IBM introduced proportional-spacing typewriter in 1966
But there is a really huge catch

As I and many others have written (I'm not even going to bother with a link), one of the most important indicators that the memos showed by CBS News are forgeries is the presence of proportional spacing in their text.

One expert after another (again so many that I won't bother to link) has said that IBM Selectric typewriters used in 1972-1973, the purported dates of the memos, could not do proportional spacing, only mono spacing.

But there was in fact a Selectric-derived machine made by IBM that did do proportional spacing. It was called the IBM Composer and it was introduced in 1966, according to IBMComposer.org.

The IBM "Selectric" Composer was the first desktop typesetting machine. It was based on the successful "Selectric" technology. In case you're not familiar with that, the IBM Selectric typewriter is the one that has a small ball with all the letters imprinted on it.

The basic task of the IBM Composer was to produce justified camera ready copy using proportional fonts. It has the capability of using a variety of font sizes and styles.

The first IBM Composer was the IBM "Selectric" Composer announced in 1966. It was a hybrid "Selectric" typewriter that was modified to have proportional spaced fonts.

So far, so good for those advocating the CSB documents are genuine, right? Is CBS redeemed? Well, I think not:

It is 100% mechanical and has no digital electronics. Since it has no memory, the user was required to type everything twice. [boldface added]

That right there stops the whole defense of the documents because there is no way that such a machine would be used to type pedantic Air Force office documents that were intended only for filing. I know that the military has a reputation for needless bureaucratic makework, but really, that's ridiculous beyond the pale.

But the site explains more:

While typing the text the first time, the machine would measure the length of the line and count the number of spaces. When the user finished typing a line of text, they would record special measurements into the right margin of the paper. Once the entire column of text was typed and measured, it would then be retyped, however before typing each line, the operator would set the special justification dial (on the right side) to the proper settings, then type the line. The machine would automatically insert the appropriate amount of space between words so that all of the text would be justified.

Again, all that work for a Memo for Record? Only the tinfoil hat brigade can believe that.

But wait! There's more! The site has color pictures that are very informative - especially the captions, such as this one:

When you're ready to retype the document, you set this dial to the appropriate color/number combination before typing each line. The Composer will automatically insert the right amount of space between words to make the line lengths equal on all lines. [boldface added]

What this means is that the Composer's proportional spacing feature could apparently adjust only the width of the space between words in a line to make the line lengths equal down the column or page. That's what proportional spacing does - adjust the distance between the center of the last letter of a word and the center of the first letter of the next word. The Composer did this to produce full-justified text.

But both of the Killian memos CBS displayed are "ragged right," meaning that the text's left margin is justified, but the right is not. That indicates, I would think, that if the memos were typed on a Composer, the typist didn't use the proportional spacing feature.

Yet the documents do display proportional spacing, which MS Word on PCs produces whether you set it for full justification or not. But on the Composer, it seems a typist can't use pro. spacing without also producing fully justified text. Remember, this machine has no onboard memory, it operated only mechanically. It was either pro. spacing and justifying or it wasn't.

In fact, it's not clear from the documentation that the machine could be used as a plain typewriter at all, although I'd be pretty surprised if it couldn't.

But the CBS memos also displayed kerning, which does for individual letters what pro. spacing does for words, adjust the distance between letters to account for the difference in widths of individual letters. An i and an o, for example are of different widths and kerning adjusts the space between each of their centers to make the text's presentation easier to read.

I have not found any mention of kerning in either IBM's sales brochure (online) for the Composer, nor the contents page of the user's guide, although the user's guide does have a page number for "measuring width of proportionally spaced letters," which sounds like kerning. So the jury remains out on whether the Composer could kern until a better citation can be found.

But the bottom line remains: this machine did produce proportional spacing, but only after a lengthy and technical process by the typist that included typing each line twice. It simply wouldn't be done for routine memos. Also, I would guess that its purchase price would be very high, not the kind of thing a commander is likely to blow a huge chunk of his budget for.

So I think that CBS defenders who promote the Composer as their rescue are really grasping at straws.

by Donald Sensing, 9/10/2004 01:57:57 PM. Permalink |