I'm sure they still make this stuff, or maybe they don't? Sure they do. Hell, youngsters would say, "whazzit" and "howzzit" and even think it was for wrapping foodstuffs. No, even in the 80's, when I couldn't afford a DIME for COPIES, I got me some PRIMO MEAD CARBON PAPER. Black gold as Klinger called it when he denied Major Winchester a few slices to do his taxes.
See, at one time, the "photostat" (a copy of something) was the thing of fairy tales for non commercial users. If we wanted a copy of something, while we were typing it on typewriters (keyboards not on a screen) we would have to double what we were writing with a piece of carbon paper and a second sheet in the "typewriter." Oh yeah, if you made a mistake and were lucky to have an erasable "ribbon" on your "typewriter" or even an eraser WHEEL or eraser PENCIL , it still meant that your "carbon copy" was going to have that error. Back in my day...
Of course, times changed. Personal copiers became affordable, but anybody with the need to maybe run 15 copies a year would be nuts to spend that $300-500 on a copier. Of course, there was always 10 cents at the local drug store to whip out a copy, but "Dimes worth of gas, up my ass" was the saying. I was a cheapdog.
I needed to make copies of a script I was writing for the show I worked on called "Under The Shelf". A few folks from the college radio station I worked for agreed to read my horrible scripts, so I wrote a parody of either "Quantum Leap" or "Peewee's Playhouse" or some other inane attempt to be funny and hip. Could I run down the street to Drug Mart or the post office or Office Max copy center to make the extra copies I needed? Nahhh. Cheapdog.
I can see what I done writted! It's my tried and true "parody within a parody" scripting technique. (Hack) Actually, this technique is popular now with all the fancy TV shows and cartoons so maybe I was a pioneer. I had written "Stephen and Elyese" from Family Ties a part within my Under The Shelf parody. It appears Alex liked eggs and came home from school sick? Comedy ensued.
Seriously though, this is the kind of stuff we went through to make a copy. You see copiers now that are few and far between since everybody just takes a picture of it and sends it out. Simpler times and dirtier fingers. Anybody need some low mileage "Black Gold"?
Arf! -Ricochet
Boomer
I like how it says Management Series, like they're somehow exclusive, but probably is a useless claim.
I've used carbons too, long ago for typing out radio letters, so I could remember what I'd written, and I wrote with carbons too, but very little, probably just to play. Mom had very old ones in her stationary box, but they still worked, and it was fun to write something and have a copy of it.
When copiers were getting table size, I did dream I had one, so that I could publish my own newsletters. Long ago, the local fire hall's flea market had a Ditto machine I would have wanted too, but then I'd need to get Dittos and spirit fluid so I could print.
Day to day though I rarely need to copy or print something out, monthly, if that, but then it will be a job of 4-5 pages. So much ink has dried up, waiting for me to print.
Boomer
Ricochet replied to comment from Boomer
That's why I finally said the hell with it and bought a laser printer. I got tired of spending $30 for ink that would dry out from not using the printer for three months. Funny how my first printer was as generic and cheap as it got, a "Apollo" printer by HP. It lasted 9 years, maybe had 4-5 cartridge replacements. Since then, I've been through two more. One stopped working, my latest had two carts go dry in the year I've owned it. (And since the color cart was dry, it wouldn't work without it.) -Ricochet