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Did teletypes not have rollover? The most annoying part of this was waiting half a second after each keypress…



Teletypes have metal rods and springs instead of rollover!

I love how the mouse wheel (back in reality) scrolls the paper up and down and it overprints.


But typewriters (at least the one I have tried–I think it was a Selectric?) have the same thing and can support rollover…


The Selectric didn't really do rollover, but it had a mechanism that felt like it. Each key lever had a small tab that entered a trough of ball bearings that had just enough slack for one tab. If you pressed a second key, it would displace the balls and descend when the previous key withdrew.


The teletype keyboard mechanism was less sophisticated than a Selectric. Also, I seem to remember it took like a pound of pressure just to push a key on a teletype, so you ended up vigorously punching it with your index fingers. A Selectric is like typing on air compared to a teletype.




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