No backspace? Many has that. As for the ink….invariably it lasted for ages. Maybe if you’re a deadly serious secretary in a serious business. But for us regular people at home, almost never heard of replacing ink.
@@theOlLineRebel I can't count how many times I had to change ribbons on typewriters. Perhaps you didn't type much. Anyway, new ribbons to fit most models are still available online. I have a re-inker machine, so I can re-ink a ribbon and use it over and over till I wear holes in it.
@@philiplubduck6107 Ribbons don't cost that much. You'd have to buy paper for a printer anyway, if you need hard copies. If you're a good typist, you don't make many errors. If you make an error, there's Wite-Out and correction tape.
It's not just a nostalgia/hipster/sentimental thing. It's legit the most efficient way to quickly push out a body of text without needing to boot up a computer. The typewriter is not obsolete, there is absolutely a market for it.
It depends but even if its not most effective way i think that's not the point. Personally i believe people are slowly fed up with all this "smart" technology, constantly being accessible, signed and subscribed an connected even for efin kitchen sink and we will see renaissance of "dumb" offline old-school technologies and people going "off the grid" so the speak by limiting they internet access. i found my old Nokia 3310 that indestructible beast is still working and when i think about it it has anything that i need the only "real" thing that new smartphone is giving me are games when iam waiting somewhere sometimes maps everything else can wait when i come home and boot pc and frankly i don't even read mails on phone i just refuse be 24/7 in touch and working or dealing with issues directly or indirectly i have me time and my physical and mental health is better then ever.
My PC takes like 15 seconds to boot and I can get into word within the same minute. I think that’s most people’s experience now and will be the case more and more every year (due to higher prevalence in SSDs)
Now THAT'S the kind of rebellion I can get behind. 😊 Typewriters, landlines and vinyl records, radio, cinema are much more relaxed way of living than TV, cells and computers.
I told my husband years ago that a generation will come along that will reject all technology. For my own sanity, I turn my phone off when I go to bed on Saturday nights and don't turn it back on until 6pm Sunday night.
My phone is turned off at 9:00 PM every night. Monday through Thursday it is turned on at 6:00 AM. Friday through Sunday it remains off unless I need to use it.
I decided not to have a cellphone, as I don't want to be available 24/7/365. I like to be totally out of contact at night and any time I take a walk outside or take a ride in my car. My computer is in my home office, so I can leave it alone. It runs 24/7, as it will last longer that way. It's over 12 years old and works perfectly. And it keeps up with new software fine.
@@bite-sizedshorts9635 when I retire, I'm getting a landline and a flip phone. I live in rural America so having a phone in case of emergency is smart, I just don't need it to be a smart phone.
I recall reading somewhere you can actually get some clues about what someone was typing from the ink strip in the typewriter! It’s actually pretty fascinating. Mix this with analyzing the wear patterns on the keys, advanced modern imaging tech, and some other fun stuff you can figure what they were writing. If you have a document you can figure out exactly what type writer wrote it and recover deleted or obstructed text. This isn’t “hacking” in the traditional sense but it has some remarkable similarities
Back in 2002, i typed up an essay for my junior year. I didnt have a printer and my teacher requested we had it printed out. My teacher was so impressed that i used a typewriter. He announced it to my whole class. Miss that typewriter
I never grew up around typewriters (late twenties now) but got one, exactly for that purpose. I don’t have a printer and sometimes I need things physically, but don’t feel like going to the library to get it printed.
Your so right. You know, I just felt like I needed to ask, are you 100 percent sure that when you die you will go to heaven? I don’t usually comment like this, but your comment just stood out to me so much.
Is it the same way as taking notes on paper versus on computer? But I thought writing the words out by hand is better than pressing non-distinct buttons… so is it just the feeling of permanence?
