HOW TO USE A 1960s DITTO MACHINE MIMEOGRAPH SPIRIT DUPLICATOR PHOTOCOPIER 43624
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- Опубліковано 26 тра 2018
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This 1960s instructional film shows how to use an early kind of photocopy machine called a spirit duplicator. The film also shows a photocopy machine (1:20), an offset duplicator (1:25), and a stencil duplicator (1:44). At 1:49 a spirit duplicator is shown. At 2:00 the narrator mentions the name Ditto, as that company was once prominent in the field. The dye transfer process is then explained.
A spirit duplicator (also referred to as a Ditto machine in North America, Banda machine in the UK or Roneo in Australia, France and South Africa) was a printing method invented in 1923 by Wilhelm Ritzerfeld and commonly used for much of the rest of the 20th century. The term "spirit duplicator" refers to the alcohols which were a major component of the solvents used as "inks" in these machines.[1][2][3] The device coexisted alongside the mimeograph.
Spirit duplicators were used mainly by schools, churches, clubs, and other small organizations, such as in the production of fanzines, because of the limited number of copies one could make from an original, along with the low cost (and corresponding low quality) of copying.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFilm.com
Great film. I wonder, how many viewers remember the distinctive smell of a freshly dittoed sheet when the teacher would hand out an assignment?
Oh , yeah!
Absolutely- it was the gateway drug of generations! Aromatic hydrocarbons- yum!!
Hahaha! I've wondered about that. Kids taking the sheets and inhaling that heady aroma!
It made my day at school a magic one. Mmmmmmmmmmm.....
Everyone who was born up until the mid 80s I would assume.
I started to appreciate the backspace precisely when the razor blade was introduced in this video as a correction tool.
When the teacher passes out freshly made dittoes that were still damp, we all used to take deep breaths of the paper 💗
mhm. healthy! haha
Yep
Me too! My elementary school and middle school still had them.
Oh yes that heavenly damp purple ink smell! And the sound of the mimeograph machine thumping out it's multiple copies.
@@Ellecram KATHUNK KATHUNK KATHUNK
I love these little nuggets of history!
What memories. I remember grade school in the 60s. The teachers would print "work sheets" on the DITTO machine and the copies were always smeared and difficult to read. The lines of print were crooked and a lot of times there was "fuzz" around the individual letters. Ahh- the good old days.
Didn't you hate getting a Ditto with wrinkles? Sometimes you couldn't understand a problem because of wrinkled words!
Teachers did a lot of work for us back in the day preparing lesson plans using those machines.
I used to run copies for a couple of teachers in grade school before the busses ran. I still remember the smell of the fluid. It was a hand crank rig and I really liked fooling with it. Thanks for the memories!
This is fascinating to watch. I never knew how much work went in to ditto copies!
My elementary school, as far back as I can remember (1986), had a xerographic copier. I actually never knew precisely how a mimeograph/ditto machine worked until seeing this video.
Aside: Am I the only one who chuckled when the narrator claimed how "easy" it was to correct mistakes?
My elementary school in the 80s - same.
And nowadays we just "backspace" lol
It's weird; I was in 2nd grade in 89-90, and we used ditto machines for our duplications. Though I feel that was the tail end of that era.
my elementary school was still using them around 1998.
Never saw a black worksheet until middle school, was always purple in elementary.
@@Pantology_Enthusiast That's amazing! I was born in 1985 and I've never seen a ditto machine, not even a disused one gathering dust in a corner. Teachers used to reminisce about them but that's about it.
In the late 1970s, they had these at my elementary school. I remember the alcohol coolness and smell on the paper, the purple printing. Nothing electronic, fairly simple to understand mechanical technology. Really well mansplained for secretary missy here!
I remember hand cranking one of these in elementary school in the mid to late 60s. I still remember the smell.
Me too on all counts!
Yup
I cranked it in school in 1985!
Me in the 70s
The smell and the sound of the electric machines as they cranked out copies.
