u/SharktasticA

50 years ago today, 2nd August 1976, IBM filed a design patent for the original beam-spring-based 75-key IBM Base Keyboard (327X-75 type IBM Model B)!

https://sharktastica.co.uk/topics/keyboard-patents/USD247239S

Sometimes imprecisely referred to as simply the "3276 keyboard", this design was in fact used across the IBM 3251 Graphics Display Station, 3276 Control Unit Display Station, 3278 Display Station, 3279 Color Display Station and 8775 Display Terminal. It was available in both data entry and typewriter flavours, whereas its larger 87-key sibling was typewriter-only.

Being a "Base Keyboard", IBM officially put it in the lineage that eventually led to the Enhanced layout and the modern 10X-key ABNT2, ANSI, ISO and JIS (etc.) Whilst its a bit more complicated than that (both internal influences from the 5250 family and especially 3732, and external from e.g. DEC), it has its place in layout history!

It is the work of Charles P. Baechtle and John V. Stram, the latter who also worked on some IBM System/370 mainframe designs.

Sources:

1. Ornamental design patent drawing - IBM (USD234600S)
2. P/N 1742700 - theMK (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
3. IBM 3279s - Ørnelund Leif Krohn, Olso Museum (CC BY-SA 4.0)
4. IBM 3251 - IBM document GA32-0039-3
5. IBM 8775 - IBM document GA33-3040-6

On this day, 31st July, 65 years ago, IBM launched the original Selectric! To say this stunning device was important would be underselling things. Despite not being the first single-element typewriter (far from it, to be honest), it arguably became the poster-child of such. I think what it got right was a combination of said element, the fact that the carrier with the element moves instead of the entire carriage, and the ingenious design of its internals and electromechanical speed it can achieve.

It would be followed by the Selectric II and III, and various specialised variants such as the Composer, Magnetic Tape, and Mag Card Typewriters. Selectric technology, both as-is and retrofitted with electromagnets/solenoids and/or IBM 024/026/029 keyboards, would be used with IBM mainframe, midrange and word processing consoles and terminals such as the 1052 I/O Printer-Keyboard, 1053 Printer, 2741 and 2742 Communications Terminals, 3210 Console Printer-Keyboard, 5215 Displaywriter Printer and 5471 Printer-Keyboard.

As a student of IBM keyboard technology, in my opinion, Selectric set the a big precedent for keyboard quality. Certainly IBM thought so, and they would try to emulate or spiritually recapture it many a time. Perhaps most famously with the '70s Model B keyboard (not typewriter, to be clear) and its beam-spring keyswitches, but even as late as 1990/1991 with laptop computers, as recalled by IBM Japan engineer Arimasa Naitoh of the IBM PS/2 Model L40 SX's and Model M3 buckling-sleeve keyboard's development:

>We started with certain advantages. One was that our keyboards were descendants of the old IBM Selectric electronic [sic] typewriter, another piece of technology that many young people today have never seen. Keyboards were designed by the keyboard manufacturing division in Lexington, Kentucky, which is where the Selectric used to be made.
- How the ThinkPad Changed the World-and Is Shaping the Future, 2017

Following the photo are some of Selectric's patent drawings that I turned into wallpapers (I have a bunch of others for various IBM products, if you're interested). As for names, John E. Hickerson and Ralph E. Page are credited as inventing both the IBM single element printing head (US2895584A) and the IBM single element printing machine (US2879876A), with James A. Weidenhammer also credited with the former and Leon E. Palmer the latter. Horace S. "Bud" Beattie is credited with designing a predecessing "mushroom printer" design and coining the "golfball" shape itself. The ornamental (exterior) design is credited to Eliot F. Noyes, who previously worked on the Model A and B Electric Typewriter design, and then later Selectric variants. I've also written about them before!

Credits:

• Photo: Tekniska museet (public domain)
• Drawings: IBM

On this day, 31st July, 65 years ago, IBM launched the original Selectric (sometimes known by its original Model 72 designation, especially in EMEA). To say this stunning device was important would be underselling things. It became the poster-child of the single-element typewriter and captured the majority of the US office market for the next 3 decades. It would be followed by the Selectric II and III, and various specialised variants such as the Composer, Magnetic Tape, and Mag Card Typewriters.

