The IBM Selectric Composer

http://shapeofdays.typepad.com/ ^ | 9/10/2004 | Jeff Harrell

[Catphish]

. . . Though the question has hardly been conclusively answered, the consensus of opinion among interested parties seems to be that neither an Executive nor a Selectric could have produced these memos.

My purpose here is not to debate the relative merits of either of those typewriters; that discussion is happening elsewhere. Rather, I want to take a moment to consider the dark horse candidate, the one piece of equipment that is widely believed to have been capable of producing a document similar to these memos, but that has been dismissed as being so improbable an alternative as to hardly bear talking about.

I'm referring to the IBM Selectric Composer. This machine resembles a sophisticated electric typewriter in most respects, but is in fact a full-fledged cold-type typesetting machine. (Cold type as opposed to hot type, machines like the Linotype that would cast entire lines of type in molten lead as the typesetter worked. Ah, those were the days.)

Whenever the topic has turned to the Selectric Composer, it has been dismissed out-of-hand as being far too expensive an item to find in an office on an Air National Guard base: The machine sold for anywhere from $3,600 to $4,400, and fonts were extra and not cheap. Furthermore, the Composer was widely agreed to be far too complicated and slow a machine to use for typing up memoranda, especially ones that were destined to go into a file and not even be distributed.

But the nagging question remained: Could an IBM Selectric Composer have been used to produce these documents?

[Catphish]

I didn't see this posted, and hope the blogger doesn't mind me posting it, so I posted an excerpt. Scroll down on the website to see all the text. The centering of the proportional text in the heading is a big key . . .

[formercalifornian]

Man, that middle signature looks like JFK

[Redcoat LI]

Good find.

[Keith in Iowa]

>>>Could an IBM Selectric Composer have been used to produce these documents?

In theory, yes.

But the likelyhood of the TxANG having one to use to type memos to file is somewhere near the chances of me dating Ann Coulter.

[Texasforever]

How much did one of those puppies cost and could someone that did not type use one?

[Catphish]

According to the site: "The machine sold for anywhere from $3,600 to $4,400 and fonts were extra and not cheap"

And remember this was in 1973 dollars.

[I still care]

Someone posted an article that the font, Times New Roman, was not even copyrighted until the 80's.

If this was a civil court case, CBS would be settling.

[plushaye]

Yes, I found this site very interesting when I was just there looking at the articles. Very detailed analysis on how the IBM Selectric could probably NOT have been used to create the CBS documents. Also nice visual comparison of the varied CBS 'Killian' signatures vs the standard 'Killian' signatures on the genuine Bush documents.

[CobaltBlue]

OK, that lays the IBM Composer issue to rest. The documents could not have been produced on one.

Finito.

[Texasforever]

That's what I thought. I would bet my 401K that TANG had access to that machine.

[Catphish]

According to the site you could produce the superscript (but not easily and the odds it would line up with the CBS document are minuscule) and you could center it doing some math and with a ruler to measure. And then the letter spacing is still different.

Or you could just use Microsoft Word and produce a document that perfectly aligns with the CBS memo in a matter of minutes. . .

[icwhatudo]

FYI, Corvettes went for 5,500 in 1973.

[blackbart.223]

"That's what I thought.

I would bet my 401K that TANG had access to that machine."

So what are you suggesting here?

[formercalifornian]

Great article. This was my favorite line:

but rather on the twip level (1/1440th of an inch or 1/20th of a point).

I think we know who's on the twip level right now.

[Dont Mention the War]

But the nagging question remained: Could an IBM Selectric Composer have been used to produce these documents?

NO. PERIOD.

The ability to print proportional text is not the same thing as being able to kern. The text of the CBS memos is kerned.

And it's kerned in a way only one item kerns: The current Windows version of Microsoft Word. Even the Mac version of Word would produce a slightly different document if the same words were typed into it.

The overlay of the MS Word documents over the CBS documents means case closed. There can be no other possibility.

[Texasforever]

Dang I meant to say "did not".

[tophat9000]

Well the idea that someone writing a CYA meno only for there own personal files with this kind of high end system (for 72)is a little outside the realm of logic

Normally if you creating a CYA memo you making a paper trail or diary to put you concerns down about something in case your ever called on it...normally there hand written or notes in a journal

[fso301]

BUMP

[blackbart.223]

"Dang I meant to say "did not"."

I thought as much, but I wanted to hear it from you.

[PMCarey]

Or you could just use Microsoft Word and produce a document that perfectly aligns with the CBS memo in a matter of minutes. . .

AND my understanding is that that would be using the default Word settings. In other words, you don't have to play around with Word to get it to make the CBS memos, you simply type it out and print.