n. The IBM 2741, a slow but letter-quality
printing device and terminal based on the IBM Selectric typewriter.
The 'golf ball' was a round object bearing reversed embossed
images of 88 different characters arranged on four meridians of
latitude; one could change the font by swapping in a different golf
ball.
This was the technology that enabled APL to use a
non-EBCDIC, non-ASCII, and in fact completely non-standard
character set.
This put it 10 years ahead of its time -- where it
stayed, firmly rooted, for the next 20, until character displays
gave way to programmable bit-mapped devices with the flexibility to
support other character sets.
