Mechanical copy machine counter?

June 6, 2024 12:05 PM

Like 25 years ago, copy shops like Kinko's had mechanical counters about the size of a small TV remote that plugged in to the copy machine to activate it. They'd count your impressions with a rotating number, much like a combo lock or a mechanical people tally-clicker, and then you brought the counter up to pay. What is this called, and is it still made? Are there copy machines that are compatible still made?
posted by blnkfrnk to Technology (8 answers total)

My library has a system for printing - you choose print on the computer, then go to the printer, and copiers are really printers, and pay for the hob with an attached coin machine. Let me know and I'll ask about details.
posted by theora55 at 12:14 PM on June 6

I wish could remember the name of that gadget....in the late 70s/early 80s I worked at a large company where there were large "communal" Xerox machines and a few departments had smaller versions. I worked in Advertising which had one such machine and it required that cartridge-like insert you described in order to function. It had a tally-clicker type copy counter built in the end of it; the purpose being that if one was diligent the beginning and ending number on the copy meter would be jotted down after each use for accounting purposes. We were supposed to remove that thingy after each use so that folks from other departments couldn't wander in and use our Xerox (when, say, one of the communal machines was in use). I had to read the meters of all the corporate machines and turn in a monthly report and those numbers would eventually be applied to your departmental budget, etc. Of course folks would either forget to remove the gadget or they'd remove it and leave it some place they couldn't remember later and chaos would ensue because the Xerox was disabled until someone found that Thing Whose Name Is On the Tip of My Tongue.
posted by Oriole Adams at 12:53 PM on June 6 [1 favorite]

a resettable mechanical counter may have been placed in some kind of tamper resistant enclosure. Another key word seems to be "totalizer"
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 1:22 PM on June 6

If you prod your favourite search engine using the magical words "electromechanical pulse counter" you'll get several links to the devices at the heart of those copy-shop widgets.

Apart from being neatly enclosed the actual copy-shop TWNIOTTOMT likely has a connector that provides some identification to the copier so that you can't plug your company's Xerox TWNIOTTOMT into one of Kinko's.
posted by Stoneshop at 1:26 PM on June 6 [1 favorite]

Stoneshop, does that mean that printer companies created separate counter-serving circuits that let a little electricity through to the part of the machine where the counter attached when the process of copying was happening, or were they wired in to where power already would have been running/pulsing? (This is FASCINATING)
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:39 PM on June 6

Response by poster: I would also love to know more about how they work!
posted by blnkfrnk at 11:38 PM on June 6

a brief history of photocopier accounting
posted by latkes at 4:48 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]

Just looking at the requirement to attach some kind of counter to a copier while wearing my "I'm not a copier designer but I play one in my spare time if I wear this cap" cap, I would design a small circuit that taps into the 'start actual copy' signal and convert it to the voltage that the counter requires. It would also have some smarts (a microcontroller probably) that would a) communicate with a counterpart in the TWNIOTTOMT, to detect that the TWNIOTTOMT is matching and not from any of the other companies that have bought my copiers, and b) keep the main copier controller disabled as long as a matching TWNIOTTOMT is not plugged in.

The copiers not sold with the external counter option don't have this circuit and the TWNIOTTOMT connector installed, and a switch or a jumper on the main copier controller board enabling it permanently.
posted by Stoneshop at 9:04 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]