@@ButWhyMe... Quick example when working on a manual typewriter, you need to be very conscious of what you are typing, no spell checker only yourself and a dictionary, one mistake, I have made a few whilst typing this reply to you lovely, isn't just a quick backspace and type again It is a painstaking process of rolling the paper feed, ensuring you count correctly the number of times you roll the paper back, to enable you to white out the mistake, make sure that it is dry and then get back to the line and in line with the one you were originally typing. I sincerely hope I explained and really haven't put you off trying a manual typewriter, I had an exercise in typing class one day, using different characters made a picture a lady in a crinoline dress, following a pattern supplied by my fab teacher, it did take a lot of concentration, however not being talented at art, I was able to create something in a medium that I was nearly competent in;-) Please give it a go, there are some amazing machines out there and they are a pleasure to use, Best wishes
@@ButWhyMe... It's actually hard to press the keys down...way harder than a computer keyboard. It really exercises the wrists and fingers. It's loud, in a good way. It is a challenge to get "fast" at typing on it. You have to push the keys really far down, not just a small distance, like with a computer keyboard.....like 3/4th an inch versus an 8th of an inch on a modern keyboard, depending on the machine. You can see the inner workings...watch the keys strike the paper and see the ink ribbon advance with each strike, unlike a computer where you have no idea what's going on inside. There is no spell-check. There is no backspace over a letter...once you type it, it's on the paper permanently unless you use correction tape, White-Out, or a special eraser.
Look into the "Dumb Phone" rebellion too! It's just like this but with adults opting for flip phones, old phones, or specially designed phones with zero social media or distractions! Love this. ❤
i miss my slide out keyboard phone. texting on a flip phone was faster and i could do it one handed without looking while driving and shifting gears no problem. 🍻
1969 I graduated HS, proficient in Gregg shorthand and typing 72 words per minute on a manual typewriter. I wanted to become an executive secretary in NYC. My first typing job in Manhattan was at Bergdorf Goodman typing invitations and envelopes for sales events. I achieved my goals from Park Ave., NYC to California St., SF -supporting top executives. Now retired and smiling at the memories of those days. I’m happy there is renewed interest in the typewriter.
@@suev3339 . . .the sound of the key strike and the carriage return was magical for me. I am still a fast typist. . .using one finger now on my iPad 🫣. When that cable show Mad Men came out, it took me right back to when I wore stockings, sling backs, and a dress every day to the office where people smoked, drank at lunch. . .and I had to address them as Mr.. . .🤔 The good old days -when you could not fake skills. Hope you’re doing well.
My older sister was just like you! She retired from a International Law firm in D.C. a few years ago and did quite well in life. I never got the hang of shorthand, but did type for a living and always hated it. lol
Were the Bergdorf envelopes light purple? Did they use high quality stationery? In my imagination, I see the BG invitations being quite lovely in that day💜.
When I was growing up in the 1970s, I was miserable in school because I was hopelessly dyslexic and teachers at the time just thought I was stupid. That all started to change when I began to play with my grandmothers manual typewriter and taught myself how to use it. Over the span of about a year and a half I became proficient at it and it "cured" my reading and spelling problem. Eventually, I started earning top grades and graduated with honors. I am certain that learning the correct use of a manual typewriter had a lot to do with my success in school and life in general.
@@silversilk8438Dyslexia isn't about comprehension. It's a glitch in the brain about processing the letters you're seeing. There are other disorders that affect reading comprehension, such as hyperlexia.
Former tutor here for children that fall under the dyslexic umbrella (which also includes dyscalculia and dysgraphia). A glitch in the brain is a good explanation. It is a disconnect between what is seen or heard and what is communicated in some form. People who fall under this umbrella tend to struggle with focus, energy control, communication in any form, processing, space awareness, and so on. Not all people under this umbrella are the same. People under this umbrella tend to have above average IQs, are artists, thinkers, and so on. More people fall under this umbrella than people who are "normal". Tactile objects, such as a typewriter, are tremendously helpful for all ranges of learning and comprehension. At younger ages, a break from learning every 20 minutes is a fabulous stress reducer. Dyslexics tend to do better with pictorial languages, reading is best started at age 10 (but not always)...with proper guidance they will catch up to their peers in a handful of weeks, starting too soon can cause a myriad of blocks that then need to be remolded, which in turn causes a delay in learning that is followed by unnecessary struggles. The dyslexic umbrella is hereditary and is almost not ever diagnosed unless it appears in academics. A person can have every symptom of this condition and not ever know why they do certain things because it didn't show up during the school years, if they were sent to school (versus home education)...and even then it could have been dismissed as something else. Dyslexia is greatly unsupported in all circles, including education, it has barely been noticed and acknowledged, even today, despite that a few specialized schools exist, or have existed. Even though it has gained recognition, it still doesn't receive the support that other learning conditions receive. Dyslexia used to be called word-blindness. Famous dyslexics include Whoppi Goldberg, Orlando Bloom, Albert Einstein, Jay Leno, Henry Winkler, Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Carl Jung, Napoleon Bonaparte, Mohammad Ali.
