Until the wonder of the Xerox came along and obliterated all competition, the ways of making copies of printed documents were essentially printing presses. The smaller machines differed from their book and newspaper printing brethren mostly in the temporary nature of their templates. Instead of metal letters slathered with ink, most used some sort of wax that would degrade after moderate use, making the good for small document runs, poor for large runs. Last week we hearkened back to the ditto machine, unique in its use not of ink, but of dye impregnated templates, where the dye was removed by a solvent on the paper. In the discussion I mentioned the fact that these machines were often inaccurately referred to as mimeograph machines, despite being a different animal altogether. Reader FЯeeMan was kind enough to mention that I was a pedantic idiot for mentioning this without explaining the difference others also shared in this confusion, and further edification would be appreciated. So today let’s look back at another Edison wonder invention, the mimeograph.
A mimeograph, or stencil duplicator, works by forcing ink through a stencil onto the paper. In 1876 Thomas Edison received a patent for his Automatic Printing process, which consisted of an electric pen to create the perforated stencils and a flatbed duplicating press. The stencil making process developed later to be usable with a typewriter with the ribbon removed, to allow the metal letters to cut into the stencil.
The name ‘mimeograph’ was conceived by the A.B. Dick company, which liscensed Edison’s patent in 1887, and became one of the major manufacturers of this type of duplicator.
Mimeograph’s typically produced a darker, more legibile image than the spirit duplicators (ditto machines), and were usually considered to be the next step up in quality. Additionally, the stencils could usually last longer, and later thin metal stencils were used to gain even more endurance.
Next time someone brings up the purple ink and super smell of the mimeograph machine, you can smile knowingly and say “I do believe you mean a ditto.’ Then spend some quite reflection time with them and wonder–what ever happened to mimeograph machines?
Images, in order of appearance, from ovguide.com, antiquehangups.com, adclassix.com, tinalewisrowe.com,
dilanchian.com.au, wired.com, retrooregon.com, and discovernikkei.org. Info from Wikipedia and officemuseum.com.
[youtube n9huSs0g67c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9huSs0g67c youtube]
How did I miss the ditto machine last week? I could have posted this.
At the archive I have been volunteering at I have had to recopy all of the Mimeographs and all of the other older chemical copies to acid free paper using a Xerox machine and then refile it back where the originals were located…
Redundancy we can tolerate, it's obsolescence we're trying to stamp out!
I also tossed all all the redundant copies of copies except where it was important to keep more then one copy.
This printer also makes a awesome workplace printer as a result of it is equipped with network functions. If you plug it in a LAN network, you can have other users access it. It also has a Secure Lock function that makes it possible for you to restrict public access. This is awesome if your workplace is printing sensitive components. An additional awesome factor about them is that you can unattended printing and scanning up to 50 pages with its automatic document feeder.