Reply #99: I hate to kick this thread but... [View All]

[ContinentalOp]

I wanted to point out one thing that I haven't seen mentioned in any of these numerous threads. Some people seem to be claiming that the IBM typewriters that allowed for proportional spacing, superscript, and fancy fonts like Times were so expensive and rare that the military would never have them. First of all, I question the claim that these machines were really so rare but secondly, wouldn't a military office be one of the first places to have these kinds of high-priced typewriters? Especially in the office of some higher up officer type. There is no way these guys were typing their own memos and I'm sure their secretaries had the best equipment for producing important documents. Lower down the line they probably had cheaper typewriters to fill out standard forms and stuff like that. But wouldn't officers have a need to sometimes issue more polished, formal documents? And wouldn't a secretary who was trained to use proportional spacing and superscript features to produce professional looking documents get in the habit of doing that all of the time?