[GreenKeys] Inktronic, the enduring purple

[jhhaynes at earthlink.net]

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005, Fred Hatfield wrote:

> Visited Teletype many times during the time the INKTRONIC was
> being developed.  The development engineers were identifiable in the lunch
> room because they all had purple-ink covered hands
>
And you could track where the project had been in the R&D building by all
the purple stains on the floor.  Also the purple ink figured prominently
in some of the skits that were performed at the retirement party for
Walt Zenner, the V.P. of R&D (and later co-founder of Extel Corp.)

Work on Inktronic started in the Wrightwood building before the move to
Touhy Ave.  One of my friends who worked on the project told this story.
He was mixing up some ink, stirring the purple dye into a beaker of hot
solution.  He told me the name of the solvent but I forget now - something
like diallyl phthalate.  Anyway the beaker was not Pyrex and it broke,
spilling the hot stuff all down the front of him.  And there were nothing
like chemical safety showers in that building, because we had never done
chemical work before.  So he remembers running through a conference room
to the nearest men's room and trying to get cold water all over him to
stop the burning.