@@vegastrina Thanks for the explanation. How did they diagnose ol' Leonardo with dyslexia? (I ask it more as a rhetorical joke. I think he wrote his journals from left to write mirrored but... I don't think that's dyslexia.)
Ohhh...those fancy IBM Selectrics were the "Cadillac" of typewriters, back in the day. With the changeable "ball," and the ability to switch between Pica and Elite. Some of them must have had a memory buffer, and a very fast typist could finish typing, and the ball would continue for a few more keystrokes (that was magical).
I am a male. I took a typing class in high school back in 1971. It helped immensely as I began a 21 year career in computer programming. A typewriter was a necessity back then. It’s a novelty now.
My husband gave me a 1937 typewriter for Christmas a couple years ago. It was the most played with thing that Christmas day. I had grandkids here ranging from 5 to 29 years old and they loved it! I was surprised at how much the teenagers enjoyed typing with it. And it isn't an "easy touch"!
I learned to type on a manual that is nonelectric. I learned to love slamming the keys. I still find it funny that I scored low on speed tests because I was typing so fast the parts that strike the paper got stuck to each other. Being too fast made me too slow.
@@deckiepoofor some reason mine was always “I will always be the king.” It wasn’t a statement of any kind. I think maybe it’s the distribution of those letters on the keyboard combined with my typing ability at the time when I first wrote it. The quick brown fox was just too much. Purely associative, I think, and it stuck with me for years whenever I saw a keyboard.
Good news for the Scranton branch. They need to start selling ink ribbons now though. Two forms of single use media to operate.. Much convenience, many improvement. Totally not just trolls trying to make annoying noise as much as possible, and claiming arguable other reasons for the activity.
This whole story was summed up in 1998… There is a scene in Saving Private Ryan when the young platoon guy scrambles to bring his belongings and drops his typewriter…and Tom Hanks just holds up the pen without saying a word. Brilliant. It’s not even about the machine itself, it’s about what’s been around a lot longer. It. Just. Works.
You know you're old when you casually reference Y2k like it was a few years ago. Can someone pass me the fiber? My muscle rub hasn't absorbed in yet...
@@connormclernon26 Check with office supplies dealers for new ribbons, copy paper and correction fluid. Depending on security some government agencies overseas are still using non-digital equipment to avoid hackers. All else fails try to find a video on re-inking your ribbon and go from there.
Wow! That brought back a distant memory. The first typewriter I was assigned as a junior shorthand typist at a charted accountants was an Underwood. End of year accounts having to use black then red carbon paper.
I love the appeal of typewriters. I have one and I'm keeping it forever. I think it's really something that you can't get anywhere else, the permanency, the texture of the paper, no ads, no battery or cord to plug in. It's just pure writing
Or the type eraser. I had typing and bookkeeping course and we were able to back space, erase, use the brush end of the eraser to clear the page and correct our mistake. Realigning was a hassle, but no, any mistakes did not have to be permanent.
Strangely enough I have used correction tape on some word processors, but just after I was interviewed I was made aware of manual correction tape by my English Teacher, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s hard as heck to get ink off Also, you CAN use white out if you never want to load the document in the typewriter again
@@MarthaM4858 That works in some circumstances, but sometimes you might miss an error until the paper is removed. Now that I think of it, the white tape actually could work pretty well, but still, the difficulty in editing what you write that makes the typewriter special, because if you want your document “perfect” you need to be careful
@@MaxSolar-dd5wq I got my first typewriter as a high school graduation gift from my parents in 1976. I still have it so I know the ends and outs of using a typewriter. Besides if I make a big enough mistake that I can use correction tape or whiteout one I just put in a new page and start over.
That was invented and marketed by that Monkees guy (Nesmith)'s mother. He, in turn, wrote "Different Drum," a major hit for Linda Ronstadt. Talented family.
I had a tendency to be too heavy handed with the liquid; loved the tape (retype to erase). I was so thrilled when I got to use a newer typewriter that had the corrective tape cartridge!
A family friend who was an Educator taught me how to type in 1973 when I was 10 years old and had recently lost my mother. She told me that it was a valuable skill and that I’d always be employable once I mastered it. Rest in peace, Mrs. Boyd.
