Typewriter typeball. This technology was used in the early electronic typewriters. This 'golfball' typewriter is a Selectric typewriter manufactured by the American company IBM from 1961. The older typebars were replaced by this pivoting typeball that struck an inked strip (reeled through the spool across bottom). This printed the letter or other character on the paper. This allowed faster typing speeds and also avoided clashing typebars. The typeball could be changed to change the font size and type. The pica 72 label is the font size. The Selectric typeballs had between 88 and 96 characters.