It set the precedent for IBM keyboard quality, which IBM would try to emulate or spiritually recapture many a time. Most famously with Model B and its beam-spring keyswitches, but even as late as 1990/1991, as recalled by Arimasa Naitoh of the IBM PS/2 Model L40 SX's and Model M3 buckling-sleeve keyboard's development:

>We started with certain advantages. One was that our keyboards were descendants of the old IBM Selectric electronic [sic] typewriter, another piece of technology that many young people today have never seen. Keyboards were designed by the keyboard manufacturing division in Lexington, Kentucky, which is where the Selectric used to be made.
- How the ThinkPad Changed the World-and Is Shaping the Future, 2017

John E. Hickerson and Ralph E. Page are credited as inventing both the IBM single element printing head (US2895584A) and the IBM single element printing machine (US2879876A), with James A. Weidenhammer also credited with the former and Leon E. Palmer the latter. Horace S. "Bud" Beattie is credited with coining the "golfball" shape itself. The ornamental (exterior) design is credited to Eliot F. Noyes.

Further reading & viewing:

• The 70-year anniversary of two important IBM Selectric patents
• ASK Keyboard History timeline (filtered to typewriters)
• ASK Keyboard Patents database (can filter to typewriters)

Credits:

• Photo: Tekniska museet (public domain)
• Drawings: IBM

Hello, this is my first time posting here! This is my 1996 IBM ThinkPad 365ED running my 486/P5-centric Linux distribution, SHORK 486. I've figured, and also been told by others, that there may be some overlap between what I'm doing and writerdecks/distraction-free writing. So I figured I'd post and see what you think!

• Repo: https://github.com/SharktasticA/SHORK-486
• More photos & screenshots: https://ftp.sharktastica.co.uk/shork-linux/shork-486/

The project originally began with my desire to use my old ThinkPad collection more often for their wonderful keyboards (keyboards being a big passion of mine), but also to get them involved with my "modern" workflow and writing needs with up-to-date editors I'm familiar with. With Linux distros moving away from 32-bit x86 in general, this was something I might as well do myself, without anything I don't need. Chiefly, I wanted a quick and lightweight but modern, open-source and maintainable SSH client and an Emacs/Emacs-style editor. Once that was achieved, I looked at what else I could do with SHORK, including building a competent local system in its own right, a C/C++ development stack, and tackling what others might want to see from it. I like niches, and if I can help others with theirs with this, I wanna do it! There is also an aspect of kernel patching to the project as well - if you didn't know, Linux 7.1 and upcoming 7.2 remove 486 and TSC-less 586 processor and x87 math emulation support (respectively), and between them, various ISA and PCMCIA networking drivers. SHORK promptly patches these back in, allowing a modern Linux system on even 486SX!

Now, writerdecks. I haven't assembled anything custom like some of the cool stuff I've seen here, but I value distraction-free typewriting in principle. I've used my ThinkPad army for such, and I'm also a typewriter enthusiast, owning an IBM Model B Electric, Model D Electric, Selectric II, and several Wheelwriters. As it stands, SHORK can be built with full networking disabled at the kernel level. If you're fine with just the vi and ed editors, a SHORK 486 minimal build can run on just 8MiB RAM and disk! Via the other build types or making a custom build, SHORK can also include GNU nano, Joe's Own Editor, Mg and Vim. Tilde is currently being worked on, and GNU Emacs and Neovim are planned. WordGrinder is a maybe too, just more work to satisfy dependencies. There are other utilities you may be interested in, like sc-im for spreadsheets and tmux (terminal multiplexer) to break up the console into sorts of "windows".

