Typewriters

[NedC]

I don't use them. I don't like them. I can appreciate their mechanical ingeniousness but I have always found them cumbersome, even painful to use and the clattering noises they make are extremely annoying.

[welch]

1. I think the FP has outlasted the typewriter. Somewhere above should be a news article announcing that the last typewriter company, a firm in India, had closed up.

 

2. I argue that the fountain pen has nearly outlasted the expensive ballpoint...the ballpoint so valuable that people bought refills but kept the pen. Most of the balpoint-writers I see, now, are using throw-aways, like the Papermate Profile.

 

(Of course, I am writing this on a microcomputer keyboard, and you are reading on a micro screen, intermediated by dozens of computers with various purposes. Interesting that the stylus is finally gaining traction...only been about 25 years since I began reading that the stylus would enable all-electronic writing.)

[Wahl]

I have two, portables. A mechanical Hermes Baby, and an electric Olivetti.

 

The first one belonged to my father. I don´t use them, but keep them as I keep my old mechanical cameras.

 

If I had more space at home, I would have more, I just love anything mechanical.

[Blade Runner]

They're cool. It's like having a miniature letter press. Occasionally use my dad's portable Royal for envelopes and forms and mostly just for retro fun.

Edited September 22, 2013 by Blade Runner

[ravantra]

I read somewhere that new Typewriters are no longer made. Some years ago I saw some on sale still at Walmart. They looked really cheap.

 

I own one from the early 1980's when in college I had to write some papers. I wrote a handful of papers on it but then my brother had acquired an Atari computer and I wrote all my paper on a computer since.

[ac12]

I used a Royal dual ribbon/film electric when I went to college. I typed so much that my mother had to have the typewriter overhauled after I graduated. I would have killed to have a word processor back then. The Royal did not have an "erase" key, so mistakes were fixed the old fashioned way, an eraser or "white out." But all that typing did make me a fast typist. Years later my girlfriend, who was the word processing supervisor, had me do a speed test, and I matched most of the girls in her dept for both speed and accuracy.

 

I used to have a Smith Corona portable. It was a nice compact typewriter. The neat part was the ribbon/film cartridges. I could switch colors. My favorite was brown flim on off white/cream paper. That created an "old world" look that I still like.

 

Today, every time I have to do a form, I wish I had a typewriter handy.

No matter what the computer guys say I have not run into a situation where you can replace a typewriter.

Even today, you get a form off the comptuer, but you have to fill it out, by hand (some times illegibly)...or a typewriter.

 

I have an old Selectric, that is in need of an overhaul, to clean out the old dry lube. I hope I can still find the ribbons for it. But more difficult is, can I find someone who can still repair/overhaul it?

The portable Brother typewriter is not the same, it is a lot harder to line up a form.

 

I have a funny story about typewriter.

This was YEARS ago, when everybody was getting rid of the manual typewriters and converting to electric typewriters.

Well there was a power failure, and some documents HAD TO BE DONE that day. They went rumaging through all the closets and storage rooms looking for a manual typewriter. I almost fell off my chair laughing at the guys who said to "throw those antiques away."

 

Even today, I have that argument with some of the young IT guys who want to put everything on the comptuer.

I tell them, "when you have a power failure, your recovery checklist had better be on paper in a binder, because that electronic checklist is on one of the comptuers that can't be turned on."

[sandy101]

I have an Imperial Mercury, which I use. I also have a Adler Tippa which just about works, and an German Olympia which is just too heavy to use. I bought them on e-bay, along with new ribbons. I stopped buying them when I had one that worked OK as I wasn't seeking to start a collection. Whilst it is certainly true that the machines worked, the machines had

 

I use it as a drafting tool. Because there is no delete key on a typewriter it means that you can only go forward and cannot spend time fiddling about with a sentence or paragraph on a computer, and have to go forward. The second draft occurs on a computer when I've got a hard copy to work from.

[Shangas]

 

I have a funny story about typewriter.

This was YEARS ago, when everybody was getting rid of the manual typewriters and converting to electric typewriters.

Well there was a power failure, and some documents HAD TO BE DONE that day. They went rumaging through all the closets and storage rooms looking for a manual typewriter. I almost fell off my chair laughing at the guys who said to "throw those antiques away."

Even today, I have that argument with some of the young IT guys who want to put everything on the comptuer.

I tell them, "when you have a power failure, your recovery checklist had better be on paper in a binder, because that electronic checklist is on one of the comptuers that can't be turned on."

 

 

A few years ago, we had an old printer that was extremely temperamental. It jammed and froze and failed constantly.

 

I got so frustrated with it, that I bought a portable Underwood as an "insurance policy".

