13 Feb 2015

Icelandic Olivetti Ico

1948  |  Olivetti MP1 Ico  |  120252


















Excerpt from Beowulf



Here is a video of me typing with it:


Sent from my new Olivetti MP1 Ico

And of course you can learn all about Iceland, Old English, eð, and þorn on wikipedia.

15 comments:

  1. Awesome Ico, worth the fight!

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  2. Very beautiful typewriter!

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  3. The ICOs are damn sexy, aren't they! As I found with my Invicat - which shares the same mechanicals - it wasn't awful, but not the greatest typewriter to type on but they look damn sexy. Great score!

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    1. That they are! Ours are pretty much twins with different names, right?

      There's something a bit fun with using them, despite their imperfections.

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  4. Ok, I am always self-impressed by my ability to deal with the Z/Y thing, but my hat is now off to you, sir! :D

    As always, a beautiful addition to your herd. (:

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    1. It's taken me a lot of practice, and of course I couldn't have typed that without previous knowledge of eð and þorn!

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  5. Great post, Nick, and lovely photographs. Fun reading with the Icelandic characters.

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    1. I'm hoping it wasn't too difficult and detracting from the content!

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  6. A wonderful typecast, Nick, in every regard: subject, history, language, typing skill---even opinions! Your usual excellent photography complements the typecast.

    One detail though, because crowdsourcing works: the Good Roads Movement began in the US in the late 1870s and was an effort by bicyclists. The 1900 date implies that the automobile ascendancy was responsible for smoothed surfaces, pavement, and useful signage but that is not so. More at for those interested.

    Keep up the great work. You're a credit to the internet.
    == Michael Höhne

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    1. Thanks for your wonderful comment. I try to make my blog appealing in as many regards as possible, not only for myself, but for people like you who appreciate that. :)

      I knew I should have paid more attention to my research! I spent all my time on the Iceland half that I was drawing on years-old knowledge about the good roads movement and didn't bother to check the details. Some of the roads built in Iceland were built over existing really poor roads, but many of them were entirely new, not even built over walking paths.

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  7. Fabulous!

    þ and ð must be challenging sounds for the human mouth, because I think they are rare in the languages of the world. In addition to English and Icelandic, Spanish has them, at least in Castilian pronunciation. (The Andalusian pronunciation assimilates þ to s and then this became the typical dialect in Spanish America.)

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    1. Oh yeahhh! I knew I'd heard þ somewhere else. They really are both quite rare sounds these days. 1,500 years ago they were common in most Germanic languages though, and up until the 1500s, at least present in more languages than now.

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    2. ð survives in all Spanish dialects; it's the pronunciation of "d" after a vowel.

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  8. Great fun reading about this sexy looking machine, thanks! ~TH~

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  9. That sounds so great, My father just bought one at a second hand shop for very cheap, and i have been trying to fix it. The spring or motor is kind of broken (every time i wind it up, it works great until the slide passes the moter and it just totally rewind itself.
    How do you wind yours?

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