I'm aware of writerdeckOS (apparently no longer developed?) Given this is a ground-up minimalist system and not Debian 12-based (thus holden to its minimal requirements), SHORK runs on older hardware (namesake 486, P5 Pentium and any AMD, Cyrix or IBM in-betweens) and may even run faster on early 686s (Pentium Pro, Pentium II) that were technically supported by Debian 12 but having to bear its larger footprint even when cutdown. Looking at writerdeckOS' dependencies list, SHORK is on track to include most of the same editors soon. You won't have the luxury of Debian 12's vast repositories, though (there isn't even a package manager, yet!)

SHORK 486's first published release - Public Test 1 - should drop when kernel 7.2.0 is released in a few weeks. If you want to try it without having to compile yourself, this will be for you! It will include ready-to-write .imgs and CD or combination floppy/CD options for installation. As the name suggests, its a public test to gather more opinions, and if this interests you, I would love to hear what you think! Even before then, please let me know if there are other edtiors or utilities you would like to see. Thank you!

About three months ago, I posted this very 365ED and my 486/P5-centric Linux distro (SHORK 486) when kernel 7.0.0 dropped. At the time, I stated:

>If you're not aware, future kernel 7.1 will drop support for 486s (and maybe x87 emulation?), so this is basically the last time one can do such an update, at least with a mainline kernel.

This has now come to pass. 7.1 indeed dropped the 486 build targets, and 7.2 (likely finishing RC in 3-4 weeks) removes TSC-less 586 (not OG Pentium but AMD and Cyrix's 486-586 "inbetweens" that Linux lumps together with P5) and x87 emulation. There were also various ISA and PCMCIA networking drivers, and the IBM Palm Top PC 110 trackpad driver, lost along the way. Yet, my humble 365ED is running kernel 7.2-rc4!

Whilst I still haven't created a distinct kernel fork yet, the SHORK 486 repo contains patches to restore all that back into 7.1.x and upcoming 7.2. Whilst I don't have real hardware to test it, in theory, SHORK 486 with 7.2 should now work with even 486SX once more. Even if you don't intend to use SHORK 486, feel free to bookmark my kernel patching document if you want to build your own Linux 7.1 or 7.2 system for your 486-era ThinkPad or PC! When I finally do the fork, I will update it with a link to it.

As for SHORK 486, and if I may be so bold, the first published release for it - Public Test 1 - should drop when 7.2.0 is released in a few weeks. If you want to try it without having to compile yourself, this will be for you! It will include ready-to-write .imgs, and a SHORK DISC .iso with a guided writing program so you can install without having to pull out your hard drive provided the host supports El Torito (if not, a SHORK DISKETTE image with CD support will be provided for use as a bootdisk). Since 3 months ago, I've most notably begun work on a unified settings program that should have a network manager soon, greatly expanded enabled BusyBox general and system utilities, added a bunch of new bundled software options (including Vim!), and a terminal-based minesweeper clone (SHORKMINES, forked from terminal-mines). No package manager in time for this release, but the next one?

About three months ago, I posted this very IBM ThinkPad 365ED (Cyrix 5x86, 24MB RAM and CF-based storage) and my 486/P5-centric Linux distro (SHORK 486) when kernel 7.0.0 dropped, which y'all seemed to enjoy! At the time, I stated:

>If you're not aware, future kernel 7.1 will drop support for 486s (and maybe x87 emulation?), so this is basically the last time one can do such an update, at least with a mainline kernel.

This has now come to pass. 7.1 indeed dropped the 486 build targets, and 7.2 (likely finishing RC in 3-4 weeks) removes TSC-less 586 (not OG Pentium but AMD and Cyrix's 486-586 "inbetweens" that Linux lumps together with P5) and x87 emulation. There were also various ISA and PCMCIA networking drivers, and the IBM Palm Top PC 110 trackpad driver, lost along the way. Yet, my humble 365ED is running kernel 7.2-rc4!

Whilst I still haven't created a distinct kernel fork yet, the SHORK 486 repo contains patches to restore all that back into 7.1.x and upcoming 7.2. Whilst I don't have real hardware to test it, in theory, SHORK 486 with 7.2 should now work with even 486SX once more. Even if you don't intend to use SHORK 486, feel free to bookmark my kernel patching document if you want to build your own Linux 7.1 or 7.2 system for your 486-era retro battlestation! When I finally do the fork, I will update it with a link to it.