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." One of a few sentences which when typed uses every alphabet key on a typewriter or keyboard. But you already knew that.
I love typewriters. I had one in high school. Little did I know how valuable typing class would be when computers showed up. I wanted an IBM selectric so bad I could taste it. Never got one.
When I was in high school in the 1980s, we had to take a typing class. Because our school didn't have a lot of funding, our typewriters were literally from 1910 through 1920s. I wish I had one of those old models now.
This video somehow found me, I have an 100 year old typewriter passed down from generation to generation, I felt like using it now, feel like it’s an escape from modern technology that I needed in my life. Thought I was the only one.
eBay is a great place to get tapes (ink) and replacement parts for old typewriters. And there are a surprising number of typewriter-repair shops in the U.S. which sell the replacement tapes, etc.
You're NOT (the only one). I go to Hobby Lobby, & just touch rulers, erasers, protractors, pens & pencils, anything physical that I used to use in the 70's & 80's when I was in school.
There are micro-particles in the paper and the ink that are used by the feds to discover your general location. The micro-particles' patterns, colors and shapes and orientations tell them in which state and by which company were the paper and ink manufactured and to which retailer were sold.
I've loved typewriters since I was a child in the 1960s. When I was 10 yrs old I told my parents I wanted a typewriter when they asked what I wanted for a gift. They got me a portable Royal manual.
when I saw this, I cried. I'm 61, and I know the joy of typewriters. What a blessing this can be for young people so "controlled" by computers. Praise God to see this come back technology🙏🏼🥹
I miss my old typewriter. The only drawback I ever had with it was if I was typing too fast, a couple of the keys could become tangled. Still, it is fun to remember the time of being "unplugged".
That is exactly the reason why the letters on a typewriter aren't in alphabetical order. They changed it so the letters you often use together are far away from each other. That way the key tangeling happens less often.
@@Alinor24 For anyone who's curious the most common letters to tangle before the introduction of QWERTY were t and h! T was directly below h so hitting them in succession could halt a typist in their tracks (and just look at how many times in this message alone I've typed "th")
I’ve had my Smith Corona for decades and it’s my grandchildren’s favorite item. I bought a record player and rotary phone just to watch them appreciate the past. Don’t forget the pleasure of reading a hardback book.
Hardcover books are so nice. I typically go for them over paperbacks when I can afford it (which is unfortunately not often, since a book series will cost 2-3x more as hardcovers). Hardcovers aren’t as portable as paperbacks, but for me they totally make up for it in their durability. Glued bindings (what paperbacks are made with) fall apart so much faster than the hardcover’s sewn binding. I’ve got one book that I bought used, that has the pages completely separated from the spine. It’s only still together because of the sewn binding (cover is attached via glue on the front and last page).
In typing class I was never able to get up to 60 words per minute, but the ones I could type the fastest on were the ones (perhaps like your mom's) which had the VERY short return lever and required raising the carriage to type capital letters. Whenever someone needed a typewriter elsewhere, they seemed to grab the one on my desk, so I had about every type available in the class---except for the electrics, which were very new (this was before the IBM Selectric) and in the back room, available for use only after we had finished our assignments. Olympias were generally considered the best---luxurious even. There were "silent" typewriters, but they were uncommon. My brother advised me to get a typewriter -*-without-*- letters on the keys, so I would HAVE to learn where they were. There was a key chart at the front of the class. A few years later, when I was at junior college, the JC decided to replace all its office typewriters and decided to do it with Olympias, which were one third the cost of IBM Selectrics. As for not being able to make corrections, that isn't so. One could use an erasing shield to get rid of a mistake, although care was necessary. The pencil-shaped erasers had a stiff brush at the other end, to clean the type, which becomes gunked up with continued use. Oh, and back in typewriter days, very few men could touch-type-- that was "women's work." If you see reporters typing in old movies, they are ususally "hunt-and-peck" typists. It would have been a great idea to learn shorthand also, but I didn't understand what a help it would have been in college, and no one gave me that advice. Again, that was "womens' work." I do not understand the method court reporters use, but it is/was very fact compared to conventional typing.
Still have mom’s pink manual from the ‘50s, and my sister’s blue electric from the ‘70s. I loved them. Boy did I have fun just playing with them back then.
