Who remembers ditto machines and ditto sheets?

[y_p_w]

There were photocopies when I was in school, but they were generally pretty expensive. A lot of what we used were ditto sheets that were pressed and then released with some sort of solvent, then allowed to dry. I also remember one project that we did where we created our own ditto sheets almost like carbon paper, and then the result could be placed in a ditto machine to make copies. I don't recall the limit on the number of copies with one ditto template, but it wasn't that much. Sometimes I received something that was at the limit and it might not have been readable.

But the solvent used couldn't have been healthy. I remember some freshly printed sheets sometimes that smelled like dry cleaning fluid.

 

[CKN]

I remember the smell as a child. The first legal drug!

 

[alarmguy]

I remember and loved the smell! Freshly run sheets also had a moist feel to them.

 

[ctechbob]

It was some kind of alcohol as I recall.

Ours were always purple. We also had some that were black that they burned some kind of stencil for, different tech though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator

--Edit--
Mimeograph's were the ones that used stencils.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimeograph

 

[Vercingetorix]

White out was also a drug of choice growing up.

 

[duck__dodgers]

I DO! i think. is this the same as the mimeograph?

or is this where the ink on the copy is purple-ish. My elementary school used whatever the OP is describing.

 

[dishdude]

I remember the smell as a child. The first legal drug!

The gateway drug to eating paste!

 

[User_19876]

Mimeographs? I was always impressed that they were still warm after being passed down the row of students.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

 

[Leo99]

Thanks! Saved me the time finding and posting the same video.

 

[Gyro Gearloose]

I think the solvent was methanol.
I remember the cans said poisonous.

 

[CleanSump]

I remember the smell in elementary school and at church when my mom was printing the handouts for Sunday.
Nothing personal guys, but you are all old.

 

[pudge]

i remember for sure

 

[Passport1]

ditto

 

[Kira]

When I was young, several households had mimeograph machines.
Civic involvement was...more edited in those days.

In high school, a new a system which resembled mimeo came out.
The end product was a sheet of plastic which you could use with an overhead projector. I forget the name of it.
The coolest feature was that you got two copies; a blue on clear or clear letters on the blue.

I made a map demonstrating Gerrymandering and I was the first to showcase the product.
The class preferred the dropout lettering (clear letters against dark blue).

We never saw the salesman or his new machine again.
I concluded it was either expensive or the wrong teacher's BIL was selling it..

 

[2005jettatdi]

My parent bought me my first copier when I was around 7th grade in the mid 60s. It used gelatin sheets. You drew, wrote or typed what you wanted to copy using a special kind of carbon paper (remember what that was?). The master was pressed into the gelatin sheet for a certain amount of time and then removed. Then you pressed the blank page against the gelatin to make each copy. The copies did not smell.

 

[Brons2]

We had a duplicator at my elementary school in the late 70s early 80s that made copies with a resulting purple-ish looking text. It was a big circular thing and it had had a hand crank by which it would spit out copies. Is this what we're talking about?

By the time I was in high school in the late 80s, we had Xerox copiers.

 

[dadto2]

We had a duplicator at my elementary school in the late 70s early 80s that made copies with a resulting purple-ish looking text. It was a big circular thing and it had had a hand crank by which it would spit out copies. Is this what we're talking about?

By the time I was in high school in the late 80s, we had Xerox copiers.

Yup, that's a ditto machine.

 

[mk378]

Technically it's a "spirit duplicator," but Ditto was the name of the company making most of the machines.

I think they were all hand cranked because the fluid was enough of a fire hazard to not want electricity near it. There was a patent for a fluid containing a CFC (R-11) as a fire retardant.

 

[Brons2]

Technically it's a "spirit duplicator," but Ditto was the name of the company making most of the machines.

I think they were all hand cranked because the fluid was enough of a fire hazard to not want electricity near it. There was a patent for a fluid containing a CFC (R-11) as a fire retardant.

I guess because the fluid was made of mineral spirits?

Never really considered the fire hazard, but that makes sense.