As for SHORK 486, and if I may be so bold, the first published release for it - Public Test 1 - should drop when 7.2.0 is released in a few weeks. If you want to try it without having to compile yourself, this will be for you! It will include ready-to-write .imgs, and a SHORK DISC .iso with a guided writing program so you can install without having to pull out your hard drive provided the host supports El Torito (if not, a SHORK DISKETTE image with CD support will be provided for use as a bootdisk). Since 3 months ago, I've most notably begun work on a unified settings program that should have a network manager soon, greatly expanded enabled BusyBox general and system utilities, added a bunch of new bundled software options (including Vim!), and a terminal-based minesweeper clone (SHORKMINES, forked from terminal-mines). No package manager in time for this release, but the next one?

Yesterday, I attended a keyboard meetup in Bristol, England, to represent IBM! I brought a fairly robust selection of 6 keyboards with me, and a continous slideshow on my ThinkPad of other items of IBM's keyboard/keyboard adjacent legacy!

• 1980 IBM 528X-83 type Model B Typewriter Keyboard, beam springs
• 1984 IBM 122-key Model F Converged Keyboard (3180 Model 2), capacitive buckling springs
• 1984 IBM Wheelwriter 5 Keyboard Assembly (third oldest Model M example on record), membrane buckling springs
• 1989 IBM 754x/756x/GEARBOX 800 Industrial Computer Keyboard (Model M), membrane buckling springs
• 1999 IBM Space Saver Keyboard with TrackPoint II and 1995 Keypad (Model M4-1), buckling sleeves
• 2000 IBM USB RANPOS Keyboard (Model M9), buckling sleeves

All photos: https://ftp.sharktastica.co.uk/meetups/2026-06_bristol/

Like previous meetups, I plan to write a small writeup, but that will probably be tomorrow at this point... I'm still quite exhausted from all the travel and hauling around a suitcase full of keyboards whose handle gave in on the way home...

Thank you to Alvi and risd0m for organising the day, and everyone for a great day!

Yesterday, I attended a keyboard meetup in Bristol, England, to represent IBM! I brought a fairly robust selection of 6 keyboards with me, and a continous slideshow on my ThinkPad of other items of IBM's keyboard/keyboard adjacent legacy!

• 1980 IBM 528X-83 type Model B Typewriter Keyboard, beam springs
• 1984 IBM 122-key Model F Converged Keyboard (3180 Model 2), capacitive buckling springs
• 1984 IBM Wheelwriter 5 Keyboard Assembly (third oldest Model M example on record), membrane buckling springs
• 1989 IBM 754x/756x/GEARBOX 800 Industrial Computer Keyboard (Model M), membrane buckling springs
• 1999 IBM Space Saver Keyboard with TrackPoint II and 1995 Keypad (Model M4-1), buckling sleeves
• 2000 IBM USB RANPOS Keyboard (Model M9), buckling sleeves

All photos: https://ftp.sharktastica.co.uk/meetups/2026-06_bristol/

Like previous meetups, I plan to write a small writeup, but that will probably be tomorrow at this point... I'm still quite exhausted from all the travel and hauling around a suitcase full of keyboards whose handle gave in on the way home...

Thank you to Alvi and risd0m for organising the day, and everyone for a great day!

Yesterday, I attended a keyboard meetup in Bristol, England, to represent the IBM/vintage side of the keyboard enthusiast hobby! As is the course for most meetups I attend, I bring a HAJ along for the ride and to cutely guard my keeborbs from anyone who would do them harm (jokingly, everyone who attended was awesome!) Shonk got thoroughly squished in the suitcase for 3 hours of train travel, but was easily rechonked afterwards... until squished again for the return travel. They are okay now!

If you fancy seeing more keyboard photos: https://ftp.sharktastica.co.uk/meetups/2026-06_bristol/

Happy Pride Month, everyone! :3