OK, I just acquired a little 46-pound addition to my collection.
I know, I know, I’m trying to cut down. In fact, I plan to host a swap meet in the spring and sell off a good chunk of my collection. But as a temporary possession, and a chance to explore a rare and remarkable typewriter, I couldn’t resist the offer of a free Olivetti Lexikon 94C. It was located in beautiful southern Indiana and had been used in a small-town pharmacy nearby. The son of the original owner was obviously an orderly person—it was immediately apparent from his neat house—and the typewriter came with four elements and the user’s manual. The typewriter needed thorough cleaning, but eventually all the functions were there.
For a rundown of all the remarkable features of this typewriter, you can read the manual yourself here. (It’s dated 1978.) Basically, this machine attempted to combine the best features of IBM typewriters: the Executive proportional-spacing typebar machines and the single-element Selectrics (including the rare proportional-spacing Selectric Composer). Like a typical Selectric, the Lexikon 94C uses interchangeable elements in various styles—but they rotate on a horizontal axis, unlike the vertical axis of a Selectric ball or Olivetti’s own Lexikon 82 (aka Smith-Corona Vantage). Like a Correcting Selectric, the 94C uses a correctible film ribbon cartridge and a correcting tape that can lift a mistake off the paper. Like an Executive or Composer, the 94C can type proportionally—and it can type in three different monospaced pitches, including the tiny 18cpi (useful, say, for pharmacies typing on small labels).
Simpler typewriters with similar mechanisms include the Lexikon 90, 90C (aka Underwood 1190C), 92C, and 93C. (C=correctable.) I owe this information to a brief video in Italian about the series.
Here’s the proportional “Venezia” element.
The proportional characters come in three different widths (2, 3, and 4 units, as explained on p. 29 of the manual). To select the pitch of your typing, you adjust two levers:
Like Executives, the 94C has a “no print” setting (useful for invisibly typing a line of text in order to calculate how to create a justified right margin) and an e x p a n d e d print setting.
Like some Olivetti typebar electrics such as the Praxis 48 or Editor, the 94C freezes the keyboard if you make a mistake such as hitting two keys simultaneously; the backspacer frees the keyboard.
A clever detail is a little wire that pops up when you’re backspacing or correcting to show you the printing point—very useful when trying to manage proportional typing.
The bold, simple, serious look of this machine is an Ettore Sottsass design.
As for the mechanism, which achieves all these functions without the benefit of any electronic chips, I think it may have been designed by Piranesi.
This typewriter was manufactured in at least two countries: in the Olivetti hometown of Ivrea and (in the case of my machine) in the U.S.A. Olivetti made a strong effort to crack the dominance of IBM. Did it work?
As of today, there are over 100 IBM Selectric IIIs for sale on eBay, and one (nonfunctional) Lexikon 94C.
OMG, I think that’s what I typed on at a short job back in 1984! My memory is fuzzy, but it was a proportional-space typewriter, black, and hard to get the hang of. I don’t remember having a manual to explain things.
Back then, before PCs, I was thrilled by the idea of being able to produce something that looked like a “real” book without a publisher.
It must have made quite an impression if you remember it 42 years later!