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IBM Selectric Typewriter turns 50, yells at tablets to get off its lawn
Imagine all of the waiting rooms and typing classes it's seen in its half-century on earth. IBM this week is celebrating the 50th birthday of its best-selling Selectric line of office typewriters. First introduced in 1961, the line featured a rotating typeball that increased typing speed and could be changed for italics, symbols, and different fonts and languages. The typewriter also eschewed the traditional moving carriage, with the typeball and ribbon taking on the motion, reducing the unit's overall size and leaving more space on office desks for family photos and troll dolls. These innovations helped make the line nearly ubiquitous in offices spaces, and in 1964, the Selectric line offered up an early word processor capable of storing characters. IBM would go on to retire the line in 1986. Fittingly, the now defunct typewriter will be honored with its very own postage stamp.
