The Olivetti Has Arrived

 My first typewriter of the computer era was supposed to be an Olivetti Lettera 22 that I had won the bid for on Ebay, but the order of things was altered a bit by the sudden find of the Royal Safari at a local estate sale a couple days ago. Today, however, three days after bringing the Royal home, the Olivetti arrived via USPS.

I haven't had the chance to fiddle with it much, but all the keys are working, as are all the working parts. Well, I just said "all" twice in a row in that previous sentence, which is not completely true. There seem to be two things that are not working. One of these is the bell, which normally sounds when you are a few spaces from the end of a line (so as to let you know to get ready to hit the carriage return), but on this machine it doesn't. The other non-working item is the margin release key (which on this machine is the blank key that lies where the numeral 1 key normally does). That key on this typewriter has two functions. One is that of Margin Release, which your use to release the margin when you get to the end of the line and just want to be able to add a letter or two without having to resort to hyphens, and the other function is to automatically provide an indentation when you pull the carriage return at the beginning of a new paragraph. The button works in regard to doing the latter but not in regard to the former. 

The fact that the only two problems I have found seem to center around the right margin, the source of the problems, I reckon, must be related if not the same. At any rate, I will open things up tomorrow and see what I can see, and if I can't solve the problem, I will give a call to the typewriter sales and repair shop up in Albuquerque (John Lewis' Mechanical Antiques) to see if they might be able to figure it out and do a fix. 

Well, that all said, I am going to get back to the Lettera and play around a bit. So far, I am pleased with the machine. It's built solid, types fine, and looks good. I especially like the pre-1960s round keys, which look more retro than the more squared keys that came in 1960. More later. Aloha.