THE END

intercontinental.

intercontinental. On a few days of March, I had three Continental typewriters in my collection; a Continental "Tab" with the serial number R048852, which is now with Adwoa of Retro Tech Geneva, a Continental it? 100, a pretty rare luxury model introduced in 1938 and my Continental 340, the first typewriter I bought. With that possibility, I compared the three machines. And found some interesting technical solutions. the three typewriters were probably produced in the following order: 1. Continental Tab 2. Continental 100 (R325385) 3. Continental 340 (R408753) let's first compare the "Tab" and the 340. After their first portable was released in the early 1930s, the Continental engineers continued to develop new models. But were they really new? Let's take a look: We see what they did there... The early Continental's Tab function basically consists of a bar of tabs added behind the main frame. The late, possibly around 1942 340, which doesn't have a tab, seems to be basically the same. Indeed, except for the tabulator attachement, there aren't many big differences, the most striking change is the much bigger carriage return lever, also, its function is slightly changed. The Continental 100, on the other hand, the top- of—the-line model, introduced in 1938, which would cost over 2800 Fr. today, has a totally different design. Its straight, aesthetical lines have a certain resemblance of the flat Corona 4 model. But is the luxury model such a big change from the other two Continentals? It actually isn't. Knowing where the Tab-Functions are on the Continental "Tab", we also understand why the Continental 100 has such an enormous carri- age: To hide the "Kolonnenreiter", as the Continental marketing branch call the Tabs. A view from below onto the innards of the Continental 340 (left) and the Continental 100 show that there aren't major changes except for the Tab- Functions and a replaced functions and a re-located bell. The folks at Continental in Siegmar-Schonau near Chemnitz definitely knew how to re-use their designs. Pity that Continental ceased to exist after the trobules of the second World War. They made great typewriters. maschinengeschrieben.blogspot.com Typed on the Continental 340 This awesome post was brought to you by the mighty Typosphere

the missing thing.

R&B

Video: Andy Rooney about typewriters

"If my Underwood had been a computer I'd have had to buy a new one every time I needed a new ribbon because Bill Gates would have designed new ribbons so that they didn't fit last year's typewriters."

EXIF

EXIF Back in the days when Optima typewriters were clacking in Stasi offices in the GDR and Underwoods typed out top-secret reports in Secret Service headquarters, there were specialists who could identify a typewriter from its typeface. If they got a used ribbon, they could find out what documents had been typed with the ribbon and how long they were. And every typewriter—human combination had an unmistakeable fingerprint. But those were specialists. These days, our cameras save much more sensible data in the pictures, and we share those with the world via Internet. The EXIF metadata standard is widely accepted, pretty much every camena uses it. There are useful things like exposure and ISO data saved, those can definitely help improve one's photo- graphy skills, but there's also data than one might not want to share with the world. At least not in every photo: Modern cameras with GPS modules also save the geographical location into the metadata, so everyone knows where you took the picture of that pyramid - or your car/house/dog... The serial number of your camera is saved into the EXII information, so you don't need the experts previously mentioned anymore, but include this sensitive data into your image. And EXIF is only an example, there are many more metadata standards, for antoher example, Word documents save your changes and often your full name and the computer's name. Actually, almost every file you save has some information in it - the experts are obsolete and replaced by your own files, programs and devices. maschinengeschrieben.blogspot.com Optima Elite This awesome post was brought to you by the mighty Typosphere