My mom had a 1940’s vintage Underwood. My most vivid memory of it was when I used it to write a fake absentee excuse letter to cover my playing hooky. 😊 Wish I still had it, don’t know what ever happened to it.
My college roommate used to complain about the sound of my typing. Admittedly, I did have a lot of papers to type. I can't exactly say that I miss the typewriter, but it's kind of neat that a new generation is learning about the way we used to do things.
I've always loved the sound and feel of a typewriter, miss them.. Thanks to my junior high for having us type 1hr a day back in the 90's. As boring as it was typing the same sentence, it was well worth it. Little did I know, that skill would help me earn a living working office jobs.
As someone born in the early 90s, the only time I have ever needed cursive is my signature. This amount of usage is in a world designed by boomers, the ones that love to shout "They don't know cursive." Have you thought about why we don't focus on cursive any more as something to teach? Because its obsolete, it will survive as a niche hobby and may see a revival in interest someday, but for now the exact people that claim kids don't know it are the exact same people that designed a world where its useless.
Larry McMurtry, the writer who penned The Last Picture Show, Lonesome Dove, and Terms of Endearment, who passed away three years ago, wrote over 50 books on his manual Hermes typewriter, not to mention dozens of screenplays, essays, letters.
I'm an old man now, but when I was in high school (10th grade, 1970s) I decided to take one year of typing because it might come in good in the future. At least I would have some idea of how to type. No one (in school) even thought or knew about something called a desktop computer in the 1970s. So my decision back then paid off. Today, typing on a computer corrects misspelled words. So now, people don't have to think as much about spelling. We are dumber for it. Using a MANUAL type writer, it's up to you to learn how to spell correctly. I think this would be Good for the young generation. So if you have some kids in your family, you should consider getting them a MANUAL type writer. 👍 .
Interesting counterpoint: I was a terrible speller as a kid, and relied heavily on spellcheck in Microsoft Word. I remember at the time thinking that I'd never learn to spell since I could just let the computer do the work for me. However, what ended up happening was every time a word was misspelled, since I had to click and and select the correct spelling, that _taught_ me how to spell all the words I didn't know. It was the equivalent of instant feedback from the teacher while the word was fresh in my head and I was primed to learn about it. The key factor there, though, may be that I grew up with early versions of spellcheck that made the user manually review what was wrong. This is different from autocorrect, which is constantly whirring away in the background and correcting things that users may often not even notice.
@@NoName-ik2du 👍. Good information for an old goat like me. Thanks for the reply. PS. Just a side note. Kids and grown ups today can easily find information and how to do things on near anything with the press of a few buttons. Us Boomers didn't have that. There is good and bad in everything, but I really think there is more good than bad with the Internet. .
When I was looking for a job my wife would type my resumes. She got tired after about the sixth one so she gave me her high school typing book and said have at it. I didn't have a job, had lots of time, so I started on page one and worked my way through the book. Like you I have used what I learned for decades to type my work reports. I am retired but still do contract work typing my reports and emailing them when complete. I don't think I would ever go back to a typewriter because I make to many mistakes and the backspace key is my best friend.
Mine still do. I went to High School here in Australia in the early 1980s, and was one of the few boys to take typing class. Flash forward a few years and personal computers were starting to become a thing and, suddenly, typing was very important to both males and females. I continued to use a typewriter, first manual and then electronic, until I went shopping to buy a new cartridge and found out they weren't being sold anymore (I was behind the times with CDs and DVDs as well). So that was the end of my typewriter life, but I kind of still do miss it.
When I was 13, my mother made me take typing lessons during the summer. This was back in the days when "real" guys didn't type. (That was for women to do.) I learned and kept the QWERTY habit through my whole career, from manual to electric typewriters to mainframes to laptops. Thanks Mom!!
Still got my manual typewriter. And my typewriting class in high school became my most valuable class ever. I use the typing skills I learned every single day.
Someone recently asked me how a blind person could possibly type on a computer keyboard. My stunned response was "Who looks at the keyboard when typing?" They were astounded to find out that you really could not look at typewriter keys and have any speed, because you were reading what was supposed to be written. Many times what you were reading was terrible handwriting. So yes, I use those skills too, and now that person is trying to learn how to type without looking at the keyboard.
