Linux on a 70's Typewriter | IBM Selectric II → Teletype Conversion

Found a IBM Selectric II typewriter in the trash and decided to convert it to connect to a computer. Managed to take a whole bunch of pictures and short videos, so I had to make a full video about it. It's not quite the same as an IO Selectric or IBM 2741 but you're probably not going to find one of those in the trash these days.

My first attempt from a few months back:

Link to 3D files and firmware:

Scripts I made to use ChatGPT and browse the web:

Live Captions Linux application:

The Soviet's "Selectric Bug"

A pile of other links that were sourced for this project. Many of these are either public domain or CC.
All further material that I personally produced for this project I herby license as (CC BY-SA 4.0)

[alnwlsn]

One thing I forgot to mention in the video is that if you're going to try this yourself, you should pick better solenoids. The ones I uses are just barely powerful enough for the job, and if you power one of them for any longer than a few seconds, it will heat up and melt. Even if not driven to melting, the increased temperature changes the coil resistance, which changes the pull force, which throws off the timing. I feel pretty lucky that I was able to get it working as well as I did.

Also recommend going for 24 or 48V solenoids - the power supply might be less common but they should get you the same power for 1/2 or 1/4 the current.

[CuriousMarc]

Wow! Your visual explanation of the Selectric is the best around. Brilliant. You made a Selectric IO all by yourself, self contained, without hurting the machine a bit. Brilliant! Your demos are brilliant too. Impressive!

[TimoNoko]

This was everybody's dream machine in 1976. I even had a professor who wanted my thesis to be printed by real typewriter and not by a computer, because that would be cheating.
Luckily I managed to gain access to fancy Olivetti terminal, which had reasonably typewriterish font.

[honkhonk]

imagine justputting a shit ton of tensor cores and VRAM into a typewriter, running an LLM on it, and just airdropping it in the 1950s.
A typewriter that talks back to you would be fucking insane

[UsagiElectric]

Insanely awesome work! I have a Selectric Composer I really want to modify into a data terminal for the Litton minicomputer, and this will be an awesome guide for the inevitable hurdles I'll have to overcome.

[dragonbleu]

27:40 With the noise of this typewriter, the expression "speaking like a machine gun" finds its original and real meaning. Very good work. Thank you for making us discover the computer of the origins before the terminals with screens.

[FreejackVesa]

I remember walking into an office/computer lab and the noise was just insane. The hard moulded plastic keyboards clacking away, the typewriters, the dot matrix printers. We have it good today!

[johnm]

That discarded ribbon at the end reminded me of a _Columbo_ episode in which the scruffy raincoat-clad detective solved the murder case by reading what the suspect (played by Dick van Dyke, if my memory serves) had typed on the day of the murder.

That's an ingeniously complex mechanism. I always wanted one of those typewriters but never owned one. I did buy a daisywheel printer as a high quality alternative to my dot-matrix printer and connected it to my 8-bit microcomputer, back in the '80s. The print quality was on a par with that of a Selectric and the print wheels are similarly versatile but it only needed a single stepper motor to position the correct petal under the solenoid-operated hammer, plus another for the carriage plus another for the platen. All things considered, the print mechanism seemed much simpler than that of the Selectric but, then again, it lacked a keyboard, which is where a lot of the Selectric's complexity seems to be centred. I don't know if my printer was quite as fast as yours but it was similarly noisy. I even wrote a printer driver for it that prompted me to change the wheel for an italic version, and back again, and again, and... when printing word processor documents.

[ralphliu]

Holy shit, I knew that this was possible in theory - but WOW, it's so cool to see an electromechanical system hooked up to a selectric to ALLOW it to connect to a computer!!

[MLX]

I love Selectrics and this is one totally awesome project 😁
After repairs your machine seems to run very well, but I noticed the print looks like you have the ball on "carbon copy" mode, ie. hitting the platen with too much force.
You can adjust this setting easily from the shift lever found right next to the ball (the one with the red knob on it). Hope this helps 😊

[Green_House]

Back in the day, I was given two of IBM Selectric BCD typewriters from a bank and I interfaced them with my S100, Z80, CP/M 2.2 computer.
I had to design and build my own interface and write my code to translate ASCII to EBCDIC.
Both worked flawlessly until I on-sold them.

Those were the days ! ! !

[johnnygale]

this is absolutely insane for the amount of cross-discipline skill required

[MonkeyUnit]

By the power vested in me, I grant you the title of King of the Nerds for one month. Absolutely fantastic project and video. Subscribed.

[jcdowen]

One of the best channels in this genre on YouTube, just wait until the algorithm picks this up.

[AnimatoFinland]

I did a similar conversion waaaay back in 1978 (on a Selectric I, manufactured in 1969.) I used solenoids cannibalized from 12 volt relays, mounted them on an aluminum bar, and soldered loops of 1 mm copper wire to the relays' anchors, to lift the latches in the Selectric. A 2708 EEPROM translated the ASCII print codes from my TRS-80 computer to the 7-bit code for the solenoids. A few more solenoids for space, CR and so on. I did have to cut two openings in the bottom cover, though... Opto-feedback from the Selectric to my interface enabled me to print at a whopping 15.5 cps, the rotational speed of the Selectric main spindle! Best print quality I ever had (until the Apple LaserWriter I purchased almost 10 years later...)

[josephnovotnak]

This really makes me see how the whiffletree digital to analog converter is actually used, it really never made sense before but this really shows how to use it now!

[neiloconnor]

Pretty cool. Avis Rent a Car was the first RAC company to computerize first reservations, then counter operations. The first computer was, naturally, a modified IBM Selectric. I started with the company in 1984 when they were already on the 3rd generation system, with standard IBM 3270 terminals. In 1986 I transferred to a licensee operation in Binghamton, NY, which had no computer. On a cold rainy day in April, I drove across half of NY to Jamestown to pick up an old Wizard I system, which consisted of the gray cabinet, the Selectric, the logic (computer & modem) unit and the cabling that connected them all. It was great to be connected to the world again. Sadly, Avis stopped supporting the older units within a few months, and we returned to analog operations.

[kenheitmueller]

When i was little, I was given an Olivetti A5 accounting computer that used mag stripe cards for program and data storage and used the Selectric mechanism to display it's output. I played with it then tore it apart for fun I kept just the stand (later used for an audio console) and the keyboard which I hardwired to my Timex/Sinclair 1000 in place of it's tiny, awful, membrane keyboard. I scissor cut the key legends out of a magazine and scotch taped them over the Olivetti keys. My point is, The Olivetti would probably have been a good candidate for your project but with less electromechanical shenanigans to enjoy. Amazing work you did!!

[lonelylad]

It's amazing that you were able to get some old electromechanical typewriter to be able to handle the entire Linux OS! You're a genius to fit 4gb into that thing

[-Pebbles_]

I had this idea a few months ago. I will probably never get to it, but it's awesome that somebody else did. Well done!