You probably could have guessed that Printeresting’s favorite character from AMC’s Madmen is the Xerox 914 that makes its debut in the first episode of season two. A hard-drinkin’ and hard-smokin’ machine for a hard-drinkin’ and hard-smokin’ era! That said, a close second is Ned the Xerox Repairman. Beneath that charm and charisma lies the inky heart of a true print aficionado.
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I had a girlfriend who’s grandfather was a Xerox salesman in the beginning of the industry. Xerox had complete proprietary equipment, paper, toner and misc supplies. The “real” money was in the consumables back in the day as you couldn’t just stick any old paper in from what I understand.
The character depicted in the clip is not based on the reality of those days as related by my GF’s grandpa. The reality was that the early salesmen had to be kind of thuggish. They had to protect their turf from other vendors. GF’s grandpa told tales of baseball bat intimidation against other turf invading supply salesmen.
so reality was more like “gangs of new york” than madmen? bizarre.
This was in Ohio so I would imagine that New York City was pretty fierce as well.
Or he just could have been pulling my leg… ah err… pulling my cartridge.
[...] Follows Function Posted by RL Tillman on February 9th, 2010 | Leave a comment We’ve seen the Past, is this the Future of the Copy [...]