Back in 8th grade in the mid 1960s, when I was choosing courses for high school, my father looked at the list of courses and told me that of all the courses listed, typing was the only one I'd ever really use. This was way before computers. I took two years of typing. My last job before retirement was typing on a computer. I did that job for 18 years, so my father was correct.
Same here! It got me my first job as well as my second and third before I got my career going which did not require typing. Twenty-five years later computers debuted and my muscle memory kicked right in while nearly everyone else struggled to hunt and peck.
I had a couple of typewriters when I was a teenager in the 2010s. I absolutely loved them and miss them. I think as the world becomes more and more online, with things like subscriptions and WiFi connectivity to use anything on your computer, we’re going to see a gradual return to analog technology. There’s something neat about having the only copy of something in physical form. These days I dabble in photography, and I use old film cameras, plus develop the film myself and then take the negatives to the dark room for prints. I can bring a photo from conception to paper for others to enjoy without it ever being uploaded to a computer. Typewriters definitely give the same kind of satisfaction and I’m happy to see new generations discovering it for themselves.
Using carbon paper to make a copy. Typing at 3 a.m. for an 8 a.m. class. Furiously waving my hand to dry the Liquid Paper (thank you, Mrs. Nesmith). Those were the days.
In college, I used to furiously wave my hand in front of my computer, then copy my friend file, change a few words/fonts, and submit it. Could do it all in 40 minutes, depending on how quick I finished.
LOL. So familiar! My brother and I roomed together in college in ‘79-80 and it was a very familiar thing… the typewriter being pounded furiously in the middle of the night, hours before a morning class when a paper was due.
No company stealing your data, and selling it, or using it to target you with ads, and in many other unkown and sketchy ways... I'm so happy for these kids!
@tibbers3755 Google doc had apparently changed their terms and conditions so they can use your text to train their ais So it quite a concern for a lot of writers
@@u2bear377 True, turning off the internet connection in your computers WiFi settings when it's not in use, and just using an offline typing program like Microsoft word, is an other way to prevent some of the distractions as mentioned here. But with kids, you still got that temptation of getting on the internet, when they should be working on typing as a problem.
@@u2bear377 That true. turning off the internet connection on your computer's wifi settings when it's not in use. And using an offline typing program, is another way of getting around some of problems mentioned in this video with computers. But with kids you still have the temptation of getting on the internet, when they should be working typing something as an issue.
What a sweet and encouraging report! To see that kids themselves are valuing their focus and interested in things that can help with that and be of use for 1 thing only, instead of 5. To know that small businesses and repairmen are still open and getting business for their expertise. To hear that schools and libraries and listening to kids and taking cues to encourage this wave of interest in typewriters, which will undoubtedly make kids more literate and skillful, and patient. It’s all very exciting and encouraging.
When I was young, I had 2 typewriters. One I bought from my professor. It was a very large, extremely heavy thing from the fifties or even older. The older was a new, portable one. When I carried it around, I felt very sophisticated. 😊
So cool! So happy for these students to experience analog devices. This is so much better for kids- no constant bombardment of ads and junk seeping in.
My favorite was observing the die hard typists when first using a computer. No little 'ding' when coming to the end of your margin. No carriage return to bring it back to the other side of the page...
As a trained typist, I struggled with word processing software (early 1990s) until I tried WordPerfect. The genius of that program was that the screen looked like a page! Made for a much easier transition to computers.
@@MaryHughes-ko4fj I remember in the 80's using a word processor called Easyscript, and that being for the Commodore 64. There was another one as well but I forget the name, and we would print it out at school. We also learned to type on the old Manual ones like above in the video and they had Electric and Electronic ones which were even better as you could fix errors.
@@steviebboy69 I grew up using one of the electric powered models when I was around 10 to 13 years old. It was neat and filled the role it did for school papers, in the late '90's.
I don't use a typewriter, but it warms my heart to see children getting into something as old school as this. And they're right, as a fanfic writer, it's hard to get anything done because of distractions online.
Writers, poets from typewriter days left incredible archives of their typed originals and corrections, changes and commentary. The errata is invaluable.
I still have the portable typewriter I used in college. I bought it at a thrift store for $20 over 50 years ago. New ribbons are still available online. I own a re-inker machine and ink, so I can re-ink ribbons until the nylon material wears out. I have a number of typewriters, but one of my favorites was an electronic one by Brother. It had a tiny display that showed the last few letters typed, and it was a buffer before the letters were printed. This meant that if you made a mistake, and it was still on the display, you could correct it before it went to the paper. I could type many pages with zero typos. I still have my typing card from high school saying I can type 65 words per minute. That's net words after subtracting errors.
