pansypoo's personal rant page.

Any chance you're thinking of a ditto machine? Bright purple ink, some kind of alcohol based solvent, no skill required to operate.

You can still get rubber cement. If all you want to do is stick a couple of pieces of paper together, a glue stick is a lot handier.
 

could be. purpleish ink. tho i bet schools had mimeographs. and the church for bulletins. i seem to rememer machines about the size as pictured. what's a ditto machine?

yeah. rubber cement isn't the handiest.
 

The Ditto (apparently a trademark) machine: Type the original with something like carbon paper (this will be the ink supply for printing) onto a plastic "plate." Wrap the plate around a drum. The solvent causes a little bit of the ink to transfer to each copy. Not good for really long runs. I used one several times when I was in H.S.

I never understood or used a mimeograph. I think the "plate" was something like fabric and wax or the absence thereof.
 

i think ditto was an updated simpler mimeograph. both have 'drums'.
 

The Ditto was simpler and they both had drums, but the ink supply was a critical difference. When all the ink wore off the Ditto master, you were done. If you needed more copies, you had to type a new master.
 

well, seems the ditto is still a bit simpler. can't go back to school and ask either. and then-THE XEROX!
 

Ditto machines have ink impregnated into the stencil paper that is activated by a chemical in the drum, they are a technological update of the mimeograph. A mimeograph forces ink from the drum and into the stencil. The Mimeograph machine pictured here is not an edison, it is a 1904 A.B. Dick machine.