I remember my uncle put a motor on my grandmother's treadle machine that my aunt had.

http://indianapolis.craigslist.org/for/3878348341.html
sheesh - gravity gravity gravity...

if it doesn't do texts they don't have a clue how to use it do they - then they think it must be worth a bunch of money cause all Grandma's stuff is old... so was grandma... so is the dirt on the machine........

Yes, Unlike the "modern" ones that use a predefined cam to set the buttonhole, these are adjustable for length, width, and stitch width of the buttonhole. You can't do "keyhole" buttonholes but everything else is better IMO.

there is a YouTube video somewhere of a person using it that is cool to watch. I particularly like the sound they make in use.

I think I have an industrial one - that sucker is huge!

Ahhh, that's a beauty. Tickled me "pink" reading that... or maybe I got a tanning from all that smoke ;)

You know what's funny? The first time I got a PDA that took photos, all my first photos looked a bit like these.... until I realised they'd put one of those almost invisible clear dots over the lens of the camera to stop it getting scratched and I needed to remove it!!

This is the one of the slightly later Singer, but yes it is pretty much the same.