Flexowriter history

From: ed sharpe <esharpe_at_uswest.net>
Date: Fri Nov 5 23:42:26 2004

Joe, we have one here that has no i/o... the type is script... although
from GE computer Department, it was probably used in some office for typing
form letters....

ed sharpe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe R." <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
To: <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>; <aknight_at_mindspring.com>
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 8:10 AM
Subject: Flexowriter history


> Al pointed me to some information about the Flexowriter on Herb Johnson's
> website. It seems that the Flexowriters have been around since at least WW
> II and was orignally made by Commercial Controls. CC was bought out by
> Frieden sometime doing the 1960s. The original Flexowriter only had a PT
> reader and punch and no external I/O and was used for generating form
> letters. Notable, It was used by the US government to write letters to
> relatives who lost family members in WW-II. Later new models were created
> by adding interfaces and a 2nd punch and 2nd reader. The two machines that
> I have appear to be original Commercial Controls FL models without the
> external I/O interfaces. Oh, I'll throw in a bit more history about these
> two particular machines. These two originally came from the US Air Force
> Missile Test Range. Anybody remember what that was? It was the original
> name for what is now called Kennedy Space Center. Originally just called
> Cape Canaveral after the geographical feature, it was used as a missile
> test range starting in the late 1940s and was called US Air Force Missile
> Test Range. The name was changed to the US Air Force Eastern Test Range
> about 1959 when NASA choose it to be the site and their manned launches
> and
> it was renamed to Cape Kennedy after the death of President Kennedy in
> 1963. Footnote: Not many people realize it but the Cape Kennedy name was
> not officially recognized so the land is still Cape Canaveral but the
> facility was officially named Cape Kennedy in 1963 and is currently named
> the Kennedy Space Center. Another footnote: For many years I worked for
> Martin Marietta in Orlando Florida. The Orlando facility was originaly
> built in 1958. MMC chose Orlando due to it's location close to to the
> Missile Test Range at Cape Canaveral since they originally planned to buid
> the Pershing missiles here and test fire them from Cape Canaveral.
>
> Herb has a short interview with an X-Flexowriter repair/salesman posted
> on his site at <http://njcc.com/~hjohnson/s_flex.html>. For anyone that's
> interested.
>
> Joe
>
>
Received on Fri Nov 05 2004 - 23:42:26 GMT

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