Monday, May 9, 2016

Two Remingtons

Two Remingtons from 1949—one with the old carriage-shift mechanism, still close to the original 1920 Remington portable, and one with the all-new basket-shifted design.



What do you think of the concept of making the numerical row of keys a different color? Remington didn't use the idea for more than a few months on either model.

For the next ETCetera, Robert Messenger is writing about the design of the new model.



6 comments:

  1. I like the two-tone key arrangement. I've never typed on one from this era; how's the feel and imprint?

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    1. The carriage-shifted machine is much like all of its predecessors: strong and a bit crude. The basket-shifted one is like its successors, such as the Quiet-Riter: an improvement in ease and precision.

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  2. Oh yes, the All-New is an excellent-feeling design. Darn attractive too (:

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  3. Yes, I like it better on the basket-shift machine, probably because I like the shape of the basket-shifted machine more. Wonder why they dropped the idea.

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  4. Great looking typewriters. I like the different colors. As far as on different models the different colors to differentiate basket shift from carriage shift would be an easy identifier, a way to make basket shift stand out.

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  5. I don't think I ever tried a basket shift Remington but I do quite like to see a bit of functional variety in the key tops. I suppose my favourite has to be the cryptic red of the Letteras but differentiating the number row makes good sense for those of who don't touch type.

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