Not long ago, I was disgraced by a package of carbon paper. More precisely, I was disgraced by a visit to my local stationer’s, where I tried to buy a package of carbon paper. (I needed to transfer a drawing from surface A to surface B, and it seemed to me, then as now, that carbon paper has endured all these years for expressly that purpose.)
The cashier, a sweet young thing of 20 or so, met my request as though it had been uttered in Klingon. “Carbon ... what?” she stammered, agape. I fled — as fast as my decrepitude would allow.
What is carbon paper?
Carbon paper: Duplicating paper coated with messy black stuff; used between two sheets of white paper in a typewriter.Take that, sweet young thing of 20 or so!
Although I took a typing class and worked at summer jobs doing mostly typing, I never got past 40 wpm with mistakes. Carbon copies were the bane of my existence, even after the advent of Selectric typewriters. Typing was never my forte, but with the advent of the age of the internet I'm quite grateful for my admittedly limited skills, since I'm not forced to hunt and peck. I am compelled to add that I've seen folks hunt and peck with two fingers faster than I can type.
Image from trusty Wikipedia. What would I do without Wikipedia?
Thanks to Paul (A.) for the links. What would I do without Paul (A.)?
While I miss the feel of a real typewriter keyboard (the computer keyboard just isn't the same), I do NOT miss carbon paper. Robert (aka Hopper) Scott made lots of mistakes.
ReplyDeleteSomething else I miss is the aroma of a page freshly off the mimeograph.
-- Scott Sullivan
My nightmare task was typing research papers and knowing when to stop to allow enough space to get the footnotes situated in the right place. Aarrgh!
ReplyDeleteIf memory serves, a heavy dose of the aroma of pages fresh off the mimeograph produced a kind of high.
Correction: That would be the ditto high.
ReplyDeleteI hand wrote everything until I had to submit a thesis. I hired someone to type that. I learned to type when I learned to program using punch cards. The idea of typing using carbon paper makes me very uneasy. I am glad for word processors. I do use carbon paper for tracing, though. Imagine not knowing what it is.
ReplyDeleteI do commend the entire article Mimi links to. It goes on to offer an Employment Test designed to weed out those whippersnappers who are ignorant of carbon paper and other cultural essentials for everyday life.
ReplyDeleteSamples from the test:
Part III Question 3: "If Timmy falls down a well, a highly skilled dog is sure to notify his family: [check box] True/False/Preposterous"
Part IV Question 5: "If there is a traffic jam in Harlem, to what neighborhood is it likely backed up?"
And the copy pages with the aroma were more likely from a spirit duplicator (also called a "ditto machine") than a mimeograph.
True, but when you were cutting memograph masters, the correction fluid could send you floating upward. Also, the spirit master fluid was the only thing I can think of that removed ballpoint pen ink from anything, including but not limited to clothing, purses, hard surfaces, and ones physical person. After it desolved the ink, it evaporated instantly leaving the item dry with no residue. I once considered purchasing a can of A.B. Dick Spirit Process Fluid for use at home as a spot remover.
DeleteRo Ford (BooCat)
Ro, I wouldn't know. All I ever did was run the papers off the mimeograph machine. I never wanted to fool with the rest of the operation.
DeleteI did not know that A. B. Dick was an ink remover.
You can find 'transfer' paper at fabric shops and as far as I can see it does the same thing but isn't as messy.
DeleteMy first experience with the 'word processing' was for my GOE's in the early 80's. I am thankful that someone else typed it for me. I knew how to type but it took me longer than doing it by hand. Time was of the essence for the GOE's.
I am so thankful for the 'puter'. Now I do everything on the keyboard and I am not sure I could write a whole essay by hand.
I cannot write by hand any more. I struggle to write brief thank you notes, and I usually spoil at least one sheet of notepaper. I'm close to being illiterate, if writing by hand is counted as literacy.
DeleteYes, do read the entire article.
ReplyDeletePaul (A.), I corrected the source of the high, thanks to your lovely wife on Facebook.
Amelia, as I recall, even in high school, we had to hand in typed term papers. If I could scrape together the money, I'd hire someone to do the typing, but often, I could not.
ReplyDeleteWe did not have to, but some did type. I learned to write with a neat, tiny script. Papers had to be so many words long.and I knew how many pages. In college all my lab reports and term papers were also hand written. Interesting article.
ReplyDeleteMy handwriting was pretty good until I began to take notes in college, and it went all to hell. I've never had a decent handwriting since.
ReplyDeleteI was treasurer of our parish for way too many years. In the early days before the church office had one of those newfangled "copiers" they did everything with mimeograph. I remember a couple of years when I took my annual treasurer's report to work and cut the mimeograph stencils on a daisy wheel printer attached to our department's VAX minicomputer. Voila,--digital mimeos!
ReplyDeleteBill, how clever of you. We had a daisy wheel printer where I worked, too. As I remember, nearly every time I tried to use the machine, it malfunctioned, and I came to believe that I put gris-gris on it whenever I touched it. And, of course, I never quite mastered the procedures that were necessary to get the printer going again.
ReplyDeleteI had all but forgotten about carbon paper! Thanks for the memories. I must admit I hated the stuff.
ReplyDeleteTo enjoy carbon paper, you had to be a really good typist. Sometimes I preferred to type two copies, rather than use the carbon.
ReplyDelete