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Monday, 28 June 2021

Quick, Take the Ribbon Spool Cover Off, I've Got a News Story to Type

I had to laugh when I saw this 1989 photo of the newsroom of the Otago Daily Times newspaper in Dunedin, New Zealand. It appeared in an ODT  tribute for a retiring journalist. There are at least three or four Olivettis without their ribbon spool covers - I'm assuming the Imperial on the right is one exception, since the spool cover lifts up on it, but not off. I never worked in this newsroom, but I did in the one below, The Irish Press in Dublin, and you can see at least one Olympia without its spool cover. What gives? Well, to be honest I can't rightly recall, but I suspect it was to save time if a ribbon change was required, or perhaps if typebars got jammed. It'd have something to do with haste, that's for sure. The real question is: Where were all the spool covers kept?

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5 comments:

  1. Bill M29 June 2021 at 00:28

    I wonder why newspaper people would remove the covers and loose them when all the radio news rooms where I worked had covers on the typewriters. It'd be interesting to have some photos of the day of the city newspaper's news room.

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  2. Richard P29 June 2021 at 05:55

    That is funny!

    I'm impressed by how paper-heavy that newsroom was as late as 1989.

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  3. Christopher LONG29 June 2021 at 06:44

    Robert - We did treat these machines appalling badly and with little respect! I was scarcely aware of what I was typing on and I can only say that one got used to a particular machine because one got to know its idiosynchrasies and therefore resented anyone else taking it or using it (mis-using it). I generally worked with Imperials and Royals which did not have removable ribbon covers but I do remember an Olympia Splendid portable which had no cover which suited me well without its 'lid'. Ribbons changed quickly and you could blow hard into the basket if your cigarette ash fell into it. The answer, surely, is that we simply didn't care that much as long as the words appeared on the 4-part set (formerly, three part carbon) - white, green, pink, blue - if I remember correctly. I still have a few of those carbonless sets so I'll have a look!

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  4. Bill G30 June 2021 at 15:34

    Great images! Thanks for sharing.

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  5. HERIK6 July 2021 at 02:12


    In the last photo, the Olympias, it seems that they do not have the paper lectern either. Typical of sg3, I don't know why they lost it.

    ReplyDelete

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