Friden Flexowriter
The
Friden Flexowriter was a
teleprinter based on a
1940s IBM product that was
spun off as an independent company and later sold to the
Friden Corp. It could punch and read 6-
bit paper tape. Unlike teletype machines that use the 5-bit
Baudot code, the Flexowriter had upper and lower case characters. Because of this and the better quality printing produced by its IBM-designed
typewriter mechanism, the Flexowriter could be used by itself to automate the production of office documents such as
form letters.
[O'Kane, Lawrence (1966): "Computer a Help to 'Friendly Doc'; Automated Letter Writer Can Dispense a Cheery Word". The New York Times, May 22, 1966, p. 348: "Automated cordiality will be one of the services offered to physicians and dentists who take space in a new medical center.... The typist will insert the homey touch in the appropriate place as the Friden automated, programmed "Flexowriter" rattles off the form letters requesting payment... or informing that the X-ray's of the patient (kidney) (arm) (stomach) (chest) came out negative."] For example, in the 1960s,
United States Members of Congress used Flexowriters extensively to handle enormous volumes of routine correspondence with constituents; an advantage of this method was that these letters appeared to have been individually typed by hand. Auxiliary paper-tape readers could be attached to a Flexowriter to create an early form of "
mail merge", where a long custom-created tape containing individual addresses and salutations was merged with a closed-loop form-letter and printed on continuous-form letterhead; both tapes contained embedded "
control characters" to switch between readers. In the late 1960s, devices using magnetic media, such as IBM's revolutionary Magnetic Tape
Selectric Typewriter (MTST), superseded paper-tape word-processing and Flexowriters fell into disuse.
The Flexowriter was also used as an input/output device for some early
computers, such as the
Librascope LGP-30 and the
DEC PDP-1. It was also used instead of a
key punch for off-line program and data entry.
Friden was acquired by the
Singer Corporation in 1965.
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Expensive Typewriter*
TECO*
PDP-1*
Photo and more information*
Discussion of Flexowriter code conversion with link to code chart