I spent a long time looking around for a laptop specifically for writing. Something that would start up quickly, have minimal to no distractions, and a screen that is easy on my eyes. Turns out, I was looking for a typewriter. No startup at all, it's always ready to go. No distractions. And nothing is easier on the eyes than ink on plain paper.
Oddly enough, a device like you describe does exist, besides the typewriter. It’s called Freewrite. Has an e-ink screen, can only do word processing, and syncs your documents automatically to a computer for later editing. They’re expensive, but so were typewriters back in the day.
I still have the typewriter I bought for college in 1976. It's a Sears model, made by Brother. I needed to type something not long ago and was surprised that the ribbon was still good. Using a typewriter forces you to thing about what you are writing because changing typed text is not an easy process.
This report reminds me of a documentary done a few months ago for our leading TV network here in the Philippines. It shows how the typewriter is still being used by collectors, young and old, the technicians that are still repairing them, a typewriter shop that still sell them, and even a school that even has typewriting class as part of their college course.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs back. That uses all letters if you want to test a machine. We put out a typewriter at our local museum every year when the 2nd graders visit.
Tom Hanks is a huge collector of old typewriters. I came across him, by himself, at an industrial park near that movie studio near interstate 85 and I-285 in north Atlanta about 20 years ago. There was a small little typewriter repair and sales shop in some warehouse space there. He was incredibly down to earth and was delighted to find something for his collection. He said he likes to check out places like that when he's away from home. We all, fortunately, treated him like any customer, any man on the street, and he was beyond lovely.
I work in a prison. Some inmates still keep typewriters because they can’t have a computer, except for the limited use state issues tablets. They actually have a catalog they can order stuff that’s state approved from. The typewriters they buy are clear like most electronics they can have and are copies of Smith Corona (or Brother I cannot remember for sure). The patents have long since expired but the original manufacturers still produce the ribbons which they can also buy.
I got an electric typewriter as a gift for college when I graduated from high school in 1981. I still have it. I could probably run it with a DeWalt battery and inverter.
Best electric typewriter ever made by IBM. Impossible to jam the keys. The clickety clack noises that they made with a skilled typist came close to sounding like a teletype machine if you can remember what they are. The Selectrics were ubiquitous in the Air Force in the seventies. At least two on the desks in the administrative offices of every squadron.
We still used them in the 90's in some squadron. I think CBPO slowly switched over to computer in the 80's. I got out in '99, & they were a dying breed.
I used to service all types of office and business equipment. Good to see that it’s coming back. Now, all we need is mechanical cash registers to come back! They could run by a crank in a power failure!
I was so happy to see this video. Typewriters are great. My dad is 92 yrs. old and he still has his typewriter. Ya' know the one that is so heavy that you can do bicep curls with it; haha. I hope these young people learn how to type the "correct way" like I learned in high school in the '70's. Ya' know, home row, reach with the baby finger for the "z", etc. Great story for the day. Makes me smile.
WOW! THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS!!! I grew up finally getting to USE a real typewriter. I got one of my own as a graduation gift from my parents! 1956. YEP. For Real! I SOOOO enjoyed it for a Bunch of years, till actually in the 1980s, computers came into my life. Computers are wonderful for many things, especially for my work. I'm a writer by profession. So computers eased up some of the slow-downs of typewriters. BUT the PRIVACY, Uninterrupted, on typewriter time....I DO miss THAT constantly *!*!*!*
How fantastic the clack of the keys takes you back. I did business studies, computer studies and type writing in sixth form in the 80’s. Now what I learnt in business and computer studies has changed vastly but the touch typing skills have stayed with me and I appreciate the endless days of typing single letters endlessly and the aching hands. I used to be able to type 100’s of repetitive standard overdue account letters in a day all carbonised and from memory. I hope some of these great kids get some touch typing lessons and see how these machines can fly ❤
I taught a young relative how to use a Smith Corona typewriter back in the 90's. He was the only child in his school who knew how to use one. I still had some of the ribbons up until 3 years ago. Sadly, I no longer have the typewriter. We supplemented his school studies with added subjects that they no longer teach in school. Thanks for sharing ☺🌟
