pull
down solenoids before they developed their own printer mechanism.  There
was an electric typewriter on the market back then, the Blickensderfer,
which used a cylindrical type element.  No doubt an electric typewriter
would be desirable since it would require less force to pull down the
keys than a manual typewriter would need.  I've also seen pictures of
an Oliver typewriter among Teletype archives.

 	---

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