The M44 model name, along with the struggle of hefting it, brings to mind the .44 Magnum of Dirty Harry. So much so that the elite typeface seems out of scale to the giant carriage (which appears to be removable, but which I won't attempt until after NaNo. As Harry might say, "But being as this is a 44 Magnum, the most powerful typewriter in the
world, and would write your character's head clean off, you've got to ask yourself
one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"
OCR is pretty good, on a par with the others, so I will definitely give this some work in November. |
| Check it out - 45 character keys. |
Well, it says "Made in Great Britain" to the right of "The Olivetti M44" (I love that definite article).
ReplyDelete45 keys is impressive. You need them, I guess, for all those fractions the British are obsessed with.
Probably has something to do with their wacky pre-decimal money system. "d" means pence, "/" means shillings, and of course £ is pounds. The tabulator -- which I guess we can't call a decimal tabulator -- should move the carriage to just the right spot to type the money amounts indicated, leaving the columns of figures lined up. Try it out and let us see how it works.
Basket shift and segment shift are synonyms.
My Lexikon 80 has the serial number and touch regulator under the ribbon cover, on the right.
Silly me - I wrote that before I had exposed the nameplate, and was musing on how Uriel had figured out British-made but not the model no. Then I forgot about it and posted it anyway. I'll get some pics from under the hood in the next few days. I keep looking there - haven't found a touch regulator yet either. I know the wacky money system has to do with why there are 8ths fractions available.
DeleteI like the dot on the shift key.
ReplyDeleteI like that Dirty Harry .44 Magnum hypothesis of yours, it surely matches the look. Interesting blue key there, not usual for Olivetti. You are so right about the lack of literature on the M44, consider yourself a contributor.
ReplyDeleteI still think you have one super interesting typewriter. I wish I had room for office machines.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very nice typewriter. The more I see of it, the more I love it! Olivetti really spanned many different sorts of machines, didn't they? Thanks for sharing more about this typewriter. I am glad it is working well for you!
ReplyDelete