Posted on 09/09/2004 1:12:11 PM PDT by dangus
This is hardly absolute proof, but it is evidence of a forgery:
Word processors bump words from one line to the next to allow the most possible writing on a line without causing a word to be broken, and of course, you automatically start the next line, without even noticing this after a while.
Typewriters didn't work that way. They cued you to start a new line with a little bell that went off as you approached the end of a line. For anyone who did much typing, this became extremely Pavlovian: the bell went off, and you whacked the "carriage" to the starting position of a new line. Typically, this was about eight or ten characters away from the end of the line.
Well, the difference is that a word processor will often fit an extra short word after the point at which a typist would have started a new line. True, a poor typist will often hear the bell go off and decide "Aw, heck, I can squeeze an extra word in." But any real typist will be typing fast enough that they will just smack the carriage over.
Well, guess what? The placement of line breaks suggests that the CBS document was produced by a word processor, not a typewriter.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1210987/posts
Notice the CBS tag at the top, showing that it was faxed from CBS. Then go to http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml and compare. They're the same docs. CBS has hoisted themselves up on their own petard. Boom!
I will be glad when we ask... what is a hippie?
That is the funniest damn thing I ever read!!
Back in the warning bell for a carriage return days, you also might hyphenate a word to split it between the lines. Modern word processors just shift whole words, and also use the proportional fonts to adjust the white space more evenly.
Since the CBS documents do not have any hyphens in use to split words between lines, it makes it less likely that they were actually written on a 1970's typewriter.
Ew! Geez, I sure hope you learned to spend more time finding the fire button than fooling around with your own joy stick!
You're right. This was done by some wet-behind-the-ears individual. The young don't know squat. About ten years ago, I was having trouble getting a ball point pen to write and declared at the dinner table that I was going to start using a fountain pen. All four of my teenagers looked up and asked, "What is a fountain pen?"
I hate to say this, but I think I recall my mother's old manual typewriter having about about dozen extra keys, with "wing-dings" like 3/4, 1/2, (c), cents, and pounds (L). Any chance there were any typewriters out there with a "th" wing-ding? It might explain why he winged the 7th, but left 1st normal.
I retired from the Ar Force in 1979 as an admin super and I don't EVER recall using '03' in a date. I DO recall '3 Aug 1972, 3 Aug 72 or 3 August 1972. I don't think the 0-justified date was used until later, via WP and PCs.
Hyphenation! We hyphenated like the DICKENS, before the magical advent of the word processor! I was a secretary. Did that supposed Killian letter have any hyphenation in it? I don't know whether military memos and letters were allowed to have hyphens in them, but, if so, it would be very unusual for a document of that era in most venues NOT to have a hyphen or two in it. That still wouldn't mean it wasn't forged; a good forger might would have remembered this hyphen thing.
A typewriter was a printer that couldn't do graphics with a keyboard attached and no memory. They were mechanical sort of like a piano until they went electric.
My dad had a few different ones and I used to play with them when I was young in the 70's. Great fun for an 8 year old.
"...I retype verbatim screen shot, bring it into PhotoShop, paste, apply a dimestore old XEROX filter, then photoshop out the signature and place it. "
I'd agree with you to a certain point, but the pdf files of the documents are fuzzy. Under your theory, the copies would be nice and clear.
I don't recall any manual typewriters having extra keys, but there was a model of the IBM selectric produced in the 1970's that used interchangeable "font balls" that included some extra characters. The "font balls" came in assorted flavors: pica, elite, lettergothic and courier. Times New Roman and other proportional fonts were not available.
Please send me a mimeo of your post. I want to experience that odor again.
No, this was definitely a big ol' manual typewriter. They were where the slash, return, RT control, RT window, and menu keys are. Keep in mind, also, that computer backspace keys and shift keys are double-sized.
Well let's hope they have.
Somehow I think they will weasel out of this one...
-- l8s
-- jrawk
But while establihing it was produced in MS Word New Times Roman would establish recent producetion, there are also enough indications it is not a "true copy" of something produced by someone in the military in 1972 (May 14,1972 - F.I.S. - Lt Colonel - and most damning, using the acronym NLT, after "Not later than" had been already typed in full)
Don't ask me. I'm still wondering what my computer is doing when it tells me it's "dailing" a number.
I have a document SOLID PROOF that Ghengis Khan did in fact spell his name J-e-n-j-i-s as in Kerry's pronounciation.
Proof I tell you all.... hehehehehehe
It is right here and it is a typed letter from Jenjis own fingers.... hey wait a minute......
Are typewriters THAT old?
I did get it from a guy who said he voted FOR GW but now with this he was not sure he would vote for GW again.....
:o)
lol, yes I was feverishly trying to make my point...
Remember the the cynics help this forum as much as the rest.
I am relieved pretty soon to just drop my theory. There is no doubt that the letter was written with MS Word. And even though I want the extra comfort of explicit proof ar admittance that we are looking at images of the actual documents, the comments thus far from CBS seem to indicate I don't really need to worry too much anymore.
-- l8s
-- jrawk
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