Now I know where the question papers for the examination cane from. We did not have reliable electricity nor photocopy machines in 1980s India... But we had this machine in the school office.....
They printed faster than my láser printer now!
Backspace is a miracle, hahaha
Love the music at the beginning and end! All those old films had something similar. The only part they forgot: they should've shown all the students enjoying receiving fresh ditto papers and taking a big whiff of the duplicating fluid in them as they passed them back to the kid behind them!
I came here after reading Ascendance of a Bookworm, now it all makes sense. I knew nothing about mimeograph printing. Great vid!
Yes! I'm not alone!
Boomer here. Dittos were part of my entire public school education.
I never cared for the smell.
You are doing Gods work, Periscope Films
Last one I remember seeing was in 1982 when I was in 7th grade. I was in the office waiting to speak with someone and somebody was making copies on it, and it just went "kir-klunk, kir-klunk kir-klunk". You remember that distinctive sound, right? Very small moment in my life (at 13) but here I am at 51 and I still remember that day.
i always like this kind of vintage-educational-movie, very informative and to the point with deep narator tone
Narrator. Two R's.
Ahhh, the good old days! I can remember that smell like it was yesterday! Loved it! lol
I remember it from my school days in the 1960's and 70's. I shutter to think of all the trouble you had to go through for all the typing mistakes I make. LOL!
"Easy corrections" lol
When my dad was in the NYPD academy he had a whole week of type writing class. He said that was the hardest thing for so many guys to pass
in the 1980s and early 90s i typed all of my gradeschool homework "papers" on an honest to goodness 1950s or 60s typewriter. I hated it. I didn't learn to "touch" type until AOL came around when i was in high school, Mavis Beacon be damned.
I remember the purple print, and if the teacher ran her copies that morning, they would still be moist or damp and they had this almost sweet-rosey smell to them. There was your professional masters from like Hayes Publishing, or Frank Schaefer Publications, or Carson-Delosa were the big choices back in the day for teachers. Sometimes the teachers would draw up their own masters.. and sometimes they would use the different colors like red and orange and green... That was almost too much to handle.
I was today years old when I realized how much I took the backspace key for granted.
I remember the ditto machine in my elementary school teachers lounge. Only the die hard old school teachers still used it in the 90’s. I remember the smell and the purple color.
Douggernaut84, yep, it smelled like melted crayons.
It was computer worked because the desktop had the monitor, the processors, and then printer.
"Easy corrections" in this video. lol
That is a spirit duplicator which uses a carbon based master and alcohol. Mimeographs use a stencil and ink process. Big difference. I worked for ABDick company in Austin Tx 1975 to 1983 and worked on both processes and also printing duplicators and the first copiers, word processors the size of a business desk , and micro film processors
I have a new appreciation for the people that put these together in my elementary school days.
Mimeograph was the process where typing on the master created holes through which the black ink was squeezed. Those could create many more clean copies than spirit duplicators. That ink had a distinct smell as well. Loved both of them, used by our school and church when I was in school in the '60s and '70s but they were labor-intensive compared to modern duplication technology.
What I remember about Mimeograph copies was when the teacher used too much ink and all the letter with closed loops like P, O, Q etc were filled in!
@@Gannett2011 Yes. Either the machine was applying too much ink or the master was wearing out. Wasn't the smell of that ink nice? Think about how much attention to detail and patience preparing those masters required. All done manually on a typewriter. Required lots of planning.
Never knew that! I don't know if I've ever seen a mimeograph. We called spirit duplicators mimeographs. Collectively, "Ditto Machines"
A good Secretary was as a treasure back then! Look at what all went into this! They had to type,set up a job on a printing press of sorts,operate it and maintain it.... helluva lot a work! And they worked for peanuts. Much respect for the Secretary of yesteryear.
I've never really thought about how copies were made before photocopiers and printers, this is so fascinating
When my mom was in college there were no copy machines to use. When doing research papers you just had to write everything down from materials you couldn't check out. There were ditto machines, but no way to copy magazines or books. Glad they had copy machines by the time I had to do research.
