[DB]

LadyJane pointed out she didn't think there was an IBM Selectric typewriter with proportional spacing. After searching the topic with Google she is proven correct.

Here's a quote from the lower Web address:

Although IBM had produced a successful typebar-based machine, the IBM Executive, with proportional spacing, no proportionally-spaced Selectric office typewriter was ever introduced. There was, however, a much more expensive proportionally-spaced machine called the Selectric Composer which was considered a typesetting machine rather than a typewriter.

From: http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Typewriter

Thanks for the heads up LadyJane

[DB]

Please read #421.

Poor CBS, they really stepped into it...

[ladyjane]

Thank you DB! Your sleuthing is much appreciated! It was so frustrating yesterday to see all the comments yesterday - on FR and in the press - saying that the Selectric was needed for proportional spacing and the th superscript could never be done on a Selectric.

Actually the opposite is true! You could get a special symbol ball for the Selectric. If you used a superscript or greek symbol a lot you could get a special ball with that symbol. You would have to change the ball to get the symbol and that was a pain in the earlier models. The later balls were somewhat easier to change.