[TastyManatees]

You should call CNS News. Their experts say the "golf ball" typewriter (the IBM Selectric Composer) was the only one to do this at the time, they cost $20,000, and they weren't widely used.

"The experts also raised questions about the military's typewriter technology three decades ago. Collins said word processors that could produce proportional-sized fonts cost upwards of $20,000 at the time.

"I'm not real sure that you would have that kind of sophistication in the office of a flight inspector in the United States government," Showker said.

"The only thing it could be, possibly, is an IBM golf ball typewriter, which came out around the early to middle 1970s," Haley said. "Those did have proportional fonts on them. But they weren't widely used."

[MineralMan]

"You should call CNS News. Their experts say the "golf ball" typewriter (the IBM Selectric Composer) was the only one to do this at the time, they cost $20,000, and they weren't widely used.
"

Then their experts are not experts. They're incorrect. The IBM Executive was introduced in the 1940's and I guarandamntee you it had proportional fonts.

[_Jim]

You should call CNS News. Their experts say the "golf ball" typewriter (the IBM Selectric Composer) was the only one to do this at the time,

Ha ha ha ... once again, we find that not ALL experts are created equal; porportional spacing *was* available as early as 1953, courtesy research by CedarDave and his *earlier* post clearly showing an IBM typewriter with proportional spacing:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1210987/posts?page=485#485

[TaxRelief]

The typewriter in question came out in 1968. I have posted the technical documents. A quick look at them will clear up any misunderstanding.

The typewriter had a pin memory system so it knew how far to jump back each time you pressed the backspace key. No measuring, no guessing.

Here's some technical info (1968) here and here.

These machines were about $300 in 1969.