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To: Chummy
Here is a sampling of the misinformation put forth on these threads that has already been debunked:

Budding Myth #1: "Proportional fonts were not available til the 80's."
Debunked: Proportional fonts were available on IBM typewriters in 1941.

Budding Myth #2: "Times New Roman font wasn't invented until 1988."
Debunked: The Times New Roman font was designed in 1931 by Stanley Morison, Typographical Advisor to the Monotype Corporation, with the assistance of draughtsman Victor Lardent.

Budding Myth #3: "There was no '4' available without a foot and the top closed."
Debunked: The IBM Selectric Composer Pressman Roman (Times New Roman) font of 1968 has exactly the right '4'.

Budding Myth #4: "The document was altered because one of the 'y's' is different from another 'y'."
Debunked: All typos made with typewriters were corrected by "altering" the document.

Budding Myth #5: "You need to use a complicated guage system to backspace with an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter."
Debunked: The IBM Selectric had a memory system that automatically adjusted the backstroke to exactly match the letter widths of the previously typed text as far back as 1968.

Budding Myth #6: "The type of typewriter that could do this would have cost $20,000 dollars back then."
Debunked: At least one type of typewriter that could do this was available for around $300.

These may be forgeries, but not because of any of the above reasons.
129 posted on 09/09/2004 8:36:07 PM PDT by TaxRelief
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To: TaxRelief
I'm not sure why you posed these to me, but I'll take a shot at your attempt to "debunk...budding myth"s.

Here is a sampling of the misinformation put forth on these threads that has already been debunked:

Budding Myth #1: "Proportional fonts were not available til the 80's." Debunked: Proportional fonts were available on IBM typewriters in 1941.

This takes out of context the sum of the whole; the documents feature proportional fonts in addition to superscripting, the font used, and so forth.

Budding Myth #2: "Times New Roman font wasn't invented until 1988." Debunked: The Times New Roman font was designed in 1931 by Stanley Morison, Typographical Advisor to the Monotype Corporation, with the assistance of draughtsman Victor Lardent.

The date of the creation of TNR I've not questioned, but rather its use on a typewriter contemporary to the documents' authorship. And again, one must consider the whole circumstances.

Budding Myth #3: "There was no '4' available without a foot and the top closed." Debunked: The IBM Selectric Composer Pressman Roman (Times New Roman) font of 1968 has exactly the right '4'.

Show an example.

Budding Myth #4: "The document was altered because one of the 'y's' is different from another 'y'." Debunked: All typos made with typewriters were corrected by "altering" the document.

Correcting a document with the same typewriter would result in characters identical, or nearly so, to the others.

Budding Myth #5: "You need to use a complicated guage system to backspace with an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter." Debunked: The IBM Selectric had a memory system that automatically adjusted the backstroke to exactly match the letter widths of the previously typed text as far back as 1968.

If one reads how to use the Composer, one would understand the use of the relative term "complicated."

Budding Myth #6: "The type of typewriter that could do this would have cost $20,000 dollars back then." Debunked: At least one type of typewriter that could do this was available for around $300.

What is the equivalent of $300 circa 1972 in $US 2004?
132 posted on 09/10/2004 9:59:46 AM PDT by Chummy (RepublicanAttackSquad.biz: "A vote 4 Kerry is a vote for Osama")
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