Thank you for uploading this; I just had to use it to test a machine at my job.
I love this! Yeah, the smell and I THINK.... the warmth of the paper?? (Am I not remembering that right?) ... made it amazing back then before laser printers. I actually recall seeing a teacher cranking the ditto machine up in the front office one day. I'm sure laser printer technology took at least something from all of that to get us to where we are today, right? Like the roller. Remember, as I do, in the old days, when an office copier got jammed? You'd have to open it up and sure enough... the paper was stuck in one or another roller. So it's the same principle today but more advanced. Take it a step further - at the store I work at the printers work on the principle of pressure to the paper - so you could scratch your fingernail on that paper and it'll make a mark just like carbon copy paper did in the old days BUT... without the carbon copy paper. The paper itself is sensitive so the portable printers are just applying pressure to "print" and no ink or nothing else is ever required. See? So today, with the right paper and printer you don't even need to worry about ink anymore. It's ALL built in. Now this is just for stores like the big W, of course. I've no clue what other
chains are doing but I'm very impressed by what amounts to built in carbon copy paper that "prints" out today just by pressure.
There is so much technology that we find out about and are or were impressed with that it gets crazy fast. Probably a good deal of
the world doesn't even KNOW this stuff existed or exists to this day. I would LOVE to get my hands on an old ditto machine just to
have it for the nostalgia alone.
OMG I remember always volunteering to help the teacher make ditto copies. I did it for the smell. LOL
Watching this JUST MADE THE 'GHOST' movie reference click! NOW I KNOW what Patrick meant by "Ditto!"
This is beautiful! My job has a ditto machine in their upstairs with a type writer. Might be transporting some history home with me this weekend.
So... did you steal it?
🎶 We've come a long ways, baby!! 🎶
Supposedly, the most powerful sense that connects us to our past is smell. I believe it- even just imagining the smell of a ditto Miss Cunningham put on my third grade desk in 1958, brings me back there, for good and for bad.
You could always tell how late in the day, or how tired the teachers were by how centered the copies were. Every once in a while you get some that were completely crooked on the paper.
this is so cool! now I'm only 29 and never knew these existed until I watched call the midwife on BBC.
now I know why many things we say and do harp back to these machines! SO very Cool!!
My high school had all of these older technologies, it opened in the twenties. Unfortunately, it was all trashed when it was closed in 2004. I recognize so much now. Gonna look for the typewriter with a screen but no computer.
I loved the way they smelled and I still have some copies from kindergarten.
So do I! So I’m 47 & I looked back on the elementary school work my mom saved and the papers had purple ink.😊 Sometimes they were that familiar light greenish paper w/purple ink. Had to class it up a bit!😉
I can still see that purple ink and I remember it had a unique smell we all loved in class. I'm sure schools don't use them anymore.
I was reading Becky Yancey's Book on Elvis, She was a fan turned Secretary from 1964-1976. She says this is what they used to write fans back and to send thank you cards for each gift (Over 1,000+ thank you cards a day!).
I remember these and the smell from grade school in the 80’s! The whole class smelled them 😂😂😂
This is boring as hell, I actually fell asleep. Finally, a video that will help with my insomnia.
Directions: Hand master into office secretary with number of copies needed for the next week.
The elementary school I went to had a Mimeograph up until 1990. I remember walking past the teacher workroom and seeing it working.
Marvellous machine. My father had a portable one in a green case but I am sure he called it something different.
Real actual Cut & Paste explained.
I used a spirit duplicator at the end of the 1980's as a grad TA to create note packets, quizzes, and tests for my students. There was a process to print from a computer onto a special master using a dot matrix printer. That was a little involved and prone to mishaps, so most of us created our masters by writing on them with a pen. We didn't know all of these tricks for correcting them, if we found a mistake we either crossed it out or re-did the master. One TA had been a high school teacher in a rural area and had used a hand cranked duplicator, the one in our department was powered. It saw heavy use and near midterms and finals time we'd have several people lined up to use it into the wee hours. And yes, that smell...
