Typewriters

[Solitaire1]

Last year I purchased a Royal Scriptor II electronic typewriter because I occasionally have a need to use one and my old Brother Printwheel Word Processor (which could function as a typewriter, an electronic typewriter, and as a word processor) hadn't been used in over 15 years. Recently, I went out to buy some ribbons. Although I was able to purchase the ribbons, I was surprised to find that there were no other new typewriters available for sale (it is possible that my Scriptor may have been the last typewriter available for sale when I bought it).

This led me to check out YouTube videos about typewriters, and there is a renaissance of older typewriters. Many people are buying old manual, electric, and electronic typewriters because they like being able to write without the distractions of writing on a computer (George R. R. Martin uses Wordstar 4 on a DOS Machine when he writes his books for the same reason, the software doesn't distract his writing). I agree with this because when I did a lot more story writing when I used my Brother Printwheel word processor than I do now with my computer.

How many people still regularly use a typewriter (of any type)?

[OtinG]

The last typewriter I used was a Smith Corona. No clue what model it was. That was 40 years ago in graduate school. For my usage, a typewriter was more distracting than the Macintosh SE which replaced it in 1984. I'm neither a good typist nor a fast one, so making corrections on a typing mistake was labor and time intensive, and broke up my train of thought. And of course corrections on a typed page looked terrible. I remember writing out my paragraphs by hand with each on a separate index card so I could rearrange them if necessary, then trying to type out the research papers. I often had too little time in which to get them typed and had to resort to paying a typist to do them, which meant going without a meal or three! When I got the Macintosh SE, used the better part of a student loan to buy it, I could type my own papers and make a gillion corrections and changes. It was a game changer. So I will never say that computers were a great distraction to my writing. Quite the opposite in my case. Typewriters were a huge distraction and a huge PITA! Everyone is different of course, but since I went on to have a career writing and programming on computers I clearly was destined to be an early adopter to computers, and technology in general.

Computers changed the way I wrote in a significant and good way. Before with a typewriter, it was difficult to make changes that required a retyping of several pages. With computers I could make as many changes, including major reorganization changes, and the simple press of a button printed it out in just a few minutes! So in my case the quality of the content I wrote went way up, as did the ability to produce more writings without having to pay a typist.

Of course, for others YMMV.

I think my old Smith Corona wound up in trash dumpster sometime in the mid-1980s.

[DNSB]

I haven't used a typewriter in years though I still have a transparent typewriter that I picked up at an auction. It was originally used in the prison system. I suspect the design was to make it hard to hide contraband. The one I have is a Royal Typewriter unit from the 1960's so everything is manual.

I think you can still buy clear typewriters from Swintec but they are electronic so not quite the same appeal for me.

[Sirtel]

Last time I wrote anything longer than a few sentences was in high school. I just have no ability or inclination whatsoever to write, and I was too lazy for studying.

That said, I did take a typewriting course in the early 90's, but in just a few years computers made typewriting obsolete.

[cromag]

I have a couple of old, manual typewriters in the basement and a fully electronic typewriter that I haven't used since the '90s. I still have very fond thoughts of my old Olivetti Editor II electric typewriter, but one of the letter keys came loose and there weren't any replacement parts available at the time. My problem was (and is) that I'm prone to making simple mistakes when typing -- I went through a lot of White Out and correction tape back in the day.

These days, when I just want to get words down as quickly as possible, I use a text editor. I prefer VI. After the text is down I can copy and paste it into a word processor document and worry about formatting, etc.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Last time I wrote anything longer than a few sentences was in high school. I just have no ability or inclination whatsoever to write, and I was too lazy for studying.

That said, I did take a typewriting course in the early 90's, but in just a few years computers made typewriting obsolete.

For me, the typing class I took in school is one of the few classes that taught a skill that I actually used after school. The typewriter is pretty much obsolete but those hours learning to touch type have stood me in good stead over the decades of using computers.

I am still somewhat surprised by the number of computer users who are using the biblical method of typing (AKA seek and ye shall find!).

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by cromag

I have a couple of old, manual typewriters in the basement and a fully electronic typewriter that I haven't used since the '90s. I still have very fond thoughts of my old Olivetti Editor II electric typewriter, but one of the letter keys came loose and there weren't any replacement parts available at the time. My problem was (and is) that I'm prone to making simple mistakes when typing -- I went through a lot of White Out and correction tape back in the day.

These days, when I just want to get words down as quickly as possible, I use a text editor. I prefer VI. After the text is down I can copy and paste it into a word processor document and worry about formatting, etc.

Eliminating errors is why I prefer to use an electronic typewriter. My typewriter has a mode where what I type will appear on the small LCD screen above the keys. I can check and make any needed corrections before actually putting it on paper.

