Re: Dad's 5677A

Posted by HH56 On 2020/12/6 12:36:31

Quote:

Very true. The commercial Xerox machines were still fairly new, rather large, and terribly expensive so not many businesses could afford one. No computers or printers then and the ordinary home or small office copier was non existent so small jobs were cumbersome at best. Carbon paper was the norm for the occasional copy in small offices and mimeograph or stencil printing for larger needs.

I remember there was the photostat copy method where you had to shine a light thru the original and onto a special paper. That was OK if the original had single side printing but as I recall depending on the quality of the original and the paper it was written on, the copy might not be that great. After the exposure you placed the copy paper in various drawers in the photostat machine for developing with heat and chemicals. It was time consuming and took training to make a decent copy. No idea what you did if you needed to copy a double sided original -- maybe to a photo shop for a camera to photograph and print out a photo. All said, there were no corner copy stores where you could just walk in and get a quick copy -- at least not in smaller cities -- so it is understandable that PI might have wanted a few bucks to copy some diagrams.