Thursday, May 31, 2012

User Manual - Late '70s Hermes Baby/ Rocket (French)

It has been a while since I last put up a manual, mainly because I only have non-English ones; they are all in German or French. It seemed hardly worth it since most of my readers are English speakers. Also, most typewriters are fairly straightforward to use and I suppose I have gotten used to finding my way around them without ever referring to the manuals (many of the ones I find come without, as well).

Still, I have benefited greatly from other manuals posted online - what would I have done without Alan Seaver's Remington Portable and Noiseless manuals, without which I was at a loss to even unlock the carriage? I still need to refer to those occasionally - sometimes I take out a machine I haven't used in a while and discover that in the meantime I have forgotten how these little functions work, since they vary from one maker to the other. These days, having acquired a couple of sewing machines, I have a whole new appreciation for how crucial the user manual can be to getting the most out of any machine!

So, a recent reader request for the manual of the last Hermes Baby produced (mainly in Brazil, but also a few in Germany) motivated me to copy and scan this manual. I have shared it on ScribD and embedded the PDF in this post - this is a first for me, so I hope it works for everyone. You should also be able to download and print it if desired.  Hermes Baby User Manual_French

5 comments:

  1. Even thought I do not speak French and forget most of my German, I find the manuals are still useful. I like the diagrams of the machines where the functions are called out by number. Just having something pointed out in this manner can solve a problem; like that of unlocking the carriage.

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  2. What a great way to learn French!

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  3. Wow, almost one year after this was posted, I scrounged the ol' Hermes Baby out of my parent's claws. It hasn't been opened for a couple of decades at least and I'll be restoring it.

    The manual in french that you posted helped me go through the initial fase of testing and cleaning. I was very young when I used it and I didn't remember some of the quirks in operating a manual typewriter. I was also able to find a link with a spanish version of the manual, and I'll be using it to 'take over' where the french version let off.

    Thank you very much for your post, and before I started googling around for information, I had no idea that the Hermes Baby was so sought after. Cheers from Brazil ;)

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  4. Ops, sorry, forgot the post the link for the spanish manual:

    http://pt.scribd.com/doc/96650289/Manual-Hermes-Baby

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  5. So the Baby and the Rocket are the same? I had a Rocket in the US that I couldn't bring when we moved to Zürich. I was wondering why I couldn't find a Rocket on EBay or Ricardo!

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