When I write on a computer, I usually just type in my word processor. However, to avoid wasting time formatting I just set a template ahead of time so that all of the formatting is set up ahead of time.

[OtinG]

Just some fun facts:

Computers greatly affected the way many people edited their written work. With typewriters, which were very labor intensive, people tended to spend less time editing and reorganizing the papers they wrote because it was too inconvenient to have to retype several pages. But when PCs began to become more available in the 1980s, I remember reading research on how people who used them to write papers would typically spend way more time editing and reorganizing them because it was so easy to do on a PC. So quality of content tended to go up with PC use compared to typewriter use.

The DOS PCs were mostly just using text files in the early 1980s. Later on you could assign colors to represent italics, bold, etc., but you really didn't know how it would look until it was printed. The Macintosh brought us WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) making formatting so much easier and more precise. Eventually MS Windows came along and offered WYSIWYG too, but it took several years for that to happen.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by DNSB

For me, the typing class I took in school is one of the few classes that taught a skill that I actually used after school. The typewriter is pretty much obsolete but those hours learning to touch type have stood me in good stead over the decades of using computers.

I am still somewhat surprised by the number of computer users who are using the biblical method of typing (AKA seek and ye shall find!).

Me too - I took typing in high school around 1980 and it was a big help once I got to college and also as I later adapted to computer use in the work world.

Originally Posted by OtinG

Just some fun facts:

Computers greatly affected the way many people edited their written work. With typewriters, which were very labor intensive, people tended to spend less time editing and reorganizing the papers they wrote because it was too inconvenient to have to retype several pages.

When I was in college only computer science majors had computers. The rest of us were still using typewriters. We spent a lot of time revising our work with pen/pencil and paper before committing to typing it up.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Eliminating errors is why I prefer to use an electronic typewriter. My typewriter has a mode where what I type will appear on the small LCD screen above the keys. I can check and make any needed corrections before actually putting it on paper.

My last typewriter pre-computer had a small LCD screen like that; I think it would show a line of type at a time. It also had a memory that would hold a few pages, so it was possible to go back and input corrections.

Did anyone ever use a Wang word processor? You could save documents to cassette tapes.

[poohbear_nc]

I used the Wang word processor - that little screen like a miniature TV screen.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Did anyone ever use a Wang word processor? You could save documents to cassette tapes.

One place I worked at used Wang word processors but they used floppy disks not tape. I made a couple of dollars writing a program to format floppies for it since Wang's preformatted floppies were ridiculously expensive. The first unit they purchased had 8" floppies, the later 2 units has 5.25" drives.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by OtinG

The Macintosh brought us WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) making formatting so much easier and more precise. Eventually MS Windows came along and offered WYSIWYG too, but it took several years for that to happen.

Xerox introduced the world to WYSIWYG on their Star system a few years prior to the other Steve's Apple Lisa, which preceded the Mac.

I had the misfortune to work on a WANG VS for a short while, they were an IBM 360 clone of sorts that tried to compete with DEC VAX, Prime, DG, etc

BR

[Hemmi]

I got an electric typewriter for Christmas my junior year of HS. That was 1988. I still have it. Haven't used it in years.

My last year of college, 1993, my Mom was in graduate school. That's when we got a word processor. First, one that was like a larger electric typewriter but had a little screen you could see 5 or 6 lines on at once. You could save your work on 3.5 inch floppies.

That one was returned and we got a different one. This one had a separate monitor that attached to the typewriter part. Again, it took 3.5 floppies. We had that one until we got our first computer, in the year 2000.

I agree that typing class was the most useful class I took in High School. Only skill I've used consistently since then.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Catlady

My last typewriter pre-computer had a small LCD screen like that; I think it would show a line of type at a time. It also had a memory that would hold a few pages, so it was possible to go back and input corrections.

Did anyone ever use a Wang word processor? You could save documents to cassette tapes.

The pre-computer typewriter you described is similar to the one I recently purchased (mentioned in this thread's first post). In addition to being able to type a line on the LCD screen before committing it to paper, you can also store and edit text and phrases in the memory (it has 16kb of storage).

I didn't use a Wang word processor, but based on the way it was described elsewhere in this thread it seems similar to the Canon word processor I used. It wasn't bad, except if you made a mistake when printing it would mess up the system.

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Xerox introduced the world to WYSIWYG on their Star system a few years prior to the other Steve's Apple Lisa, which preceded the Mac.

I had the misfortune to work on a WANG VS for a short while, they were an IBM 360 clone of sorts that tried to compete with DEC VAX, Prime, DG, etc

BR

The CPT Word Processor had something similar to WYSIWYG. It had a paper-white monochrome screen that looked like paper and had 60 lines of text so you could see an entire page on the screen. While it would show you what the document should look like, it wouldn't show the actual typeface (just the system typeface) and it wouldn't show justification.