The Friden Flexowriter Word Processing Before Computers by Douglas W. Jones THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA Department of Computer Science

Contents

The Flexowriter

• Introduction
• A Guided Tour (with photos)
• Replacement Rubber Feet (with photos)
• Repairing Electrical Connectors (with photos)
• Replacement Chad Diverter (with photos)
• Other Sources of Information

Introduction

The Friden Flexowriter was the first real word-processor, an electric typewriter able to record and play back typed text. The Flexo-writer, as it was originally known, was a mature product by 1947, able to record the text of a letter on punched paper tape and play it back with pauses to allow a typist to insert custom text such as addresses, salutaitons and amounts owed.

The Flexowriter was developed by a sequence of different companies, including IBM, but it came to its maturity under the Commerical Controls Corporation in the 1940s. Friden (the calculator company) purchased CCC in the 1950s and was, in turn, purchased by Singer in 1965.

The Model 2201 Programmatic Flexowriter described here was built after the Singer purchase, so it represents a mature machine, far more streamlined in styling than the machines of the 1950s. This machine was originally used by either UniBank or an associated collection agency in Coralville Iowa, and is equipped with a Model 2314/3 Selectadata auxiliary paper-tape reader so that it can perform an entirely automatic mail-merge function, combining the text of a form letter read from one paper-tape reader with successive mailing addresses and custom content from a second reader. All of the required logic is done with relays operating at power-line voltage.

Other Sources of Information

Several others have web pages that focus on the Flexowriter to sone extent:

• The Early Office Museum section on Antique Special Purpose Typewriters includes a subsection entitled Automatic Typewriters that traces the development of typewriters that could record and play back form letters, stopping for custom insertions in each letter. This goes back machines from as far back as 1911 that used player-piano rolls to record the typed text.

• Photos of the Nijmegen Flexowriter Plant in Holland in Dutch. Photos here show the assembly line (ca 1963-64), a model 2201 machine from this line (made before Singer acquired Friden), an original wooden shipping crate for a Flexowriter, the factory itself, and photos of other Friden machines.

• The Wikipedia page for Flexowriters has poor coverage of the Singer era, but reasonable coverage of the history and application of the technology.