Great video. I always wonder how they were making these copies in the past. Now I know.
4:28 Easy to make corrections!
Thank you for finding and posting these video. You have some fantastic videos. My wife asked me how a automatic transmission works. I got out the iPad and showed her the military video. She said wow they made it so simple to understand. I want to thank you for the time you spend. I have many question. Do you keep the copy of these or just link to them?
These films are part of the Periscope Film Archive. www.PeriscopeFilm.com
I remember these from grade school but Our high school had an “office machines” class where we learned to use these. 1980, the good old days.
you can do all this with just a simple PRINTER and MICROSOFT WORD today, imagine just for cleaning the a letter( a single letter or a charachter) a special skill was needed with a lot of time and mechanical work…today it's just BACKSPACE, My father I remember had blue carbon copy paper to make a copy and he used remove mistakes written by scratching them with razor blade .
That was awesome!
Remember the "smell",too when copies were handed out.And got to run the machine for the instructor!!Was kinda neat-used the hand powered ones and the powered.
Great video! I recall the sound of the duplicator coming out of the outer office by the principal. I remember one of our teachers telling us 1st graders that the sound we heard was the "spanking machine". :)
thats funny and terrible.
Yeah, we were told about the spanking machine 😂
I'm sure that chemical smell was a form of addiction control by the school board.
Not a lot has really changed in 60 years except there was no "PC LOAD LETTER" back then. Maybe a better perspective is that 60 years before this the Wright brothers were making only bicycles, no cars were on the road, and Butch and Sundance were still robbing trains in Wyoming.
Who here is old enough to remember these machines? Yes, I'm old AF.
Awesome film. Most likely from a 16mm projection film. Very informative. I've learned that you can correct a spirit master. Just use sello tape. These machines fascinated me in primary school in the 70's and were phased out in the late 90's just after I left high school. I'm collecting them now to hold onto the memories and the art that younger people would have no idea about. Thanks.
Yes this is from an original 16mm film in our collection. Thanks for your comments -- we also remember the look and smell of the "dittos".
You happen to have a hand crank one I can take/buy cause I want one for my business...... and I can't find any on Ebay.
I'm willing to negotiate a price.
I'm offering 25 dollars.(or free if you just want to give it away for some reason.)
@@jackalenterprisesofohio 25 bucks won't even get you a typewriter these days. I would know. I paid a hundred bucks for a 40s Royal. Great machine. Offer the guy some real money for a hard to find cool item.
@@aintitso6310 I'm willing to negotiate the price
*cello (It's "cellophane", not "sellophane".)
I loved the smell too, but I also associated it with being in trouble because the teacher’s workroom was right next to the principal’s office and I would smell the ditto machine fluid while I was waiting to see the principal.
I remember these machines from being at school in the 60’s , I remember the alcohol smell from the freshly printed sheets .
I loved the smell of those sheets!!
Incredibly complex for something that today is taken for granted with a click
You can move whole paragraphs around with almost no effort.
The part with the correction scraper and wax pencil was hilarious, everything just made it a blurry mess!
We still had one of these when I was in Primary school in the 80s.. I think it was a Gestener brand (not sure) Anyway the copies would come out still wet and smelling like alcohol and the teacher would tell us to blow on them and wave them around
Now I understand why the school secretary had a drinking problem.
I can still remember the smell of the fluid, and by the God's were they hard to operate. The copies were pretty rubbish as well :)
Takes me back to my elementary and junior high school years (1982-1991) when the ditto copies of homework were blue or purple and sometimes wet. In high school (from 1991 onward), I got more Xerox copies of homework assignments.
We stopped using mimeograph copies in the mid 1980's. A university has more money for technology than a K-12 school district, though.
