IBM Selectric

The IBM Selectric typewriter (occasionally known as the IBM Golfball typewriter) was an influential model line of electric typewriters. It was introduced in 1961.

Instead of a "basket" of pivoting typebars the Selectric had a pivoting type element (frequently called a "typeball") that could be changed so as to display different fonts in the same document, resurrecting a capacity that had been pioneered by the moderately successful Blickensderfer typewriter sixty years before. The Selectric also replaced the traditional typewriter's moving carriage with a paper roller ("platen") that stayed stationary while the typeball and ribbon mechanism moved from side to side.

Selectrics and their descendants eventually captured 75 percent of the United States market for electric typewriters used in business.