For all you youngsters, hereâs a history lesson. For all you oldies, hereâs a trip down memory lane.
Note the No Smoking signs. That is there due to the chemicals that were used.
Also note ⌠up until some time in the mid 1990s, staff were allowed to smoke in schools in the UK.
Oy! A trip down memory lane!
I went to a private high school. The oldest in the USA, founded in 1660. I did work study to help pay tuition (means I was a lackey for the administration).
One of my jobs was to run the Ditto machine (yep we did call it that) as well as an âAddressographâ, which was a machine that punched addresses into into metal plates and then could run those plate through rapidly to print on envelopes for the fund drives.
This was very, very important to the school and I quickly became the only person who knew how to fix it when it broke down. Same with the Ditto, which was a common occurrence. Rickety old things.
I remember getting pulled out of class weekly to fix one or the other, or to work on a find drive. They knew what was important.
I also remember learning to program a computer on a punch card.
Yeah, I remember those smelly purple copies from elementary school. Havenât thought about that it a while!
Hereâs one of the many I still have. All can be viewed using the link in my OP.
The puple ink. The slightly larger than A4 paper.
These are about 45 years old. Museum pieces! 
That was a âMimeographâ machine. Black ink was forced through the stencil that was made by using a typewriter with the ribbon removed to strike the blank stencil paper with the bare metal keys.
The âDittoâ machine made copies with purple graphics and that sweet smell.
Man, those old dittos held up well!
Well, the song was nice, the arrangement lush, the voice out of this world, but the lyrics??
It truly was a time when you didnât have to bother, hehe 
Weâre getting closer to figuring out why youâre called close2u, Richard
Roll up folks and lay your betsâŚ
Richard or Karen? 
So it was - thanks for the clarification. I should have been more discerning when selecting a video.
@brianlarsen too funny, too true ⌠and as for my moniker ⌠??? I like to keep some things private.
@Richard_close2u Itâs a little hard to take your privacy statement seriously when you made it your username. Iâm going with Richard. Come on, out with it 
I remember all the âdittoâ hand outs in grammar school. I too remember the smell. We used to smell the papers when they were delivered to the classroom hot off the presses. Yeah, we probably shouldnât have but ten year olds arenât always the sharpest tools in the shed.
People were sniffing everything in those days !
Now Iâve seen the picture, eeee gods yes I remember them. Guess I never knew their name, was just a copier to me. I was young and naĂŻve.
Apparently too naĂŻve to be sniffing ditto paperâŚ.
Weird never did any of that stuff, despite it being all over. Was happy with beer n bikes. 
Hi Richard
I do remember using one back in the mid 1970âs when I worked in the UK (now live in the US). We used them to duplicate build of Materials and other forms. You made a âmasterâ sheet and then used a hand crank to make copies. I think the chemicals was a mix of methylated sprits and ? Still remember the smell. Fond memories
Maybe youâre just too young, and they werenât being used anymore by the time you were in school. You couldnât help but notice the smell of fresh dittos when they were handed out.
I came across this thread in a roundabout way, and looked at the pics of the handwritten scores.
One thing that stood out was Scarborough Fair - something I learned when I first tried guitar 20 odd years ago.
Couldnât remember the chord sequence, so seeing this was a breath of fresh air 
I not only remember Dittos that the teacher would hand out but that if we were instructed to put our heads down on the desk, the desk too smelled like Dittos! I had totally forgotten those things but this thread brought it all back⌠long, long time ago!!!
Tod
They were used through mid-80s