Spirit duplicator sounds like some sort of Scooby Doo machine. I wonder how common ghost jokes were when this machine was in common use.
I remember my elementary school had these in the mid '80s, then all of a sudden when I was in 3rd grade towards the end of 1988, we had switched over to photocopiers (Xerox brand as well) so I'd remember my teacher say, after we switched over, "I gotta go Xerox some of these during recess"
That video was so old i am sure i saw a Dinosaur roaming around in it... :D :D
I remember seeing a thermometer graph machine in an instructors office in junior college in 1996
This girl is good.
All the comments about sniffing it reminded me of the Fast Times paper sniff scene.
I was born in 1996, well into the era of electronic printouts and copy machines, so my school assignments were usually either printed or photocopied in bulk, and I have never seen a real ditto/mimeograph machine in action.
However, I was scanning in some old documents for work, and I came across this document that was faded and had purple text, which is a sure sign of a mimeographed copy. I asked my parents, who grew up in the late 60s, and they told me that they can't forget the smell. My mother described it as this chemically-sweet scent, like a purple scented marker. I wonder if she connected the color of the ink with the specific color of the scented marker she tried to liken it to.
This is ASMR quality.
I always wondered how those things worked.
I miss the smell of ditto / mimeograph printing ink. LOL
I can still smell the copies.
The smell.... I figured that’s what everyone would be talking about.
Anyone know who's the voice? Seems to me that his voice is on all these documentary films and instruction videos.
I barely remember these. All I remember is my elementary school teacher using these for art projects and simple lessons like alphabets, spelling, or counting/math.
Ok so, I was born after these were used and have no experience with them. I have a question that's confusing me. Is the ink that's being used to print completely on the master sheet and not the machine? Does the spirit fluid only moisten the master or is that the ink?
I used a Risograph machine when I was in high school and supposedly the concept is very similar. I didn't learn about it in depth, but when I made copies on it, I distinctly remember the master sheet inside the machine being a sort of plastic that was covered in ink. I don't know if ink was pressed through it like a silkscreen does or if the master contained all the ink itself but I have even less of an idea of how this worked.
In the time it takes to make one master sheet and copy it in the 60s, I would have enough time to type on my laptop a 10 page essay and print 100 copies.
"You'll find it easy making corrections."
Proceeds to outline a 7 step process to correct 1 typo.
If ink on the master is transferred to the copies that means eventually the master becomes blank? Spirit is used to melt a small amount off the master?
That's why later copies were lighter in color.
I still have the master copy of my math test in high school....don't ask me why I still have that because I don't even know..
Where might one find this “special fluid”?
She looks like she is ready to go to a fancy dinner party...lol
I would be so nervous to get carbon or ink on that silk dress. There should have been a printing apron to use! lol
Crystal West lol. I'm surprised the machines didn't come with an apron 😁
saltyshellback being a school teacher was so elegant. Wearing silk and pearls to print worksheets. I want that job. Lol
Crystal West And you would be ready to go to a dinner party at any moment! 😄
What do you mean by lol
Always do your office work in formal evening wear
Fast Times at Ridgemont High curiosity scene hahha! 2023
A fascinating piece of technology well before my time. Just out of curiosity, does anyone here know what solvent was used as the “copying fluid?” The armchair chemist in me really wants to know.
''The ink used in spirit duplicators contained methanol and isopropanol, which emitted a pleasant fragrance''
Such complication! Still, it must have been worth it for THAT SMELL. Purple goodness!
See the movie, "Secretary"
Typing a letter is a ritual
Genius Ideea Suuces is making
education
5:19 Another way to make corrections is to coat the area with a fluid called snowpake
Me: *sudden revelation* *snopake = opaque = correction fluid* they didn't have a name for it as yet
the moment you realize white out wasn't invented to be written over top of
That was the name of it. It was earlier than 'Liquid Paper' and 'Wite-out'.
I can almost smell the paper watching this
OMG.......my high school years is coming back to hunt me....lol