Hi MM fan! Mimeograph machines...wow! I haven't thought about those for a while! That purple ink, the way the paper still felt slightly damp when the copies were just made, the smell of the ink. I was in school during this time in the 60's, but, I remember them well! The teachers used to practically keep the machines under lock and key because we might try to steal the carbon copies!!
Carbon paper, that's another antique. Funny, with all our computer tech. today, we still use CC as a symbol of a copy being made!

You got it right 60's child - it was all about the damp mimeograph paper and "that smell". BTW - I have girls in my office that ask me "what does 'CC' stand for ? - so of course I sit them down for the carbon paper lesson....lol.

Hi MM Fan! I think that may be some of my problem...I sniffed too much mimeogragh paper as a child!
I am cracking up at at your carbon copy lessons! I've had similar experiences.
Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur, but, I wouldn't want to be part of any other generation!

Thanks for the memories!

P.S. Love the Barbie logo!!

Me too 60's child - '59 born and raised in San Francisco - never a better time to have grown up.
I think I'll see if I can dig out my Slinky today :o)

Hey, guys---let's not forget our Silly Putty and Hula Hoops! (I liked the ones with the ball bearings in them and went "shoop shoop" when you "hula'd"!)

I was born in '65 so I like to claim I'm both a 60's and 70's child :)
I remember even into the mid '80's when people smoked like chimneys at their desks. Don't remember the liquor though. Remember having to change the "ball" on the IBM's from Pica to Elite type? 10 & 12 size. And the old pencil-like erasers that had the blue brush on the end? And the various colors of "white out" from pink to green to canary, for when you made a damn mistake and had to correct all the copies below!
I took steno in high school, how funny that we went through all that when we could have just used a tape recorder & translated from there!
Life is much simpler now but I wouldn't trade my birth year for anything.

I remember the day my Mom brought me to Bon Ami to bye my Whaamo Shoop Shoop Hula Hoop in florescent orange. Now that was a gooood day!
And yes, Pica and Elite - who borrowed the no. 12 ball last - can't find it behind my used pieces of lift off tape - (there was always room for one more letter somewhere on that film)

Hi scfan! I used to love to put Silly Putty on the Sunday comic strips, lift off the picture, and then stretch it!! Loved Play Dough too!! Remember the Play Dough press toy where you could get different shapes with the stencils?
Oh, Easy Bake ovens!!

Hi Cocktail Script! I remember those pencils with the dialing knob, rotary phones, phone numbers that started with letters, party lines, Princess phones...

I like the switchboard scenes in MM too. How did those operators ever keep all those lines straight?

Any Maddicts out there who worked switchboards back then?

Remember when Xerox', fax machines and "word processors" came on the scene - there was one issued per office and it was centrally located. You have to laugh when now, there are plenty of the above at every cube; but try to find the centrally located typewriter to add information onto a hard copy form...make take you a lap or two around the office to find that "older lady" who has been smart enough not to give it up off her desk.

In one of the episodes they showed an electric eraser being used in the art studio, that was a good detail.
Remember the pencils with a knob on the end that you used to dial a rotary phone with? Rolodexes, t-squares and adding machines have all been replaced with computers now.

I'm 26 and I love my pica ruler!

Speaking of rotary phones. What if your electricity went out and your phone(s) didn't work and your cell phone wasn't charged up and you were alllll alooonee and it was dark? You find your rotary phone, plug it in the phone jack, and voila! communication is restored. And the sound quality sounds vastly improved on those old suckers!

Party lines! My grandparents were on one back in the 50s - what a pain that was. I had to explain to my children how to dial a rotary phone. We had an old princess slimline in our bedroom; it weighed a ton compared to phones today. One day when my daughter's cell was recharging, I walked in as she was standing there with the handset off the base and a puzzled look on her face as she tried to figure it out. Obviously they weren't push buttons. She declared it weird and that it took too much time to manually dial a number, lol.

I dont think having the Xerox machine in Peggy's office is a healthy thing (fumes and toner dust) and the distraction of having people come constantly into her office. I'm not sure why Joan decided to jam this on Peggy.

I don't know which model my IBM selectric was. For those who didn't type, the character's/letters had different units of space. I have forgotten the details, but perhaps the M was made up of 3 units of space and an I was 1. It was supposed to look good on the page and justify to make a good looking letter or presentation. But, if you had to correct an error, especially through the multiple carbons, it became tricky. Not to worry, the techs told us. Use this little built in wire that could be moved up onto the page to gage what unit was in need of correcting. The secretarial manual said it was bad form to erase (I used one of those wheeled erasers with a brush on the end) without moving the carriage over so the crumbs would not fall into the machine. So if you had a typo, you pushed the carriage over (if possible) erased on all the copies and the original (trying not to smudge your work or get any carbon ink on your fingers/hand/clothes ) blew away all evidence of erasing, pushed the carriage back, tried to locate the exact unit of space you left (using the wire). How much easier my job became when I found a pencil shaped eraser with a brush on the end...and then, miracle of miracle White Out was born. Although it was not acceptable for a lot of work. Erasable Bond paper was wonderful, also, but also, not appropriate for some work. Remember the huge 'bookkeeping' machines?