[wildbill]

As I recall, the IBM Selectric was named thusly because you could buy different font "balls" for it.

Instead of font letters at the end of arms that slammed up onto the ribbon and paper at the touch of a key, the Selectric had a ball with all the letters around on its surface. Whenever you touched a key, the ball spun around and hit the ribbon and paper.

I know that may not give a very good description but whatyawant for midnight.

[Howlin]

They are called typeballs:

But back then, we did NOT call them fonts!

[okie01]

Your recollection of the Selectric is correct.

All the various fonts were monospaced, though.

But the Executive proportionally spaced. For example, a "i" received a one-half character space, an "n" got one character space, while an "m" got a character-and-a-half of space.

Each touch of the space bar moved the carriage one-half character.

[intolerancewillNOTbetolerated]

"Instead of font letters at the end of arms that slammed up onto the ribbon and paper at the touch of a key, the Selectric had a ball with all the letters around on its surface. Whenever you touched a key, the ball spun around and hit the ribbon and paper."

Yeah...they were the envy of everyone who did much typing back in the day.