Cyclostyle (copier)

A cyclostyle is a kind of copier that people used to use in the olden days. It was like a big machine that looked kind of like a giant sewing machine.

Here's how it worked:

First, you had to make a special type of paper with a waxy coating on it. This paper was called a stencil.

Then, you would put the stencil into the machine and use a special pen to write or draw on it. The pen had a little toothbrush-like thing on the end, and when you wrote with it, it made tiny holes in the stencil where the wax had been scraped away.

After you had finished writing or drawing, you would put some ink on a roller that was inside the machine. The roller would roll over the stencil and the ink would go into the little holes that you had made with the pen.

Finally, you could put a regular piece of paper onto the machine and press down on a lever. This would transfer the ink from the stencil onto the paper, making a copy of whatever you had written or drawn.

Cyclostyles were very popular back in the day because they were cheap and easy to use. They were used a lot by teachers, churches, and other organizations that needed to make lots of copies of things like worksheets, newsletters, or bulletins. Nowadays, we have fancier copiers and printers that work a lot faster and make better copies, but the cyclostyle was a pretty cool invention for its time!