[Keyless Works]

I have an Olympia SM9 because I love mechanical things. I don't really use it for anything though; correspondence is written with a fountain pen and for work a typewriter doesn't look professional.

Edited September 22, 2013 by Keyless Works

[WaskiSquirrel]

I have an old portable Smith Corona mechanical typewriter. I haven't used it since I got my first computer in 1994. I enjoy the old fashioned fountain pen. However, I find that the computer is far superior, less noisy, and easier to fix than the typewriter.

[colrehogan]

I just bought a portable Smith Corona which after a minor fix of a piece by the local typewriter repair shop, I'm going to clean up and use. I've recently been spending time on the Typewriter Talk forum and acquired a few others (three of them from my parents' basement). I know, this is an old thread. What the heck! I am even corresponding with people on the forum that way. It's fun and I enjoy it.

[kernando]

I just bought a portable Smith Corona which after a minor fix of a piece by the local typewriter repair shop, I'm going to clean up and use. ...

 

Good that there's still a local repair shop. What model?

[ac12]

I just got my Selectric II serviced, and I've been using it to fill out forms. It is so much nicer than filling out the forms by hand. No more excuses by the other side that they can't read my handwriting.

 

The old Selectric works so much better than the cheap typewriters that Office Supply stores sell. On one, a Brother, I could not even align the typewriter vertically to type where I want to. There was no index/marker to show me where it will type. So typing on a line or in a box was hit or miss, usually miss. The other thing that is bad about the cheap electric typewriters of today. Like point and shoot cameras, there is a delay between when you press the key and when the typewriter types. This is really disconcerting, because my ear tells my brain that that the letter I pressed was typed. It is almost like dealing with a stutter, I had to ignore the sound of the typewriter or I got messed up.

 

Kernando, if you need to get a typewriter serviced/fixed, Los Altos Business Machines did my Selectric. I'm happy. They have good reviews.

I think there is a guy in Oakland also.

Edited August 12, 2015 by ac12

[ISW_Kaputnik]

A twice revived antique thread!

 

I still have the Smith Corona "portable" mechanical typewriter that got me through college in the 1970s. I can't bring myself to throw it away, and when I searched for the model on eBay, I saw that they were going for under $50 plus postage; at this point the memories are worth more than that.

 

Once every alternate blue moon I take it out and type a page or two, perhaps writing a letter with it, but this is one area where I prefer modern technology. Typing this post on my little Mac keyboard is much more comfortable, and all the computer editing functions are a good thing.

 

At one point I got some new ribbons for it, and gave it to my mother, since she flatly refuses to have anything to do with computers. Unfortunately, her physical limitations increased to the point where she could not use it, and she gave it back.

[ac12]

 

A twice revived antique thread!

 

 

Hey typewriters are cool.

Just like a fountain pen, there is a place for it.

Funny to see all sorts of labels for the computer/printer. to try to fill the gap created when the typewriter was removed.

But you still can't fill out forms with labels; it is by hand or a typewriter.

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I had a Sears-by-Smith-Corona portable typebar electric, many years ago. I got rid of it, and bought a Silver-Reed Penman portable daisywheel (and eventually had it fitted with a parallel interface card), back in the 1980s, after an incident in which, after carrying it up the hill at CSU Long Beach at a dead run, I was so exhausted that I had a temporary visual impairment (that scared the scat out of me).

 

I still have the Silver-Reed, although it's been years since I've used it.

 

I also have my late grandmother's old hammertone-gray Olympia.

[Water Ouzel]

My father bought me a Royal Safari portable typewriter during my junior of high school (I think). It worked well enough, but it was pretty heavy to lug about, so I sold it after graduation.

 

I then got an Olivetti Lettera 32, similar to the Lettera 22 my father had used for years, for writing papers and reports through college. Cannot remember what ever happened to it, though. Still think it was an elegant little machine.

[ac12]

I'm trying to resist going back to the typewriter repair shop...to look at their older typewriters.

It would be one more $$$ hobby.

[kernando]

Electrics have no soul. But will Selectrics eventually become cool? At least with those, people can use a collection of golf balls.

 

Maybe I should lug a manual portable or two down the peninsula.

[Alma]

I use my typewriter quite often. I write texts and also let them be published. Before I send them to my lector I rewrite my text two times.

The first draft is always written with a fountain pen because I only write with fountain pens. I can write really fast cursive with fountain pens so the text just flows.

The second draft is written in my Olympia Traveller deluxe. I takes some effort and so I write slow. Also I can see the text the first time typed and I think it changes a lot.

And the last draft is typed on my MacBook.

 

I think the Lamy 2000, the Olympia Traveller deluxe and MacBook (Air) are great design objects and I just love to work with them.