# What were those terrible tissue paper copiers called in the 1970's? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 1, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-those-terrible-tissue-paper-copiers-called-in-the-1970s/620556 "2012-05-01T20:56:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-those-terrible-tissue-paper-copiers-called-in-the-1970s/620556/21 "2012-05-02T11:17:22Z")
Spirit duplicators (ditto machines) and mimeographs are two different things. It’s ditto machines that had the purple ink and strong smell. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-those-terrible-tissue-paper-copiers-called-in-the-1970s/620556/22 "2012-05-02T11:36:18Z")
I remember that one of my teachers used to take his dittos and use some kind of process to “burn” the writing onto a transparency sheet, which he would then use on the overhead projector. I never know what that burning process was. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-those-terrible-tissue-paper-copiers-called-in-the-1970s/620556/23 "2012-05-02T11:41:03Z")
Heh heh; reminds me of when I went out with a teacher in the 70’s; after a party she threw up over her banda copies- purple vomit everywhere… ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-those-terrible-tissue-paper-copiers-called-in-the-1970s/620556/24 "2012-05-02T14:28:35Z")
ISTM that a lot of science fiction from that era featured that flimsy thermal paper --lots of information circulating on fax-type machines and printed out on little slips that were often actually called “flimsies” or something similar. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-those-terrible-tissue-paper-copiers-called-in-the-1970s/620556/25 "2012-05-02T15:25:20Z")
And I thoughti made up the word “flimsies” just for my post above. ::sound of deflating ego:: ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-those-terrible-tissue-paper-copiers-called-in-the-1970s/620556/26 "2012-05-02T17:34:53Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > And I thoughti made up the word “flimsies” just for my post above. > > ::sound of deflating ego:: Heh. This would have been funny coming from **Hari Seldon**. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-those-terrible-tissue-paper-copiers-called-in-the-1970s/620556/27 "2012-05-02T17:47:50Z")
[QUOTE=Acsenray] I remember that one of my teachers used to take his dittos and use some kind of process to “burn” the writing onto a transparency sheet, which he would then use on the overhead projector. I never know what that burning process was. [/QUOTE] That would be a 3M Transparency Maker. Oddly enough, those dinosaurs are still seeing regular use at tattoo shops. I used to work at the school’s AV department, and I probably made a couple thousand “overheads” on one of those machines. AFAIK, the process steals a bit of toner from the original - just a guess there, but I do recall there was a lot of heat involved and no ink or toner for the machine itself. I also recall that the process involved so much heat that the machine coud self-destruct if it jammed - there was a sign on the thing that if it jammed, the user was to immediately pull the plug and open the lid. ---
**Author:** ![CaptMurdock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captmurdock/32/11736_2.png) [@CaptMurdock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaptMurdock)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-those-terrible-tissue-paper-copiers-called-in-the-1970s/620556/28 "2012-05-02T17:53:09Z")
> [@Kiwi\_Fruit](#): > > I remember Gestetner machines. I looked them up and found they were similar to the mimeograph in process. Also called cyclostyle, which was an alternative term used at school. > > They produced a black printed sheet without the characteristic smell or purple print of the spirit duplicator, which I can’t for the life of me remember what we called. It may have been banda machine, as in the UK. A sci-fi convention that I worked at back in the early nineties used a Gestetner. I remember thinking they were the evolutionary missing link between the mimeograph and the photocopier. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-those-terrible-tissue-paper-copiers-called-in-the-1970s/620556.md?page=1)