The model name was derived from the fact that these units were used to generate the White House letters informing families of the deaths of service personnel in the war. World War II Īround the time of World War II, CCC developed a proportional spacing model of the Flexowriter known as The Presidential (or sometimes the President). CCC was formed by several former IBM employees. As a result, IBM sold the product line and factory to the Commercial Controls Corporation (CCC) of Rochester, New York, which also absorbed the National Postal Meter Corporation. Equipping an electric typewriter with both a paper-tape reader and punch created the basic foundation for what would become the Flexowriter.īy the late 1930s, IBM had a nearly complete monopoly on unit record equipment and related punched card machinery, and expanding the product line into automatic typewriters equipped with paper tape raised antitrust issues. Įventually, IBM settled on a six-hole encoding, as documented in their automatic justifying typewriter patents filed in 1945. IBM experimented with a 12-hole paper tape compatible with their punched-card code. This required recording each line of text on a paper tape before it was printed.
In 1942, IBM filed a patent application for a typewriter that could print justified and proportionally spaced text. IBM experimented with several accessories and enhancements for its electric typewriter. In 1933, IBM wanted to enter the electric typewriter market, and purchased the Electromatic Corporation, renaming the typewriter the IBM Model 01, and continuing to use the Electromatic trademark. This allowed use of a tape only five to seven holes wide to drive automatic typewriters, teleprinters and similar equipment.
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In 1932, a code for the paper tape used to drive Linotype and other typesetting machines was standardized. The Electromatic tape perforator used a wide tape, with punch position per key on the keyboard. The typewriter could be equipped with a "remote control" mechanism allowing one typewriter to control another or to record and play back typed data through a parallel data connection with one wire per typewriter key. This was the foundation of essentially all later electric typewriters. The Electromatic typewriter patents document the use of pivoted spiral cams operating against a hard rubber drive roller to drive the print mechanism. If the key was to be pressed, then a hole was punched in the column for that key. For each key on the typewriter, there was a column on the roll of paper. This device used a wide roll of paper, similar to a player piano roll. Around this time, Electromatic built a prototype automatic typewriter. Delco had no interest in a typewriter product line, so they spun the product off as a separate company called Electromatic. In 1929, they started selling the Electromatic. When the time came to make more units, Remington was suffering a management vacuum and could not complete contract negotiations, so Northeast began work on their own electric typewriter.
Having little expertise or manufacturing ability with electrical appliances, they partnered with Northeast Electric Company of Rochester and made a production run of 2500 electric typewriters. In 1925, the Remington Typewriter Company wanted to expand their offerings to include electric typewriters. The Flexowriter can trace its roots to some of the earliest electric typewriters.