Mimeos at my schools. Google says mimeograph and ditto machines did the same thing with the same purple ink but used different mechanisms. I’ve never heard of a ditto machine.
Why not just use a photocopier? How were these machines different?
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Photocopier? What’s that? You must be younger than the rest of us.
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I don’t mean to sound like a young whippersnapper, but didn’t photocopy machines exist then?
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My poor school didn’t have the money for a “Xerox.” We also used abacuses and engraving tools on our cave walls, so no white boards. Getting to clap the erasers and getting chalk dust all over yourself was a reward for good behavior.
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they didnt exist then!!! AFAIK or if they did, they were uber expensive to run.
I think not.
And this is starting to resemble the “You know you’re old when” thread.
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- 1949: The Haloid Company (which later became Xerox Corporation) released the first commercial electronic copier, the Model A.
- 1959: The iconic Xerox 914 office copier was introduced, becoming the first truly successful and user-friendly plain-paper copier for the commercial market.
Businesses had them, schools didn’t. At least in my area.
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I added above, I think they were $$$$ to to operate and the public schools were probably on a budget (and the ditto machine smelled great! )
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So, @skieurope and I are right — photocopiers did exist.
(And in no way am I trying to imply that he and I are close in age, because we most certainly are not 
)
Photocopiers in those days used a weird paper that was activated by heat and tended to curl up and turn brown in no time at all. Our public library had them. But for mimeographs you typed on the special paper and then made copies from that. It couldn’t copy a book. I think that when I was an intern on Capitol Hill they had nicer photocopiers. It’s also the first place I saw a fax machine. (early 1970s)
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Yep. I’m guessing schools were generally decades behind in technology. And probably chock full of all sorts of chemicals and substances that were bad for us. Fun times!
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Yep, you had a special “master” that you ran the copies from. Each unique page you wanted to duplicate required its own master.
(This is so much more fun than getting ready for bed.)
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oh thats right! The copies not only were a sepia color (and IIRC sometimes burned) but they faded too, yes?
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Actually, in both HS and college, I still had classrooms with chalkboards
I was actually jokingly going to ask, “Why didn’t they just hit the print button to send the material to the printer?” But I legitimately had no idea photocopiers weren’t common in schools back in the day. That’s 2 “I was today years old when I learned” today. 
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Shouldn’t you be moderating something? I’m sure it’s past your bedtime.
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For chemistry nerds among us… Anyone who ever had to write a chemistry paper before computers have been adapted to create chemical structures probably remembers this tool:
Then ChemWindow and ChemDraw came… no more screaming and ripping hair out when a structure had to be redrawn.
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Naw, it’s relatively quiet this week.
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