On 7/31/21 10:40 AM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: > I have never seen either of these machines but looking at pictures of > them it looks like the first version of 1620 had a type bar typewriter > as a console. These type bar machine would have a common heritage with > the Flexowriters both are descendants of the Electromatic company that > IBM purchased in 1932 but later sold off what became Flexowriter due to > anti-trust concerns.
There were a *lot* more Model I 1620s in the wild (CADET) than Model IIs (which apparently could add and subtract without being instructed how to do it). There's a photo of a Model II typewriter on PDF page 92 here: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1620/A26-5781-2_IBM_1620_CPU_Model_2_Nov65.pdf Shame that the Model II wasn't more popular--IBM did a lot of things right, including goodies like index registers. I think I may have seen only one Model II in the flesh--and I've never seen a 1620 with 729-II tape drives attached, much less a tape written by a 1620. The model I appeared to use a modified for use Model B electric: https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/modelb/modelb_intro.html For a couple of years, I used a Model B Executive with the split space bar. I had the best-looking memos in the department. --Chuck
