Comic Sans typeball designed to work with the IBM Selectric typewriters

https://www.printables.com/model/441233-comic-sans-typeball-for-the-ibm-selectric-typewrit

by Sami_Lehtinen • 11 months ago

160 37 11 months ago

fitsumbelay• 11 months ago

This is very cool

Had just recently looked up IBM Selectric typeballs and the possibility of 3D print custom ones but did not expect so many active projects around it.

Pretty nice time for nostalgic tinkerers to be alive ...

thrownawaysz• 11 months ago

I have not yet printed and tested this exact model!

Sadly that sums up the 3D printable scene perfectly. So many times I’v seen someone creating X for Y but they don’t have Y to test it but “it should work”.

cluckindan• 11 months ago

It’s not far fetched though. With careful design, prints often do work on the first try.

bigiain• 11 months ago

Sure. And it's given away for free, so complaining feels wrong.

But is it _too_ much to ask that they print their tweaked version 2 and test it before publishing it?

:sigh:

SideburnsOfDoom• 11 months ago

The article says "I tested a previous revision", so this isn't the first go around.

fainpul• 11 months ago

Yeah, feels a bit like "I'm sharing this code I've written here. I haven't tried to compile it yet, but it should work."

microtherion• 11 months ago

That approach does work for LLMs, though.

jy14898• 11 months ago

Fair enough, but this isn't that case. They have Y (it's in the first photo) and tested a previous version of the model. The changes are predictable (rotating letters and slight scaling) so I don't think it's unreasonable to be confident and not waste plastic.

BobbyTables2• 11 months ago

Works for shipping commercial software!

(Slightly /s)

mbreese2• 11 months ago

Amazingly, I think you’re right, but not for (negative) the reasons you state.

I see the 3D printing scene a remix culture where you’re supposed to try new things. If you want something to work exactly for your situation, you might have to do a little work yourself.

In this case, here we have an idea of making new typeballs for IBM typewriters. Here is one post where someone is playing with the idea. At the top of the page, there is a link to a GitHub page for you to adapt it as you see fit.

But then there’s also a link to a new page: https://selectricrescue.org/ where someone makes many more varieties, also with code for you to try yourself.

I see 3d printing much like the world of early open source coding. Sometimes you get a completed project that works out of the box. But often, you’ll have to tinker and adapt it to your exact hardware. Once a new 3d model is shown to be viable, it can be mixed and matched to make something new!

alnwlsn• 11 months ago

I have, along with some other ones I created from different fonts. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kXnsvYfaF4&t=2160s (it was an aside to a longer Selectric project I did; this typeball project came out around the same time so I decided to make a few of them).

Watching this back, it partially works but some of the letters clearly need their positions adjusted, and some of them seem to have trouble imprinting fully on the page. That's besides the fact that the proportional fonts look pretty weird when printed monospaced.

I didn't really go further with this because the resin printed balls didn't hold up very well. A slot near the hole would always break open, and then the ball would spin freely instead of being indexed like it was supposed to. These days I've pretty much abandoned home resin printing entirely since it is extremely messy, and I've never been able to make parts with it that weren't ridiculously brittle, even with the supposedly "strong" or "tough" resins.

I've used commercial resin prints that Shapeways/Xometry/PCBWAY have and they are a lot tougher, so maybe they would work well.

omoikane• 11 months ago

Looks like the same person made a typeball for Cherokee, and that comes with a picture of the printed output:

https://www.printables.com/model/441262-cherokee-typeball-fo...

So maybe Comic Sans (and Wingdings) will work as well.

djmips• 11 months ago

They also link a version that works they say. https://selectricrescue.org/

Also includes Papyrus!

hulitu• 11 months ago

they don’t have Y to test it but “it should work”.

SW development process 101. What are users for ? /s

voxadam• 11 months ago

Bill Hammack (engineerguy) has an excellent video on the IBM Selectric titled IBM Selectric Typewriter & its digital to analogue converter.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRCNenhcvpw

chiph• 11 months ago

One of the Teletypes I used to work on had an eccentric-driven Wiffletree to position the typebox. This was necessary because of it's high speed[0] to decode the ASCII character set (it wasn't a Baudot machine). The selector cam at the end of the machine would do the serial-to-parallel conversion, then clutches would rotate the eccentrics powering the wiffletree to select the character.

If you look at the ASCII chart [1] you can select a character via binary tree - the Wiffletree being a mechanical equivalent.

[0] For a Teletype

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII#/media/File:USASCII_code...

hinkley• 11 months ago

Doing the devil's work.

timeon• 11 months ago

Is this still post-modern or is it post-irony already?

JKCalhoun• 11 months ago

It's vintage now and gives me warm feelings.

amelius• 11 months ago

Every key punch will translate into a bunny punch

https://topher1kenobe.com/phlog/graphics/bunnypunch.png

gruntledfangler• 11 months ago

“You will live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.”

JCM9• 11 months ago

Don’t approve of the font but do approve of hacking old tech

treetalker• 11 months ago

Dave Hayden of Austin Selectric Rescue is working on several type elements for the Selectric II: https://selectricrescue.org/

As I understand, the recent IBM Plex Mono face has been requested too.

mbreese2• 11 months ago

It’s even the first link on this page. In addition to Comic Sans, he’s also made a font ball for Papyrus!

I can’t imagine using any of these (even when typewriters were king), but I love that they exist.

josefritzishere• 11 months ago

Is this intended to be offensive?

lupusreal• 11 months ago

Comic sans is quirky and wholesome. I'm tired of pretending I don't like it.

buildsjets• 11 months ago

What do you think you’re running from? The disease is inside you!

https://achewood.com/2007/07/05/title.html

rbanffy• 11 months ago

I couldn't resist.

https://github.com/rbanffy/3270_type_element

Now I need to get myself an IBM Selectric, or make a daisy wheel printer element for my typewriter (which will eventually become a terminal).

ProllyInfamous3• 11 months ago

The problem with this 3D-printed typeball is that without being injection-molded with an extremely durable plastic, it will not make good strike. I suspect it would also be torn apart (separating at the printed layers), beginning with the smaller common characters (e.g. the period/comma would quickly fail). The typeball hits the paper hard and it is under incredible rotational strains.

I've recently retired an IBM Selectric II, only because it is so damn finicky! When it is operating it is a fantastic machine, but it definitely needs a full-time technician to service (and they've almost entirely died off at this point, save for Berkeley). I got tired of the pulley creep [which eventually leads to gibberish output], only solved with continued maintenance (parts too fine for my electrician hands, and my nearsight is antiquating rapidly).

For my daily drivers, I still love my Smith Corona "Coronet Super 12", which has individual strikes and a powerful motor (for all your latenight raging / brainstorming). Can't [easily] change the font, though (which is why I have multiple S-C models).

¢¢

Doxin3• 11 months ago

without being injection-molded with an extremely durable plastic, it will not make good strike.

I wonder how true that actually is. A properly 3d printed ABS part isn't really much if any less durable than an injection molded part. It's mostly just worse with respect to feature resolution.

ProllyInfamous3• 11 months ago

Mostly just worse with respect to feature resolution.

Inclusive to my injection-molded comment, but could be mitigated (e.g.) with an acetone bath (to "smooth" the layers/resolution).

The stress fractures will most-definitely grow parallel to the layers, though... watch a Selectric's mechanism (rotational; linear; impact), in slow motion:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/RTtKaqIpOJc

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/izZ02t2UEGc

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/1ctlRduNCn4

Comic Sans typeball designed to work with the IBM Selectric typewriters

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