As a general assignment reporter for a Bay Area newspaper, I banged away on an IBM Selectric back in the day. I still have the first typewriter I bought with the winnings from an essay contest I entered at my Catholic high school. My French teacher at St. Basil's also taught touch-typing, and I became quite the speed demon. My skills came in handy as a temp when I needed money to travel overseas. Can't wait to see this film.
Now I know where I can get my IBM Selectric diesel/electric repaired
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I can hear the sound of my Mother's IBM humming right now. She was a very fast typist.
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I've still got the Selectric I bought in 1968, on the installment plan, from IBM—apparently one of the first people they sold a machine to who didn't work in an office. I bought it to work on my fanzine. After having it serviced in the 90s, I put it in my closet, where it remains to this day. (It was superseded by several generations of Macintoshes.)
Cuyler Warnell "Ned" Brooks, a longtime friend, was a serious collector of typewriters and their associated ephemera. He was one of a nationwide group of typewriter enthusiasts who now connect via the Internet.
And while the Times noted recently that typewriter production in India—a bastion of pre-computer technology—recently ended, enthusiasm and support for the machines, like that for cassette tapes and vinyl records, has come roaring back.
Cuyler Warnell "Ned" Brooks, a longtime friend, was a serious collector of typewriters and their associated ephemera. He was one of a nationwide group of typewriter enthusiasts who now connect via the Internet.
And while the Times noted recently that typewriter production in India—a bastion of pre-computer technology—recently ended, enthusiasm and support for the machines, like that for cassette tapes and vinyl records, has come roaring back.
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Great point about not being able to follow the development of a creative work
I still have the baby-blue and white Royal manual I used to type my college papers and, for the first three years on the job, my stories. I no longer use my Royal, but I will never give it away. If I had more room, I'd put it on display. I still fret over the beautiful antique Underwood that disappeared overnight when I stored a few boxes in a carport during a move 25 years ago. My Macs just don't move me in the same way.
I've walked by this little gem many times and occasionally popped in to buy ink for my printer. I love the f" feel" of the shop and the helpfulness of the folks that run it. The typewriters in the window are wonderful to behold in their beauty.
Now I know where to take my old clunker beast for a tuneup
Timely review. I am sort of a student of office automation and a retired computer guy. My Italian twin nephews were over to our village house the other day and I showed them one of the most amazing things about the QWERTY keyboard that everyone uses on their computer. It is the same keyboard layout from the first typewriters circa 1870. The purpose of the QWERTY keyboard was to make you type as slow as possible! Otherwise the letters on the typebar would stick together. Thus your fingers and hands have to move a great deal to type a single word. However, the typewriter salesperson had to convince the potential buyer that spending (in todays money) several hundreds or thousands of dollars for a device that was better than a pen and paper. So, long story short, the QWERTY keyboard has one long word in the QWERTY row so that the salesman could bang it out quickly in a demonstration. That word?? Typewriter. Check it out.
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These people also like to carry heavy leather suitcases instead of wheeling them easily through the airport. I am delighted not to hear the noise of the typewriter or change a ribbon!
Just one thing. In the 50's my parents bought me a portable Smith-Corona. It was a model of excellent solid industrial design. Actually, I think it was beautiful. If I'm right, I saw one in the shop in the trailer to the movie.
Plumbing the minds of the famous will be harder without paper copies of correspondence, diaries, and so on. But as for us non-famous folks... I for one will soon start crumpling my 60 years' worth of diary pages to use day by day as woodstove tinder.
Neither of my kids has the room to store it or, frankly, the interest in reading it. And I don't really want to re-live it. Memories, until they evaporate, will do.
Neither of my kids has the room to store it or, frankly, the interest in reading it. And I don't really want to re-live it. Memories, until they evaporate, will do.
Please do not destroy your correspondence, diaries, etc. Your kids may not be interested today or even in 10 years, but believe me there is a very good chance they'll be interested when they approach retirement age or their own children start asking questions about family history and genealogy. I can't tell you how many times that I have said, or have heard other people say, that they wish they’d asked more questions of their grandparents and/or had original family documents, personal diaries, or the old family Bible containing a written record of important events like births, deaths, marriages, family travels, reunions, hopes and plans - basically any and all written records documenting family genealogy, including but not limited to the above basic events. Also valued are documented personal thoughts, goals and dreams of the future.
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I have lots of manuscripts and letters from people, done on typewriters over the last hundred years. A precious few were done on computer (dot matrix or more recent technologies). Long after works done on computer have vanished into thin air, typewritten manuscripts will remain to be seen by future generations.
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